Global Justice Ecology Project has re-released our 1998 film “Lacandona: The Zapatistas and Rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico.” The film describes the efforts by the Indigenous-led Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) to protect their rainforest homeland from logging, oil exploitation and other abuses.  This film has become increasingly relevant because of programs like REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) that are targeting forests on Indigenous lands for use as offsets, or other profit-oriented so-called “climate mitigation” schemes.

The interviews and footage for the film were shot in 1996 in Zapatista-held rebel territory in Chiapas, Mexico during the First North American Encuentro held by the Zapatistas.