Global Justice Ecology Project
April Update
Please support GJEP’s work to protect forests,
advance climate justice & build alliances for systemic change!
Photo of the Month
This April marks the 10 year Anniversary of a GJEP delegation to the indigenous community Amador Hernandez in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico. The GJEP delegation was documenting the resistance of the community to plans by the Mexican government to forcibly relocate them for a forest carbon offset scheme. The scheme was part of a REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agreement between California, Chiapas and Acre, Brazil to provide forest carbon offsets that would enable California industries to avoid cutting pollution. Indigenous Peoples around the world continue to oppose unjust REDD forest carbon offset projects.
Global Justice Media Program
Earth Radio
GJEP’s Earth Radio segments, the Earth Minute and the Earth Watch Interview, happen each week in partnership with Margaret Prescod’s nationally syndicated Sojourner Truth Radio show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles.
You can find all radio segments here: https://globaljusticeecology.org/category/earth-radio/
Earth Watch: Ed Russo on GE Mosquito Project
Ed Russo is an environmental expert, author, entrepreneur, and a member of several voluntary and government boards. He served as CEO of Watergen USA, President of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, Member of the Board of Directors of Reef Relief, Member of the Monroe County Climate Change Advisory Board, Member of the Board of Directors of the College of the Florida Keys Foundation, and Member of the Planning Board of the City of Key West.
Earth Watch: Sergio Baffoni On Food Estate Projects in Indonesia
Sergio Baffoni, Italian living in Germany, coordinates the campaign to protect Indonesian rain-forests, run by the Environmental Paper Network (EPN) together with around 150 national and international organisations.
Earth Watch: Jennifer Wickham On Wet’suwet’en Resistance
Jen is a member of Cas Yikh (Grizzly Bear House) in the Gidimt’en (Bear/Wolf) Clan of the Wet’suwet’en people. Jen is currently living in Gidimt’en yintah in what is now known as northern British Columbia.
Earth Watch: Sam Davis on Proforestation
Sam Davis is a Conservation Scientist with Dogwood Alliance. A life-long treehugger, Sam earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Science in 2015 at Wright State University and completed a postdoc at University of California Merced before leaving academia for greener forests.
Earth Minute: Genetically Engineered Maize
The US based company Corteva has genetically engineered a variety of maize using the gene editing technique CRISPR. This variety, known as waxy corn, originates in East and Southeast Asia where it is a major food crop. In the US it is a minor crop grown almost entirely for food starch and some industrial products.
Earth Minute: Global Day of Action Against False Solutions to Climate Change
As decision-makers develop recovery policies and investment plans, this day of action challenges leaders to go beyond recovery to a future where zero waste practices drive clean air and water, more and better jobs, and a healthy environment for our families and communities, where nothing and no one is wasted.
Earth Minute: Indigenous Activist Murdered in Honduras
Another Indigenous activist has reportedly been killed this week in Honduras. Cerros Escalante was an anti-dam activist and part of the Honduras’ Lenca Indigenous community. Escalante is yet another example of the danger of being an Indigenous organizer taking on big companies and governments over the destruction of Indigenous lands.
Earth Minute: Pandemics & Deforestation
This month marks the one year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic, following a grim milestone of half a million deaths in the United States alone. As we learn more about the origins of Covid-19, the link between deforestation and public health has become clear.
Global Justice Media News
Washington Post: A story of slavery-and space
In 2016, GJEP took part in a series of community seminars organized by World Rainforest Movement on industrial tree plantations and GE trees around Sao Luis in Maranhao, Brazil the region where a US space center is currently planned to be expanded. This article gives an important history of the exploitation in the region and its link to the US space program.
POLITICO Article on the Dangers of Biomass
Here’s a multibillion-dollar question that could help determine the fate of the global climate: If a tree falls in a forest—and then it’s driven to a mill, where it’s chopped and chipped and compressed into wood pellets, which are then driven to a port and shipped across the ocean to be burned for electricity in European power plants—does it warm the planet?
GRAIN Report on “Net Zero” and Greenwashing
Corporations are, without a doubt, the number one obstacle to meaningful action on the climate crisis. These almighty actors have spent the past two decades undermining scientific consensus, blocking meaningful legislation and greenwashing their own responsibility. Even the last ditch Paris Agreement, with its lame voluntary commitment to keep the world to a still disastrous 1.5 degrees of warming, has done nothing to stop corporate greed from taking the planet to the brink.
Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees
GJEP coordinates the Campaign to STOP GE Trees, a national and international alliance of organizations that have united towards prohibiting the ecologically and socially devastating release of genetically engineered [GE or genetically modified] trees into the environment
The mission of the Campaign to Stop GE Trees is to protect forests and biodiversity, and provide support to communities threatened by the dangerous release of genetically engineered trees. This year we’re celebrating 21 years of movement building work to spread the word about the threat of GE trees. We’re coordinating a national alliance of organizations, scientists, Indigenous peoples and others who have come together with the goal of protecting wild forests, biodiversity and communities from GE trees. Join us as we build our movement to stop the dangerous release of GE trees.
Recent Media Coverage
Health Canada Proposes to Remove Regulation for Some GMOs
Lucy Sharratt is the Coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), which brings together 16 groups to research, monitor and raise awareness about issues relating to genetic engineering in food and farming. CBAN is a project on the shared platform of MakeWay Charitable Society and a member of the national and international Campaign to Stop GE Trees.
Organizational Spotlight
GJEP enables small non-profits to focus their energy on their important work by acting as a fiscal sponsor. This helps them minimize bureaucracy so they can focus on their missions. These groups are doing crucial work for ecological and social justice, forest protection and human rights and include BiofuelWatch, North American Megadams Resistance Alliance, Vermont Street Medics, A Center for Grassroots Organizing, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, and REDD-Monitor.
Center for Grassroots Organizing
The Center for Grassroots Organizing is a project for helping organize mass social movements. This means space where people from different fields can spend time together, share resources, get creative, and build collaborative strategy. A place for the explosion of radical youth leadership to feel at home and skill-up as organizers. A place to apply our dedication to racial justice with boots on the ground and proactively sharing resources. A place for all of us to connect with the farming and agricultural community, to reconfigure our relationship with our unstable food systems in readiness for the impacts of climate change. A place to work on defending the natural world from the impositions of the corporate world.
For more information visit: https://www.grassrootscenter.net
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