Earth Restoration Peace Camps

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Author: John D. Liu | Published: October 18

The sun rises on a glorious new day in an Earth Cooperative Restoration Camp. Although this particular camp is in what most would call a desert, in the early morning there is dew on the grass and the birds emerge from the vegetation to forage and sing. The camp is in an area that has been described as abandoned since the failure of agriculture, industry and consumer economy here. Looking out over the vista, a group of people are practicing the salute to the sun, a yoga exercise that comes to us from antiquity. In a quiet yurt are Muslims at early prayer. There is a great sense of acceptance and tolerance in this place.

Throughout the landscape, leaves turn to face the sun and drink up the nourishing rays and in doing so grow. Beds are being quickly made in the neat white yurts that look so natural and gentle in their impact on the Earth. The clean, fully functional and odorless composting toilets made of all natural materials are busy and welcoming. The kitchen crew is up early preparing breakfast for the camp. Up at the crack of dawn there are people brushing teeth, washing up and heading to work.

Most take a quick coffee or tea, some fruit and a homemade energy bar made from dried fruits, nuts, and honey. Teams are assembling to get some work done before it is too hot to be under the heat of the sun. As quickly as they can they’re off to the fields, the orchards, the ponds, the nurseries, the workshops, all to do two or three hours or concentrated work in the cool of the morning. The various teams move about their tasks with confidence and collaborative support, some with decades of experience and others learning while they share in the tasks.

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Declaración Latinoamericana en la Asamblea de los Pueblos en la Haya en el marco del Tribunal a Monsanto

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[ English | Español ]

Por: Naturaleza de Derechos | fecha:14th – 16th de octubre, 2016

Denunciamos:

Que el actual sistema extractivista en nuestros países está destruyendo nuestra diversidad biocultural, poniendo en riesgo la vida en la Tierra.

Considerando:

Que el agronegocio, como expresión del modelo extractivista, ha cambiado el eje de la agricultura suplantando la producción de alimentos por mercancías, y que las consecuencias directas para nuestros pueblos son el despojo de los territorios; la eliminación de los pueblos originarios y las comunidades campesinas; la concentración de la tierra; la deforestación de bosques nativos; la degradación irreversible del ambiente y la biodiversidad.

Que los actos de biopiratería sobre nuestro germplasma vulneran nuestra soberanía alimentaria, económica, política y cultural.

Que el poder político en su mayoría no esta cumpliendo con su misión de promover el bien común y proteger la vida, sometido al poder económico y a los intereses de las grandes transnacionales.

Declaramos:

Que asumimos nuestra propia defensa frente a los intereses del agronegocio y protegeremos nuestros pueblos y nuestros territorios. Para ello:

  • Exigimos a cada uno de nuestros Gobiernos que apoye el reconocimiento del Ecocidio como el quinto crimen contra la paz y la seguridad de la humanidad ante la Corte Penal Internacional.
  • Postulamos la construcción del principio de equiparación por el cual deben universalizarse los criterios de mayor beneficio y/o protección alcanzados sobre la salud y el ambiente en una región o continente.
  • Exhortamos el cumplimiento del principio de no regresión, ya que nuestros países están siendo sometidos a procesos legislativos de flexibilización de las normas de protección ambientales, que en la mayoría son el resultado de luchas populares.
  • Exigimos el cumplimiento del Principio de Solidaridad intergeneracional e Indubio Pro-natura: en caso de duda, a favor de la naturaleza
  • Sostenemos que la educación es un motor de transformación social al servicio de los pueblos y la naturaleza, y no una herramienta de dominación.
  • Instamos a los consumidores europeos a dejar de comprar carne, soja y otras materias primas latinoamericanas, cuya producción vulnera los Derechos Humanos.
  • Rechazamos los Tratados de Libre Comercio por someter las autonomías de los pueblos.
  • Defendemos las semillas criollas y nativas dado que son fuente de diversidad biológica y cultural, que inspiran la creación individual y colectiva en las comunidades y son fuentes de Vida. Reivindicamos el derecho de guardar, reproducir, multiplicar, intercambiar, donar, compartir y vender libremente las semillas.
  • Manifestamos nuestro compromiso con la defensa y la promoción de la agricultura campesina, especialmente con las prácticas agroecológicas.
  • Desconocemos los organismos genéticamente modificados e híbridos degenerativos como semillas, ya que no cumplen la función de generar y sostener la vida.
  • Nos solidarizamos con el pueblo haitiano, victima de una catástrofe climática producto del modelo económico.
  • Rechazamos el gobierno ilegítimo hetero, patriarcal, racista y saqueador de Brasil.
  • Refrendamos la firma de los acuerdos de Paz en Colombia entre el Gobierno y las FARC como una oportunidad de construcción de paz, estable, duradera y con justicia social. Respaldamos a quienes han vivido la guerra.
  • Rechazamos las políticas desestabilizadoras que amenazan la autonomía y la soberanía de Latinoamérica.

