Movements from Latin America and the Caribbean met in August in Honduras for a number of activities called by Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe—ATALC). On the 23rd, an open event was held called Rights for the Peoples, Obligations for Companies. It was attended by more than 15…
On 23 August, Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) together with social movements and organisations from the region held a public event in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to discuss the urgent need to agree an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and human rights. The goal is to gain the support of democratic governments…
On 17 August 2021, the third revised draft of the Binding Treaty on human rights and transnational corporations was published- as part of the seven years of negotiations at the United Nations. As the negotiations develop and new drafts are presented, what has been agreed is becoming further removed from the demands of civil society. This latest draft is no…
14 March marks the Day of Struggle of people affected by dams. The Latin American Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAR) is growing and taking its motto to different places around the world: “Water and energy are not commodities! Water for Life, not for death!”. In the midst of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Real World Radio interviewed Diana Giraldo,…
During the march of people affected by mining company Vale in Brumadinho (Brazil) held by the Brazilian Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) from 20-25 January, during the first anniversary of the worst socioenvironmental crime in this South American country, Real World Radio interviewed activist Leticia Paranhos, co-coordinator of the Economic Justice-Resisting Neoliberalism Program (EJRN) at Friends of the…
At 12:28 on 25 January, 2019, Dam 1 of the Córrego do Feijão mine, containing 12,000,000 cubic meters of toxic mud, collapsed and spilled the mud over 9 kilometers to the city of Brumadinho (Minas Gerais) and then along the path of the Paraopeba River. The Brazilian Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) arrived to Brumadinho a few hours…
Lead, mercury, cadmium and zinc are just some of the heavy metals found in the toxic mud left over from mining activities. Government officials in Minas Gerais, Brazil, identified levels of these metals up to 21 times above the acceptable metal in the mud that spread through Brumadinho and the Paraopeba River on 25 January, 2019. Geraldo Martins, a healthcare…
Water is more than a basic need: it is a right. In the struggle for this recognition there are many communities facing governments and corporations that attempt to take away this common good from them. Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) published at the end of 2018 the report Public Policy and the Fundamental Right to Water in…
We send an energetic, supportive and full of hope embrace to the families of those whose life was taken by this corporate crime. Latin American rivers are the veins through which the hope and progress of the people circulate, so we salute with special affection the fishing communities, farmers, peasants and all the inhabitants of the Paraopeba river basin, for…
Once again history repeats itself as a tragedy. On one side, Vale SA, a major worldwide mining company, and on the other, the Brazilian people gathering bodies sunken in the mud of criminal enterprises. This January 25 will be marked by the breaking of three iron-ore tailings dams at the Córrego do Feijão Mine, part of the Paraopeba Complex. The dam of responsibility of the company Vale is…
