Latin America and the Caribbean


ENVIRONMENTAL REFLECTIONS IN TIMES OF QUARANTINE (PART 1)*

The current COVID-19 pandemic is a symptom of the environmental imbalances that have resulted from treating nature as a commodity. We could argue that the impact of the pandemic would not have reached this magnitude if it weren’t for decades of neoliberalism, which has privileged business over lives: promoting agribusiness and extractivism, cutting down forests, and destroying vital water ecosystems.…

Drop in oil prices: an opportunity?

On 20 April, the world woke up to a historical drop in the price of oil in the United States. The reference value for crude oil in the US (WTI) reached negative numbers for the first time in history. Argentina’s Southern Oil Observatory (Opsur) issued a press release, stating: “Press and social media are filled with technical explanations, when the…

Neoliberalism, pandemic, precarious lives: the challenges faced by feminism

If we watch the news around the world or observe the reality of those around us, we can see how the precarization of work, the scarcity of natural resources, violence and criminalization are increasingly present in the harsh reality of daily life. The new COVID-19 pandemic exposes, in an even more drastic way, the clash of capital versus life. In…

The peasant struggle amid the COVID-19 pandemic

April 17, International Day of Peasants' Struggle, is a special day celebrated by rural organizations around the world, usually with demonstrations, conferences, demands addressed to governments, and other activities. But of course, this year, the COVID-19 pandemic is severely limiting the room for action. For this reason, the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina, which gathers local rural organizations at…

“We need national policies for people affected by dams”

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,…

8 March: We must march together

"We resist to live, we march to transform!" is the slogan for the 5th International Action by the World March of Women, set to begin on 8 March, 2020. Every five years, the World March of Women (WMW) prepares an international action which brings together women's movements, to take action against neoliberalism and  mobilize, connecting local struggles and organizations with…

Berta lives on, while Honduran courts owe a great debt

“Berta lives on, she lives with the Lenca people fighting against those who are trying to loot their territories, with women standing up to defend their rights, in the peoples’ struggles for water and life. Berta lives on in the heart of all rebels!” Proclaimed the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). On 2 March 2016,…

A rebel, but conscious youth

Socialist community El Maiza, located between Lara and Portuguesa states, in Venezuela, is a reference for the community movement of the country. Founded 11 years ago, with diverse self-managed companies, El Maizal is proud to show visitors their productive diversity and their political-ideological framework, with self-government as their banner. One example is enough: the unit focused on cattle production started…

Statement after La Via Campesina´s First International Solidarity Mission in Venezuela

The delegation of La Via Campesina with representatives from Europe, North America, South America and Central America, together with popular journalists from Africa and South America, announce to the national and international public that we have concluded the 1st International Solidarity Mission with Venezuela, held between January 20th and 27th in several regions of the country, among them the states…

“They have turned our community into a cemetery”

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…