“I feel that the Continental School, and maybe other schools that have been carried out across the continent, are going to empower women, especially peasant women, who do a lot.” This was a reflection by Susan Owiti about the initiatives conducted by peasant women who have, in 2024, held for the first time a coordinated series of Continental Schools of…
On 5-7 June in Bogotá, capital city of Colombia, several activities took place linked to the struggle for human rights, environmental justice and against the impunity of transnational corporations. Among them was a screening of the documentary The Illusion of Abundance on June 5th. The film tells the stories of three women, beacons of the resistance and struggle against transnational…
Weaving is by definition interlacing. Weaving takes patience and concentration, but is done in constant movement. Threads, yarns, strands and fibres are combined, crossed and mixed to form something new. When we look at something woven, we do not see threads joined together, one strand on top of another. We see the whole pattern, and the network that holds it…
These lines are destined to fail. They pursue an unachievable goal. How can we honour the life, ideas, thought and action of someone who gave her life to the people’s needs without hesitation, and who formed, and will continue to form, generations of women fighters? Nalu Faria was, and will continue to be, an essential reference figure for understanding grassroots,…
From 7 to 11 August 2023, the first in-person meeting of the Berta Cáceres International Feminist Organising School (IFOS) took place in Honduras. It was held at the ECOSOL training centre in the Comayagua department, a historic area of social resistance. "Berta understood the importance of political training and alliances to strengthen the movement. She taught us a lot and…
Almost 100 days ago, residents of Uruguay’s capital city, Montevideo, were informed that sodium and chloride levels in their drinking would go up. This news came from the public company in charge of the national drinking water supply, OSE. The freshwater reserves of Paso Severino dam on the Santa Lucía river, which supplies water to this region, were running low…
June 30th marks the full circle of the first year under Philippine president Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr., son of previously deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. The Philippines is both a globally critical hotspot of biodiversity and natural resources, and a historic beacon of democracy and people power in Asia. But the environmental and human rights situation has deteriorated over the…
Asia is drowning in plastic, with national production and imports from the global north having devastating environmental and public health impacts. According to a report by Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific, most South and East Asian countries lack proper waste management strategies, regulations and facilities to deal with the plastic waste crisis. Often, communities are forced to resort to…
A week into 2023, Jairo Bonilla and Alí Domínguez were murdered while working in Concepción, Colón Department, in Honduras, a few kilometres from their community, Guapinol. Both were defenders of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers, and the Botaderos National Park, also called Carlos Escaleras, the source of 34 bodies of water. 10 days later in the same region, Omar…
At the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity taking place in Montreal, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) has denounced the negotiations for the Global Biodiversity Framework, saying they are “captured” by transnational corporations and that the solutions on the table are actually false solutions. During a press conference held on Friday…