Herederos de las luchas liberadoras de la historia latinoamericana, confiamos en nuestra capacidad para recuperar la soberanía, y abrazamos fraternalmente la lucha emancipadora de los pueblos del mundo.

Prevén más hambre y pobreza.

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 Por: Diario de Yucatán | 18 de octubre de 2016

ROMA (EFE).— El cambio climático ya está afectando a la agricultura y la seguridad alimentaria, de modo que si no se toman medidas urgentes más millones de personas sufrirán hambre y pobreza, advirtió ayer la Organización de la ONU para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO).

El director general de la Organización de la ONU para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, explicó que “el cambio climático devuelve la incertidumbre al no poder asegurarse nunca más que se obtendrá la cosecha que se ha plantado”.

De no generarse cambios el número de pobres podría aumentar entre 35 y 122 millones para 2030 en comparación con lo que sería un futuro sin cambio climático, según el informe bienal de la organización sobre el estado mundial de la agricultura y la alimentación.

Apunta que la productividad agrícola corre así el riesgo de disminuir y la escasez de alimentos podría elevar drásticamente los precios de estos productos, afectando a las regiones que ya tienen altos índices de hambre y pobreza, sobre todo en África subsahariana.

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El clima está cambiando. La alimentación y la agricultura también

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Por: La Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura | Fecha: octubre 16 del 2016

Uno de los mayores problemas relacionados con el cambio climático es la seguridad alimentaria. Las personas más pobres del mundo, -muchas de las cuales son agricultores, pescadores y pastores-, están siendo los más afectados por las altas temperaturas y el aumento de la frecuencia de desastres relacionados con el clima.

Al mismo tiempo, la población mundial crece de manera constante y se espera que llegue a 9 600 millones de personas en 2050. Para cubrir una demanda tan grande, los sistemas agrícolas y alimentarios tendrán que adaptarse a los efectos adversos del cambio climático y hacerse más resilientes, productivos y sostenibles. Es la única manera de que podamos garantizar el bienestar de los ecosistemas y de la población rural y reducir las emisiones.

Cultivar alimentos de manera sostenible significa adoptar prácticas que producen más con menos en la misma superficie de la tierra y usar los recursos naturales de forma juiciosa. Significa también reducir la pérdida de alimentos antes de la fase del producto final o venta al por menor a través de una serie de iniciativas, que incluyen una mejor recolección, almacenamiento, embalaje, transporte, infraestructuras y mecanismos de mercado, así como marcos institucionales y legales. Por eso, nuestro mensaje global para el Día Mundial de la Alimentación 2016 es “El clima está cambiando. La alimentación y la agricultura también”.

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Mensaje del Papa Francisco para la Jornada Mundial de la Alimentación

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Por: Vatican News | fecha: 15 de octubre, 2016

VATICANO, 14 Oct. 16 / 05:31 am (ACI).- El Papa Francisco ha enviado un mensaje con ocasión de la ceremonia inaugural que tiene lugar en la sede de la FAO en Roma para la Jornada Mundial de la Alimentación que se celebra cada 16 de octubre.

A continuación, el texto completo del mensaje:

Al Profesor José Graziano da Silva

Director General de la FAO

Muy ilustre Señor:

1. El que la FAO haya querido dedicar la actual Jornada Mundial de la Alimentación al tema «El clima está cambiando. La alimentación y la agricultura también», nos lleva a considerar la dificultad añadida que supone para la lucha contra el hambre la presencia de un fenómeno complejo como el del cambio climático. Con el fin de hacer frente a los retos que la naturaleza plantea al hombre y el hombre a la naturaleza (cf. Enc. Laudato si’, 25), me permito ofrecer algunas reflexiones a la consideración de la FAO, de sus Estados miembros y de todas las personas que participan en su actividad.

¿A qué se debe el cambio climático actual? Tenemos que cuestionarnos sobre nuestra responsabilidad individual y colectiva, sin recurrir a los fáciles sofismas que se esconden tras los datos estadísticos o las previsiones contradictorias. No se trata de abandonar el dato científico, que es más necesario que nunca, sino de ir más allá de la simple lectura del fenómeno o de la enumeración de sus múltiples efectos.

