Of climate catastrophe and sacrifice zones – Battle for the Hambacher Forest

by Andrea Brock Activists have occupied Germany's Hambacher Forest for six years to prevent the area being destroyed and mined for coal. This month the forest has been making headlines as police brutality, coorporate power and state violence combine to attempt ousting the occupiers for good. This is a revised version of an article originally …

“Down with the fumes!” The Year of the Shootings and its relevance for mining today

by Félix Talego and Juan Diego Pérez On February 4, 1888, a demonstration called by the “League Against Calcinations” to protest against acid rain ended up with a massacre of civilians by the Spanish army. Researchers Félix Talego and Juan Diego Pérez argue that the commemoration of this event is an opportunity to spread the …

Weaponizing nature

By Patrick Bigger and Benjamin Neimark*  Military excursions into low carbon fuels is not a case of military greenwashing but rather one of ‘weaponizing nature’, an approach perpetuating an interventionist US foreign policy linked to environmental change. If we ever think about the military as environmental actor, it is most likely related to the damage …

Pará, bloody Pará

Even when the police doesn’t kill in Pará, Brazil, it still lets others do the killing. The coup and the political power of the rural sector in Brasília have provided Amazonian gunmen with a carte blanche. We are living in times of death. The massacre of nine men and one woman in Pau D'Arco, on …

Forest Defenders Conference, June 2017, UK

On 21st and 22nd June 2017,  the Forest Defenders Conference will be held in Oxford, UK, to discuss the challenges and the violence experienced by environmental defenders worldwide. The conference will bring together front line activists, investigators and community leaders with human rights groups, environmentalists, funders, media representatives, lawyers, security specialists and researchers to build …

Who can say? Reflections on the unknown in Valle de Cauca, Colombia

By Emma Lord* On December 1st, 2016, headlines marked the formal end of Colombia´s prolonged war. Emma Lord shares some reflections on the contextual complexity of the conflict based on fieldwork in the department of Valle del Cauca in 2015. Sitting in the kitchen of a caleño guitarist –a research informant and friend– we chat …

Stop state-mediated violence in the name of green energy!

A handful of anti-dam activists were recently killed in remote Northeast India. A worldwide wave of state-mediated violence against anti-hydro protesters also brings up larger questions about these supposedly green and clean ‘development projects’. Two months after the highly publicized murder of renowned indigenous environmental activist and Goldman Prize winner Berta Caceres, who fought against …

A Portrait of Human and Environmental Devastation — Stop the Invisibilization!!! Petition

Petition in solidarity with the afro-ecuadorian ancestral community of La Chiquita and the Awá indigenous community of Guadalito versus two oil palm companies of the San Lorenzo Cantón, Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador.* (Para la versión española de la petición, pulse aquí. Para a versão em português da petição, clique aquí.) Dear Friends, In this moment the first civil …

#25NOV en Santiago de Chile con la Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres

Por Silvia Carradori.* La Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres se unió a otras organizaciones feministas para defender los derechos de las mujeres. Dos horas de marcha por la soberanía del cuerpo y la tutela del territorio. El pasado 25 de noviembre Santiago fue escenario de la marcha anual en el Día Internacional para la Eliminación …

(Sin)sentido Valparaíso: Miedo y propiedad privada

* por Gabriela Toledo y Pablo Sánchez.  El asesinato de 2 jóvenes en el contexto de una movilización estudiantil en Valparaíso (Chile) pone en evidencia, una vez más, las consecuencias de la supremacía de la propiedad privada sobre la que el estado de Chile descansa hace décadas. El pasado jueves 14 de mayo de 2015, …