The crisis of biodiversity and the crisis of democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. These two issues were addressed by Ricardo Navarro, Goldman Prize winner and founder of the Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technologies, CESTA, and former Chair of Friends of the Earth International, at the biodiversity and native seed market and seminar that took place in the Central American country on May 7th.
Navarro made reference to the impacts that the loss of the rights obtained by communities has on the hopes of the people.
Meanwhile, current Chair of Friends of the Earth International Karin Nansen, explained that the seeds represent “the basis of the food sovereignty we fight for, which entails the right of our peoples to continue producing our food, to distribute them in a fair way, in an agroecological way. It also means the right to land, to water…”.
The Uruguayan activist highlighted how the fact that corporations are concentrating seeds, pesticides and other inputs is a threat against said sovereignty and the continuity of peasant and family agriculture.
Navarro and Nansen were speakers at the “Native Seed and Agroecology Experiences Forum”, organized by CESTA, with the participation of representatives of peasant and rural communities of El Salvador, as well as members of Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean, who will hold their regional assembly this week.
In addition, the member of Friends of the Earth Brazil, Leticia Paranhos, thanked the communities that attended the forum and the seed and agroecological food market, describing the lines of action of political and popular environmentalism carried out by ATALC as part of Friends of the Earth International.
“The agroecology that you, communities, build every day is a political commitment and a principle of action for us”, she said.