Natural Resources

Mining conflicts multiply, as critics of “extractivism” gather in Johannesburg

14 November 2018 - by Patrick Bond

The World Social Forum’s “Thematic Forum on Mining and Extractivism” convenes from 12-15 November 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa, just after the Southern Africa People’s Tribunal on Transnational Corporations. In between, at the notorious 2012 massacre site on the platinum belt to the west, (...)
How Kabila and the mining giants went from best friends to adversaries

6 November 2018 - by Claude Kabemba, Pascal Kambale

A new mining code has created a rift between mining multinationals and government. For much of this year, two of the most powerful forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been engaged in a tense standoff. President Joseph Kabila, the country’s powerful political leader since (...)
Once upon a time there was a popular government that wanted to do away with the export-oriented extractivist model

22 August 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Damien Millet

Large popular mobilizations resulted in the creation of self-organized committees in the neighbourhoods, workplaces, universities and several higher education schools; this has led to the constitution of a people’s government. It has just held its first meeting. In this government, the women and (...)
The method in the madness: Uganda’s budget 2018 is divorced from reality

19 June 2018 - by Mary Serumaga

The report of the Auditor General (AG) for 2016–2017 is another catalogue of systemic theft, embezzlement and wastage of public goods. In this, it is similar to audit reports going back at least two decades. It appears that incompetence as much as theft are responsible for the seeming inadequacy (...)
Bio-piracy: the sale of Uganda’s lakes to investors

7 June 2018 - by Mary Serumaga

The fishermen of Kabarole District appear to have blown the whistle on an audacious act of bio-piracy. They brought to the attention of the authorities that they were being barred from access to the 53 crater lakes that they have fished in from time immemorial. In law this is known as a (...)
Land-grabbing and the Financialization of Agricultural Land

28 May 2018 - by Mary N. Taylor

On the occasion of the publication of the report Transnational Corporations and Land speculation in Brazil by Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos (Network for Social Justice and Human Rights), Mary Taylor of LeftEast spoke with Fábio Pitta, Devlin Kuyek and Attila Szőcs about the broader (...)
European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) launches a peasant agroecology manual on how to phase out the use of pesticides

22 May 2018 - by La Via Campesina

Europeans are fundamentally questioning the use of pesticides. In 2017, more than one million citizens signed the European Citizens’ Initiative « STOP Glyphosate », which aims to ban glyphosate marketing in the EU, reform the pesticide authorisation process and set targets to reduce their use. (...)
As World Bank signals end of extraction finance, CSOs call for end to its other fossil fuel funding

10 April 2018 - by Bretton Woods Project

World Bank Group (WBG) President Jim Yong Kim announced at December’s One Planet Summit in Paris that the Bank will cease project lending for ‘upstream’ oil and gas projects after 2019. SUMMARY WBG announced it will end finance for ‘upstream’ oil and gas projects after 2019 Pledge includes (...)
Mozambique forced to restructure after debt default

27 March 2018 - by Abayomi Azikiwe

Economic growth proves unsustainable for the Southern African state of Mozambique in present world situation due to financial implications that have been going on for some time now. Since 2014 many energy producing emerging states in Africa and worldwide have fallen into recession resulting (...)
Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline: Not in Our Interest

23 March 2018 - by Collective

In December 2016, an announcement was made of a nearly 5000 km Nigeria-Morocco offshore gas pipeline which at today’s prices will cost an estimated 20 billion US dollars. In reality, the actual costs will likely be much higher. This pipeline would be a continuation of the existing 678 km long (...)
Seed Freedom and the Future of Farming

26 February 2018 - by Vandana Shiva, Joris Leverink

In an era of climate change, rejuvenating and regenerating the soil through ecological processes has become a survival imperative for the human species. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned Indian scholar, environmental activist and author of over twenty books. She has been involved in (...)
New Evidence of Africa’s Systematic Looting, From an Increasingly Schizophrenic World Bank

5 February 2018 - by Patrick Bond

A brand new World Bank report, The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign loan repayments and transnational corporate (TNC) (...)
TuNur in Tunisia: Another case of energy colonialism

