- 12/12/15: COP21: What’s happened so far? (REDD Monitor)
- 12/12/15: COP21 Paris snapshot #2: No REDD!
- 11/18/15: Double-counting: What if both Brazil and California want Acre’s REDD credits?
- 11/18/15: La REDD+ et sa finance carbone ne résoudront pas la crise climatique
- 11/18/15: REDD and carbon trading will not resolve the climate crisis
The expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa: A call for greater solidarity and action
In late 2013, a group of representatives of African, Indonesian and international NGOs met with members of La Via Campesina and the African Biodiversity Network in Calabar, Nigeria, to address the massive expansion of industrial oil palm plantations on the African continent and discuss, in particular, the situation in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cameroon, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon.
The oil palm is native to west and central Africa, but it is not common for local communities to establish large-scale monoculture plantations of these trees. Normally, oil palms are planted alongside other crops, guaranteeing diversity that contributes to the food sovereignty of the community and the protection of the environment. Cultivated in this way, and under community control, oil palm has provided a range of benefits for African people in more than 20 countries. It is particularly noteworthy that in almost all of these countries, it is women who control the entire oil palm production chain, from cultivation to the sale of the various products derived from the tree.
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International campaign to define Forests by their true meaning!
(26 March, 2014) La Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth International, Focus on the Global South, World Rainforest Movement and more than 120 organizations from around the world sent a letter to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, in Rome, on the occasion of March 21st, the UN International Day of Forest. The letter demands that the FAO change its present definition of forests. During the coming three months, groups will also present the demand to national and regional FAO offices.
Isaac Rojas, coordinator for forests and biodiversity of Friends of the Earth International notes that “FAO’s forest definition needs to reflect the cultural wealth that forests represent. The present definition only helps to hide this diversity, rather strengthening a set of false solutions and privatization trends, as well as activities that create negative impacts in the communities that depend on forests”.
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Forced Relocation of Sengwer People proves urgency of canceling REDD
March 12, 2014
DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION OF THE LETTER HERE
We, the No REDD in Africa Network (NRAN) together with the Sengwer Indigenous Peoples Programme and the undersigned 66 organizations and over 300 individuals, strongly condemn the massive evictions and forced relocation of the Sengwer Indigenous People, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherers of the world, from their ancestral home in Kenya’s Cherangany Hills. The Kenyan government calls the Sengwer People ‘squatters and or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs),’ despite the fact that they and their ancestors have lived in the Cherangany Hills since time immemorial; and that Article (63d) of the Kenyan constitution (2010) grants them inalienable rights to their ancestral lands.
Sengwer spokesman Yator Kiptum denounced the “disaster” carried out by a combined force of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and Administration Police, a paramilitary unit of the police, now evicting the Sengwer, destroying property and burning homes[i]. “The government of Kenya is forcing us into extinction," he said.[ii] According to international human rights law such as the Convention on Genocide, forced relocation of ethnic or racial minorities is a very grave violation and can constitute genocide.
PRESS RELEASE - Forced Relocation of Sengwer People proves urgency of canceling REDD
12 March, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nairobi - The No REDD in Africa Network (NRAN) and hundreds of international allies strongly condemn the massive evictions and forced relocation of the Sengwer People, as well as World Bank-funded REDD, a land-grabbing forest offset scam, in Kenya’s Cherangany Hills.
In an open letter to the United Nations and the Kenyan government, the No REDD in Africa Network states that, “the forced relocation of the Sengwer People proves the urgency of canceling REDD.” NRAN is also calling for the creation of an International Truth Commission on the forced relocation of the Sengwer People and abuses associated with REDD and carbon offsets throughout the world.
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