In a victory for the movement for a fossil free Europe, a climate-damaging gas pipeline project between France and Catalonia has today been blocked by French energy regulators. Permission and funding for the central portion of the controversial ‘MidCat’ mega-project – the STEP (South Transit Eastern Pyrenees) – was refused by France’s Energy Regulatory Commission, on grounds of lack of necessity and high…
Dear President Cyril Ramaphosa This is the last action I am undertaking before groundWork closes for 2018. groundWork believes a Just Transition is urgently needed and that you need to be at the forefront of this as leader of the country to prevent a transition that will cripple South Africa and destroy the promise of democracy. The recent Intergovernmental Panel…
The Council of Wuxhtaj Peoples and the Council of the Mayan People (CPO), which are part of the Movement of People Affected by Dams in Latin America (MAR), denounced the murder on December 16th of the brothers Nery Esteban Pedro and Domingo Esteban Pedro, from the Bella Linda community, a microregion of Ixquisis (municipality of San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango, Guatemala).…
Voices of solidarity with refugees have recently been drowned out by hate speech or even systematically silence. This happened in the Balkans, where hundreds of thousands of people in need have arrived, but also in the rest of Europe. Now is the moment for us to be louder! Marija from Zelena Akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia gives us some clues…
We have just heard that Mozambican journalist Estacio Valoi and 2 foreign journalists have been detained in Palma, Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique. This happened on the morning on 17 December 2018, by the Forças Armadas de Defesa de Moçambique (Defense Forces of Mozambique). The journalists had permission from the local and provincial authorities to do their reporting work, yet they were stopped. Their…
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity urged the governments on November 29th to conduct strict risk assessments and consult indigenous people and other local communities before releasing organisms into the environment with “exterminator technology” such as gene drives. The decision to consult the people about this dangerous genetic modification of organisms was celebrated by Friends of the Earth and the…
Days before the first anniversary of the murders of eight indigenous people of the Philippine village Datal Bonglangon, Mindanao Island, on December 3rd, 2017, one of the lawyers supporting the local community, Pochoy Labog, directly accused the company that has been occupying this native territory since early 1990s. He is also accusing Rodrigo Duterte´s administration, due to its policies complacent…
Monday marks the first anniversary of the massacre of eight indigenous people in Datal Bonglangon village, South Cotabato province, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The inhabitants of the small community paid with their lives the demands for their ancestral lands and the resistance to the coffee and mining industry for export. Their blood taints the company and Rodrigo…
With certain advances in the recognition of the role of indigenous people and local communities in terms of the conservation of biological diversity, the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP 14) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity came to an end in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Nevertheless, some environmental organizations are worried about the role of corporations in the official…
This November, the West African Caravan on Water, Land and Seeds is traveling through West Africa to promote food sovereignty and agroecology. People are joining the caravan to defend small-scale food producers' access to natural resources. The Caravan represents hundreds of victims of land and water grabbing and exposes the failings of industrial food production. The Caravan is passing through…
