On July 8, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Uruguayan Senate approved Law no. 19889, the Urgent Consideration Law (UCL), as is known the project presented by the right-wing coalition government led by Luis Lacalle Pou. The “urgent consideration” character meant that the content of the law had to be addressed within a maximum period of 90…
Since December 7, water has been listed on the Wall Street “commodity futures market”, as well as oil, gold, wheat or soybeans. Buyers do not purchase physical products at the time of the futures transaction, but acquire rights to a quantity of water in the future, at a fixed price. This is commonly called "financial speculation". The index called NQH2O…
They met as part of a Women´s Meeting organized by the groups member of the Uruguayan Network of Native Seeds on November 9 in Rivera department, near the border with Brazil. Rural women from Rivera, Salto, Paysandú, Tacuarembó, Cerro Largo departments and even some from Canelones and Maldonado departments met to follow up on the issues discussed at the previous…
As the National Biosafety System and the National Seeds Institute (INASE) of Uruguay announced they will carry out a public consultation to authorize transgenic wheat event HB4-PAT for research and cultivation assays, environmental organizations such as REDES - Friends of the Earth Uruguay and the National Native Seed Network expressed in a statement issued on July 11 their rejection to…
The National Network of Native Seeds of Uruguay, REDES - Friends of the Earth Uruguay and the Agronomy School of the University of the Republic of that country are organizing this Saturday and Sunday the 8th National Native Seed and Family Farming Festival. This time it will be held in Termas del Arapey, in Salto department. “In this edition of…
“We want to have a basis of information about the recent past without intermediaries”, said Patiño about LUISA* (Spanish acronym for Reading Together to Interpret Files), a software that aims to voluntarily recover the illegible texts of the files created by the military intelligence during the Uruguayan civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985). Any person, anywhere in the world, can participate in this…
The Agroecology promotion bill, drafted by organizations linked to food sovereignty, academics and groups focused on agroecological production for over 40 years, seems to have united all parties of the Uruguayan Senate, which passed the bill unanimously on Tuesday. All senators voted in favor of the bill that was the initiative, among others, of the Native Seeds Network, the Uruguayan…
In 2004, Uruguay was the first country that enshrined the access to drinking water as a human right and a common good, not a commodity, in its Constitution. The irrigation law passed by the Parliament in 2017 authorizes private companies to bottle and sell water, that is, against what is established in the National Constitution. On October 26, several civil…
Activist Alejandra Porras, of COECOCEIBA – Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, said on Thursday in Geneva, at the UN headquarters in that city, that in Latin America there is “a wave of international treaties that confer many benefits to companies, and this gives way to looting, criminalization and prosecution processes” against local communities. There are also “murders in the…
