2 July 2019
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend
Threats multiply - to women, diversity and the environment
Somos Guerreras is a collective of seasoned artists comprised of rappers Rebeca Lane (Guatemala), Nakury (Costa Rica) and Audry Funk (Mexico). They are visiting London for the first time in early July, and will appear at the Festival of Latin American Women in...
In May, I gave a talk at Harvard University on the Amazon and creating futures and I closed it by saying that hope, like despair, is a luxury we can no longer afford. Given our overheating planet, there’s no time for lamentations or melancholy. We need to act, even without hope. After my talk, a well-known...
The Bolsonaro administration has launched policies that undermine IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, and ICMBio (The Chico Mendes Institute) which protects the nation’s federal conservation units, by effectively dismantling environmental law enforcement and allowing deforestation to proceed unchecked.
Fines imposed for illegal deforestation between Jan. 1 and May 15 this year were down 34 percent from the same period...
A new manifesto by eight of Brazil’s past environment ministers has accused the rightist Bolsonaro administration of “a series of unprecedented actions that are destroying the capacity of the environment ministry to formulate and carry out public policies.”The ministers warn that Bolsonaro’s draconian environmental policies, including the weakening of environmental licensing,...
Norway gives billions to Brazil to save the rainforest. At the same time, Norsk Hydro’s operations lead to large emissions of greenhouse gases and the destruction of rainforests.
NRK-2, TV Channel NRK-2 of the (government-owned) Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published this article on 6 January 2019 about Norway’s double standards with respect to rainforests. You can read the...
Interview with Rene Orellana, Minister of Development Planning of Bolivia, HispanTV Face to Face programme, 15 November 2015.
Interview with René Orellana on the impact of Climate Change on Bolivia. The Democracy Center, March 2012.
Brazil’s 1988 constitution and other laws established the right of landless peasants to claim unused and underutilized lands. Thousands, with the support of the landless movement, occupied tracts. At times, they even succeeded in getting authorities to set up agrarian reform settlements.
Big landowners always opposed giving large tracts of land to the landless but, until roads began...
President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen Ricardo Salles as Brazil’s environment minister. The former São Paulo state government environment secretary is under investigation for allegedly redrawing maps allowing protected lands to be developed for mining and factories. His statements are heavily pro-agribusiness and sometimes espouse violence.
The selection of ruralist Tereza Cristina as agriculture minister, and Ernesto Araújo as...
From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan to turn the region into a major commodities export corridor.
Branford and Torres wrote a 15-part investigative series (published in partnership with The Intercept Brazil) based on what...