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Occupy Brazil: The Landless Dig In
BRAZIL: Ethanol Divides Agribusiness
By Mario Osava
Credit:IPS/Mario Osava
RIO VERDE, Brazil, Sep 8 (IPS/IFEJ) - The expansion of sugarcane farming to produce more ethanol in Brazil has run into unexpected resistance in Rio Verde, a prosperous town in the central state of Goiás, and it is coming from agribusiness leaders.
The local government, of the conservative Progressive Party, decided to impose a limit on sugarcane to 10 percent of the municipality's farmland...
Dear Friends of the MST,
In early Spetember, several social movements issued a statement to question the auction of the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce in 1997. The sale took place while President Fernando Henrique Cardoso was in office and was marked by peculiarities that have been going on since the transfer of the Companhia, sold for 3.3 billion reais (approximately 1.7 billion dollars) when its estimated value was 40 billion dollars, through illicit favoritism of groups. Today the...
Brazilian Government: The Lands Occupied by Aracruz Should be Returned to the Indigenous
30/08/2007 | News
The Brazilian Minister of Justice, Tarso Genro, signed a resolution that guarantees the Tupinikims and Guarani indigenous the property of 14,227 hectares of land in Aracruz municipality (Spirito Santo state), which had been ilegally occupied by Brazilian company Aracruz Celulosa.
Genro’s decision orders the demarcation of indigenous lands, which had been identified...
Biofuels and Small Farmers
Victor M. Quintana S. | August 29, 2007
Translated from: Biocombustibles y agricultura campesina
Translated by: Annette Ramos
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org
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The biofuels boom is not just another trend or a passing fashion. It is the result of a new global food and energy cycle that entails very significant adjustments in our societies.
The cycle of hydrocarbons as...
5th Congress of Brazil's Landless Movement
Creating the Bases for a New World
Raúl Zibechi | August 23, 2007
Translated from: MST: Crear las bases del mundo nuevo
Translated by: Maria Roof
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)
americas.irc-online.org
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The largest social movement on the continent, and one of the most important in the world, held its 5th Congress in mid-June 2007 in Brasilia. Despite successful mobilization...
Soraia Soriano of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement and the Zapatista Encuentro
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By Juan Trujillo
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
August 13, 2007
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Oventik and Morelia 23rd and 25th July 2007: Within the themes worked on with major interest and intensity in this second encuentro between the Zapatista people and the people of the world is that of autonomous education. This social right is essential for the development of the people, particularly...
Dear Friends of the MST,
In this bulletin we want to talk about a very important topic for Brazil: education. But it’s impossible to speak about education without engaging in an important discussion about the economic policy that the Brazilian state has put into practice. An increase in investment in public education is the basis for every transformation in teaching in the country, which begins by increasing the number of vacancies, with conditions for access and remaining in school...
Agri-bonanza’s ripples – Church cautiously watches ethanol boom
By Barbara J. Fraser
8/16/2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)
DOURADOS, Brazil (CNS) – As the bus rolls along between endless fields of corn on the highway from Campo Grande to Dourados, it is difficult to believe that malnutrition was one of the major social problems that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had to...
Biofuels menace rainforests
The arguments against burning crops for energy gather momentum
August 17, 2007 10:00 AM
Substituting fossil fuels with biofuels will not only add more carbon to the atmosphere, but will destroy primary forests, biodiversity and livelihoods, writes Tristan Farrow. The study, published in this week's issue of Science, argues that we would be better off, replanting forests, improving the efficiency of fossil fuel engines, and moving to carbon free...
Brazil rejects reports of Amazon logging in camps
21 Aug 2007 21:13:51 GMT
Source: Reuters
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By Raymond Colitt
BRASILIA, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Brazil's government rejected accusations on Tuesday that its settlement of poor peasants in the Amazon was fueling the destruction of the world's largest rain forest but promised an investigation.
Several reports said this week that settlements of landless peasants were being used to extract timber. They said the...
Amazon forest sold off in housing scam, claims Greenpeace
By Sophie Morris
Published: 21 August 2007
The Brazilian government stands accused of selling off huge swaths of the Amazon rainforest - including its oldest protected national park - to unscrupulous logging companies, under the cover of a flawed sustainable development project.
The Brazilian President, Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, won power in 2003 with a promise to settle 400,000 homeless families during his...
In an interview with the online newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa, João Pedro Stedile, of the national MST leadership, speaks about the need to build a development model that prioritizes democratization of the land, the distribution of income, and an agriculture based on small and medium-size properties.
Today, it is no longer possible to speak about the classic model of Agrarian Reform, defended throughout the 20th century. This model has been finished off by the Brazilian elites, who...
Naomi Klein: From Think Tanks to Battle Tanks, “The Quest to Impose a Single World Market Has Casualties Now in the Millions”
Amy Goodman & Naomi Klein, Democracy Now!
Thursday 16 August 2007, posted by Dial
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 - Democracy Now! News Program.
AMY GOODMAN: The State Department is coming under criticism this week for refusing to allow a prominent South African social scientist to enter the country. Adam Habib was scheduled to speak at the...
Americas Program Commentary
Via Campesina Sets an International Agenda
Laura Carlsen | August 8, 2007
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Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org
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The peasantry has been portrayed historically as a backward sector, rooted in traditional productive practices and embedded in obsolete cultures. Peasants' deep ties to natural cycles are often considered limitations to human transcendence—defined as the conquest of...
Written by Global Justice Ecology Project
Thursday, 02 August 2007
An overwhelming majority of governments, including Norway, Sweden, Germany and Indonesia expressed serious concerns about the risks of large-scale production of biofuels to forests, ecosystems, indigenous peoples and local communities at a meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in Paris in early July [1].