Nuestra condición de personas necesariamente relacionadas y nuestra responsabilidad de custodios de la creación y de su orden, nos obligan a remontarnos a las causas de los cambios que están ocurriendo e ir a su raíz. Hemos de reconocer, ante todo, que los diferentes efectos negativos sobre el clima tienen su origen en la conducta diaria de personas, comunidades, pueblos y Estados. Si somos conscientes de esto, no bastará la simple valoración en términos éticos y morales.  Es necesario intervenir políticamente y, por tanto, tomar las decisiones necesarias, disuadir o fomentar conductas y estilos de vida que beneficien a las nuevas y a las futuras generaciones. Sólo entonces podremos preservar el planeta.

LEER MÁS

Latin American Declaration of the Peoples’ Assembly and the Monsanto Tribunal

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[ English | Español ]

Author: Naturaleza de Derechos | Published: October 14th – 16th, 2016

Traducción por: Equipo Regeneration International

We denounce:

That our countries’ current extractive systems are destroying biocultural diversity, putting life on Earth at risk.

Considering:

That agrobusiness, as an expression of the extractive model, has changed the key focus of agriculture by replacing the production of food with commodities. Therefore, the direct consequences for our people are: the dispossession of our lands; the elimination of indigenous peoples and peasant communities; land concentration; the deforestation of native forests; the irreversible degradation of the environment and biodiversity.

That acts of biopiracy over our germ-plasm harm our economic, political, cultural and food sovereignty.

That the majority of the political system remains controlled by economic factors and the interests of huge transnational companies and is therefore unable to fulfill its mission of promoting the common good and protecting life.

We declare:

That we will defend ourselves against agribusiness interests and that we will protect our people and our land. Therefore:

  • We demand each of our governments support the recognition of Ecocide as a fifth crime against peace and security of mankind before the International Criminal Court.
  • We propose the application of a principle of parity by universalizing best practices in health and environment protection standards across regions or continents.
  • We exhort the application of a non-regression principle, as our countries have been subject to legislative processes that have undermined the environmental protection norms fought for and established through grassroots movements.
  • We demand the application of the Intergenerational Solidarity principle and Indubio Pro-natura: if in doubt, nature should take precedence.
  • We maintain that education is a force for societal transformational at the service of the people and nature and not a tool of domination.
  • We urge European consumers to stop buying meat, soy and other Latin American commodities whose production violates Human Rights.
  • We reject Free Trade Agreements as suppressing the autonomy of the people.
  • We defend heritage and native seeds as sources of biological and cultural diversity that inspire both individual and collective creation within communities and are the very essence of life. We claim the right to save, reproduce, multiply, trade, donate, share and freely sell seeds.
  • We declare our promise to defend and promote peasant agriculture, especially agroecological practices.
  • We reject categorizing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and degenerative hybrids as seeds, as they do not comply with the function of generating and sustaining life.
  • We express our solidarity with the Haitian people, victims of a climate catastrophe produced by the current economic model.
  • We reject the illegitimate, patriarchal, racist and plundering government of
  • We endorse the signing of a Colombian Peace Agreement between the government and the FARC as an opportunity for constructing stable, socially just and lasting peace. We support those that have survived the war.
  • We reject the destabilizing policies that threaten the autonomy and sovereignty of Latin America.

We are heirs of Latin America’s history of liberation movements, we trust our ability to recover our sovereignty, and we fraternally embrace the emancipating struggles of peoples around the world.

Coffee and Climate Change: In Brazil, a Disaster Is Brewing

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Author: Lulu Garcia-Navarro | Published: October 12, 2016

Coffee lovers, alert! A new report says that the world’s coffee supply may be in danger owing to climate change. In the world’s biggest coffee-producing nation, Brazil, the effects of warming temperatures are already being felt in some communities.

You can see the effects in places like Naygney Assu’s farm, tucked on a quiet hillside in Espirito Santo state in eastern Brazil. Walking over his coffee field is a noisy experience, because it’s desiccated. The leaves from the plants are curled up all over the floor, in rust-colored piles. The plants themselves are completely denuded.

“We’ve had no rain since last December,” Assu tells me in Portuguese, “and my well dried up. There was nothing we can do, except wait for rain.”

But the rain doesn’t come.

In fact, it’s been three years of drought here in Sao Gabriel da Palha. This region is part of Brazil’s coffee belt. Farmers here have been growing robusta — a coffee bean used in espressos and instant coffee — since the 1950s. Assu says he doesn’t know what to do.

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The Slow Food View on FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture Report 2016

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Published on: October 17, 2016

The climate is changing; food and agriculture must too. This was the main message UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) chose to transmit as they honored the global World Food Day 2016 at the FAO Headquarters in Rome.