10 November 2017 - by Hamza Hamouchene

A familiar ‘colonial’ scheme is being rolled out: the unrestricted flow of cheap natural resources from the Global South to the rich North, maintaining a profoundly unjust international division of labour. While fortress Europe builds walls and fences to prevent human beings from reaching its (...)
Understanding feminism in the peasant struggle – A “popular peasant feminism”

14 August 2017 - by La Via Campesina

“A really important part of being women in La Vía Campesina is to identify ourselves and our various struggles” emphasized speakers at the start of the V Women’s Assembly taking place in Basque Country on 17 and 18 July 2017. The peasant women highlighted various aspects of this identity, including (...)
Canada’s hand in Tanzania mining fraud

4 August 2017 - by Yves Engler

The Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold’s African subsidiary, Acacia Mining, is embroiled in a major political conflict in Tanzania. With growing evidence of its failure to pay royalties and tax, Acacia has been condemned by President Magufuli, had its exports restricted and slapped with a (...)
Colombia: Free Madre Tierra (Mother Earth) from capitalism and put cities in the service of the people

29 May 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

Bogota, 2600 m altitude, 7.5 million inhabitants. Sunday 30 April, Daniel Libreros, facilitator of the ecosocialist movement, Camila C. (23) and John F. (24), members of CADTM in Colombia picked me up at 8:30 a.m. at the city centre hotel to take me to a working-class district on a mountain (...)
Chilean copper miners on indefinite strike against BHP

5 March 2017 - by Franck Gaudichaud

About 2500 workers have been on strike since February 9 at the Escondida mine in Chile’s north. Owned by two Anglo-Australian mining giants, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, Escondida is the largest producer of “red gold” in the world. The mine extracts about 900,000 tonnes a year. This represents (...)
Marrakech declaration against the summit of false solutions and for a fair and sustainable future for all peoples

29 December 2016 - by Collective

For real alternatives to preserve environmental balances and recognise climate justice, For a fair and sustainable future for all peoples (Marrakech, November 17, 2016) We, the democratic and progressive social movements and organisations who struggle against the continuous destruction of the (...)
Powering the Plunder: What Morocco and Siemens are hiding at COP22, Marrakech

7 November 2016 - by Western Sahara Ressource Watch

At COP22, beware of what you read about Morocco’s renewable energy efforts. An increasing part of the projects take place in the occupied territory of Western Sahara and is used for mineral plunder, new WSRW report documents. An increasing part of the renewable energy programmes that Morocco (...)
Migrations – Looting and Climate

20 October 2016 - by Nicolas Sersiron

With its 1.79 children per household, Germany is in demographic decline. The production of its wealth relies on wage earners. It must import a workforce for which it does not have to provide care for the first few years and which it hopes will depart before retirement. The resulting (...)
Are renewables really environmentally friendly?

26 September 2016 - by Robin Delobel

“Africa is at the sharp end of the consequences of climate change, despite only being responsible for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, for which developed countries have historically been responsible. The rest of the world must settle this ecological debt to the African continent.” (...)
Local anger is rising against South Africa’s ‘resource curse’

12 May 2016 - by Patrick Bond

South African society’s conflict with a mainstay of the country’s corporate economy – resource extraction – is permanently on display in the platinum, gold and coalfields in the north and north-east of the country. Now communities on the country’s East Coast are confronting mining houses. This is (...)
Paying climate debts for global climate justice

4 December 2015 - by Helmut Selinger

The issue of worldwide climate injustice has been high on the agenda of the global climate movement for several years. This injustice stems from the fact that many countries of the Global South are suffering the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change even though they themselves played a (...)
Cooking the planet

17 November 2015 - by Corporate Europe Observatory

One year on from the appointment of Cañete and Šefčovič, Corporate Europe Observatory takes a look at who the commissioners responsible for climate and energy policies are meeting, and finds Big Energy dominating the agenda. According to data extracted from the Commission itself, 80 per cent of (...)
Open letter to the President of Ecuador, Rafael CORREA DELGADO

29 December 2014 - by Collective

Those of us who sign this letter were surprised with the news that the government of Ecuador decided to revoke the 1991 agreement that loaned the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) the use of their building. In our view it is clear that the reasons given (the use of (...)