SBSTTA is a subsidiary body of the Convention on...
Dear Friends of the MST,
Through more than two decades of struggles, we have learned that it’s necessary to break, not just the fences of the latifúndio but also the barriers that impede access to knowledge. With this understanding, we are initiating our mobile schools and building more than 2,000 schools for basic teaching, besides the educational courses for teenagers and adults, middle school level and technical courses. Today we can take pride in the 5,000 young people who are...
Chiapas: Zapatista Encuentro meets on contested turf
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Thu, 07/26/2007 - 22:50.
Representatives of peasant organizations from across the globe have gathered in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas for the "Encuentro with the Peoples of the World," hosted by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Participating groups include Brazil's Movement of the Landless, Thailand's Assembly of the Poor and the international NGO Via Campesina. Meetings...
Brazil landless raid Reverend Moon cattle ranch
30 Jul 2007 19:22:30 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Andrea Welsh
BRASILIA, July 30 (Reuters) - At least 100 landless people have taken over a ranch in southwestern Brazil owned by South Korea religious leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon and evicted his followers, said police on Monday.
The landless workers stormed onto the ranch Friday night, changing the locks on the gates, raiding the property's headquarters and kicking...
Brazil's deadly land wars put indigenous leaders in firing line
By Natalia Viana
Published: 23 July 2007
It was 6.30am when the Brazilian indigenous leader Ortiz Lopes was called to his front door in Coronel Sapucaia, in the frontier state of Mato Grosso do Sul. According to his wife, the head of the embattled Guarani-Kaiowa people heard an unfamiliar voice calling his name from the other side of the door. He only had time to ask who it was before he was shot dead and the...
Slave descendants invade Aracruz Brazil plantation
24 Jul 2007 20:18:43 GMT
Source: Reuters
BRASILIA, July 24 (Reuters) - Part of a eucalyptus plantation belonging to Brazilian pulp and paper company Aracruz was invaded by descendants of slaves claiming ownership, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
As many as 500 people stormed onto the Aracruz plantation in Espirito Santo state on Monday, felling trees and blocking roads to claim 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres)...
Biofuels, Biodiversity, and Our Energy Future
The Dark Side of Biofuels: Horror in the "Brazilian California"
Raúl Zibechi | July 23, 2007
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Brazil is staking its claim as a great emerging power thanks to the leadership it maintains in biofuel production. The price of this ambition is paid by the environment and by the cane cutters, who are the invisible characters in this story.
"When the airplane passed, pouring out that bath of poison, my father was soaked...
Dear Friends of the MST,
We would like to share with you the results of our 6th National Congress on Agroecology, which has been organized every year since 2002. This congress gathers social movements, public institutions, researchers and small rural producers to debate and exchange experiences about different forms of agroecological cultivation. In addition, it strengthens the combat against transnational corporations acting on Brazilian rural areas.
This year’s congress...
The ecological and social tragedy of crop-based biofuel production in the Americas
Miguel A Altieri
Professor of Agroecology
University of California, Berkeley
Elizabeth Bravo
Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgenicos
Quito, Ecuador
The nations of the OECD—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, who account for 56% of the planet’s energy consumption, are desperately in need of a liquid fuel replacement for oil. Worldwide...
Brazil Indian leader killed in land dispute-Church
09 Jul 2007 18:51:26 GMT
Source: Reuters
BRASILIA, July 9 (Reuters) - An Indian tribal leader fighting for land rights in southwestern Brazil was shot dead by a gunman who his wife said was acting on behalf of local ranchers, a Roman Catholic church watchdog said on Monday.
Ortiz Lopes, a Kaiowa Indian, was shot point-blank on Sunday night near the Paraguayan border by an unidentified man, Cimi, the Church's Indian...
The biofuel myths
By Eric Holt-Giménez
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress. This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-...
The MST's National School Florestan Fernandes, or in Portuguese, Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (ENFF) - 
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Friends of the MST (FMST) delegates to the MST's 5th National Congress have compiled a series of photos to share with the Solidarity Movement. You are fully authorized to utilize these photos for educational purposes ONLY, and you require no further permission to do so. We ask that any/all use of these images be accompanied by an FMST citation, directing viewers to [ www.mstbrazil.org ]. If you have any additional questions...
Biofuel demand to push up food prices
John Vidal
Thursday July 5, 2007
The Guardian
Food prices will rise in the next 10 years as nearly twice as much sugar cane, maize and oilseed rape is grown to fuel cars, and people in rapidly developing countries adopt meat-based diets, says the UN in its annual assessment of farming trends.
The move to "agrofuels", which are expected to marginally lower climate change emissions and reduce US and European oil dependency...
Brazil stages raid against debt slavery at Amazon sugar cane-ethanol plantation
The Associated Press
Published: July 3, 2007
BRASILIA, Brazil: Brazilian authorities said they raided an Amazon plantation where more than 1,000 laborers were found working 14 hour days in horrendous conditions cutting sugar cane for ethanol production.
Authorities said the raid was Brazil's biggest to date against debt slavery, a practice that lures poor laborers to remote spots, where...
Protesters invade work site in attempt to stop Brazil river project
The Associated Press
Published: June 27, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: Hundreds of protesters have invaded the site where army engineers are beginning work on a huge river-diversion project meant to irrigate Brazil's arid northeast, officials said Wednesday.
The protesters — a coalition of environmentalists, land reform activists and Truka Indians — are seeking to halt work on the project they claim...