CIP Americas

China is fast overtaking and displacing both the United States and Europe in Latin American trade. Latin American business elites and governments on the left and the right, hungry for foreign investment and exchange, welcome the opportunity to do business with the Chinese. But environmentalists and progressives in the region are concerned about China’s growing influence, decrying that much of its investment is going into environmentally unsustainable activities and is putting local and national sovereignty into question.

The advent of progressive governments in South America in the last decade gave environmentalists the hope that this would be the beginning of a truly sustainable economic development. But post-neoliberal “progresismo” has brought new complications in the environmental front, according to numerous activists and experts.

Bolivian environmental organizations and indigenous groups that supported Evo Morales in his election to the presidency demand that his government stop exploiting oil resources in the Bolivian Amazon due to its serious impacts on the environment, including the destruction of biodiversity, and erosion of the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples that inhabit the region.

Costa Rican environmentalists decry war against biodiversity; in Brazil, the World Rainforest Movement calls Norway to task for its alleged double-dealing; in Chile, civil society is on the move against genetically modified (GM) crops, while Bolivia’s president Evo Morales declares them unwelcome in his country; the monthly report concludes with the agroecology letter from Havana.

In this month’s biodiversity report: Goldman Prizes for Cuba and Costa Rica, Yasuní Reserve Declaration, Syngenta + CIMMYT = GM Wheat, “Responsible” Soy in trouble and The WWF and Tree Monoculture Plantations.

1. CHILE: Protests Against Alleged Privatization of the Sea Chilean civil society groups and artisanal fishers condemn a bill approved by the parliament in the month of March. This bill, which basically consists of modifications to the existing Fisheries and Aquaculture Act, was passed barely 11 days after the earthquake and associated tidal wave which [...]

1. COLOMBIA AND HONDURAS: The Violence of the Palm Oil Tree ufeffMonocultures of African, or oil palm, whose oil is used to produce a variety of products ranging from cosmetics to biodiesel, bring massive violence and destruction of biodiversity, as the cases of Colombia and Honduras demonstrate. “Violence is an additive to African palm oil [...]