World Food Day, celebrated annually on October 16th, the day that FAO was founded in 1945, was initiated to increase public awareness of issues relating to world hunger, underline the importance of helping rural communities and create an international solidarity network in the war against hunger and poverty. On this World Food Day, FAO called attention to the profound and intrinsic relationship between the food industry and climate change, taking the Paris Agreement as a signal that:

“the international community is now committed to making transformative and sustainable changes in the face of an unprecedented challenge: ending hunger and poverty while addressing the impacts of climate change.”

In acknowledging this challenge, and the necessity for immediate and concrete action to limit the impact of climate change on food security in already food-insecure regions, it is essential that the discussion focuses on what strategies will bring about the most positive impacts.

Farmers, fishers and pastoralists are hit hard by rising temperatures and the increasing frequency of weather-related disasters. By 2030, the negative impacts of climate change will put an increasing squeeze on food production as the essential nutritional values of crops, such as of zinc, iron and protein, will diminish. Furthermore, as emphasized by FAO, the impacts of climate change are more strongly observed in rural communities, where there is a higher dependency on agriculture both as a source of income and for sustenance. The negative effects of the West’s dependence on imported foods are clear for all to see, the transport costs of which contribute significantly to carbon emissions. It is imperative that this dependence is reduced, and indeed, that nutritionally self-sustaining communities remain so.

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Why ‘climate-smart Agriculture’ Isn’t All It’s Cracked up to Be

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Author: Teresa Anderson | Published on: October 17, 2014

There’s a new phrase in town. A growing number of governments, corporations and NGOs are using the term “climate-smart agriculture” to describe their activities. With climate change affecting farming worldwide, you might assume we should be celebrating this as a step in the right direction.

But many organisations in the food movement are wary of – or even opposed to – this concept. They share growing concerns that the term is being used to green-wash practices that are, in fact, damaging for the climate and for farming. Many are worried that the promotion of “climate-smart agriculture” could end up doing more harm than good.

At the United Nations secretary general’s climate summit in New York last month, heads of state such as President Barack Obama referred to the need for “climate-smart” crops to weather the challenges ahead. The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, announced the launch of the new Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, involving governments, corporations, research institutes and NGOs.

This was followed by announcements from McDonalds, which use 2% of the world’s beef, andWalmart, the world’s largest corporation, about their own “climate-smart” initiatives.

Proponents of “climate-smart agriculture” claim that their approaches aim to achieve a “triple win” of increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation. So far so good, right? Actually, no.

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Solving Climate Change With Beer From Patagonia’s Food Startup

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Authors: Bradford Wieners | Published on: October 3, 2016

Yvon Chouinard, the short, bluff, fatalistic founder of Patagonia, the company renowned for its pricey parkas, fuzzy fleeces, and exhortations to buy fewer of them, sits in a cafeteria-style Chinese restaurant in Jackson, Wyo. He scratches a clam from its shell, forks it into his mouth, chews, checks the time. “Oh, we’re fine,” he says, and Birgit Cameron, seated on his right, does her best to look reassured. A fairly recent addition to the Patagonia family, Cameron seems as eager to make a good impression this evening as Chouinard is indifferent to how he’s perceived. The two are expected in 10 minutes at the Center for the Arts in Jackson, where they’ll appear on stage together and introduce Unbroken Ground, a 26-minute film produced by Patagonia that highlights the suppliers of Patagonia Provisions, the three-year-old sister food company that Cameron heads. Depending on your level of cynicism, Unbroken Ground may strike you as a well-turned documentary about the ecologically enlightened suppliers behind the foods she sells, or perhaps as a slick marketing piece. Naturally, it’s both.

“It’s hard to get people fired up about how cotton is grown in Turkey,” Chouinard says, “but we’ve got to, because the way 99 percent of cotton is grown, it’s a disaster. And it’s the same with where most of our food comes from. So we use film because a lot of these little guys we’re working with don’t have the resources to make a movie. We do.”

At 77, Chouinard long ago stepped back from Patagonia’s day-to-day operations, but he and his wife, Malinda (also present, but not to be quoted), remain the owners and stewards of the brand. They mostly split their time between here, where their home faces the Teton Range, and Ventura, Calif., where Patagonia’s headquarters and their children and grandkids are. Both published books in the last two months: Yvon, an updated edition of his memoir-cum-management treatise, Let My People Go Surfing; Malinda, with co-author Jennifer Ridgeway,Family Business: Innovative On-Site Child Care Since 1983, a monograph promoting kindergartens at corporate offices.

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