In April 2007, the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council authorized the European Commission to negotiate new free trade agreements with India, South Korea, South-East Asian nations, Central America and the Andean countries. The EU is now using Association Agreements and the creation of free trade areas as mechanisms to ensure access to energy resources and raw materials and the opening of markets for European companies.

Whilst European business and industry appear to have been extensively involved in consultations about Global Europe, civil society groups and social movements have hardly been involved at all. There is a lack of clear information about the Global Europe agenda, making it hard for civil society organizations in the global South to resist it.

what happened?

Friends of the Earth International worked to raise awareness and share ideas about Global Europe among social movements, grassroots organizations, NGOs and the public. Another important goal was to stimulate collective analysis among FoE International groups, and encourage them to get involved in the network’s Economic Justice-Resisting Neoliberalism (EJRN) program, especially its activities around the Global Europe strategy.

FoE International made a publication focusing on Global Europe. This brought together information already published by FoE groups and new articles written from a regional perspective. It contained a synthesis of the Global Europe Maps produced by FoE Latin America and the Caribbean.

Articles in the publication analyzed Global Europe’s implications for food sovereignty, and the potential impacts of liberalizing services and finance. It also considered the EU’s raw materials initiative. The publication covered the specific Association Agreements with Central America and the Caribbean states and current developments in Africa and Asia.

It also included perspectives from European social movements and organizations, who are also rejecting the Global Europe strategy, as it does not respond to the needs and aims of European citizens, but to the interest of corporations. The publication exposed how the strategy will affect people and the environment in Europe.

3,000 copies were printed: 1,500 in English and 1,500 Spanish, for distribution among social movements and organizations at relevant national and international fora. The Spanish edition was distributed at a regional seminar on Public Cooperation Agreements organized by Red Vida (the Inter-American Network for the Defense of the Right to Water). Organizations and trade unions from Perú, Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia received the publication, as well as Uruguayan MPs.

what next?

The publication will be launched at a series of key events in several Latin American countries, including a seminar in Montevideo with the participation of Members of the Mercosur Parliament.

The EJRN program will continue to expose the Global Europe strategy and associated Economic Partnership Agreements and Association Agreements. FoE International will work to raise awareness, build alliances, and influence decision-making both in Europe and in the Southern countries.

Promoted within the framework of the Initiative for the Integration of the South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA), to further the interests of transnational corporations and other powerful economic actors, these kinds of development have multiple negative impacts on cultural and biological diversity, and threaten local communities’ lands and livelihoods.

Meanwhile, communities in the Basin are also affected by the corporate-led expansion and consolidation of agribusiness, which is robbing them of their food, energy and territorial sovereignty.

what happened?

FoE Paraguay / Sobrevivencia worked with social movements such as Via Campesina and community organizations from the Basin to develop joint campaigns around food sovereignty. Activities included organizing a series of capacity building and training modules on social and environmental issues.

FoE Paraguay also played an active part in the Seminar on Native Seeds, organized by Vía Campesina Paraguay. They were also key players in the creation of the Guaraní Latinamerican Agroecology Institute (IALA Guaraní), an initiative of Via Campesina Paraguay and Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (the Movimento dos Trabalhadore Rurais Sem Terra or MST). Sobrevivencia supports IALA Guaraní as a member of its coordination and advisory teams.

FoE Paraguay also worked closely with the women from Via Campesina, and CONAMURI (the national coordination of indigenous and rural women in Paraguay), who are fighting to defend local and native seeds as peoples’ common heritage and a lively expression of peoples’ collective identity and dignity. A seminar on the Rights of Rural and Indigenous Women and Food Sovereignty enabled the voices of the women to be heard, and helped to raise public awareness of the problems indigenous and rural women face as a consequence of the expansion of monocultures and the use of dangerous agricultural chemicals.  

what changed?

Working collectively meant that new tools were incorporated into social-environmental campaigning, allowing campaigns to reach many more people. Environmental issues were put on the agenda of social organizations and communities.

The creation of IALA Guaraní means that young peasants, Indigenous People and afro descendants are now able to access university education. In time, this will lead to the emergence of a new generation of politically engaged professionals and leaders, who are able to transform their communities’ situations by reclaiming their ancestral wisdom, developing new agroecological farming methods, and changing power relations within Paraguay.

with thanks to our funders: the sigrid rausing trust

One such project is the Garabi dam, planned for the upper Uruguay River which also borders Argentina and Paraguay. If built, this dam would turn the river into a series of ponds, flood nearly 33,000 hectares of inhabited land, and choke water supplies to downstream Uruguay.

what happened?

Friends of the Earth Brazil / Núcleo Amigos da Terra supported the mobilization of civil society to resist the Garabi dam.  They worked with local organizations from Argentina and Brazil to alert people to the likely impacts of the project. Key partners included social organizations from the cities of Santa Rosa and Porto Xavier in Brazil, and the Movimiento de Afectados por Represas (Movement of Peoples Affected by Dams), a member of Vía Campesina in Brazil. They held meetings to strengthen coordination among trade unions, social organizations, environmental groups and Members of Parliament.

FoE Brazil also produced a popular education publication, together with the NGO AREDE from Santa Rosa.

lessons learned

Working closely with the Movement of Peoples Affected by Dams was an important learning experience, reinforcing FoE Brazil’s appreciation of how mobilizing with affected communities strengthens campaigns.

It is also important to mention that peasant women active in the rural trade unions since 2007 have started to mobilize against mega dams in coordination with the social and environmental organizations.

what next?

FoE Brazil will continue to engage with social organizations to denounce the social and environmental impacts that would result from the construction of dams in the Uruguay River, and will continue to hold public screenings of the documentary and to distribute copies.

what happened?

Federación Amigos de la Tierra Argentina / Friends of the Earth Argentina is collaborating with other organizations around the word who have formed a new and vibrant international movement challenging the corporate control of this precious resource, and defending water as a public good and an inalienable right.

Visitors to the park on those days were able to enjoy ten different activities, all of which had been designed to convey messages about healthy natural water and some of the problems associated with its management. Professional artists gave performances using stilts and juggling, magic and mime, violins and flutes, murals, cartoons, stories and more, and all the activities were carefully sequenced to allow visitors arriving at different times to enjoy them all. Extra information was available in many different forms too – oral, written and illustrated.

what changed?

Visitors to the park enjoyed finding out about people’s right to water in a novel way. They came away from AGUARTE inspired and informed about the use of and access to water, water quality, community management, and the sale of water. They also found out about the social, ecological, political and economic dimensions of water use. This project in Argentina is another example of activities coordinated within the Blue October campaign by FoE member groups in Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Malta, Denmark, Finland, France, UK, Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Nigeria, and FoE affiliate groups like the Council of Canadians and the Corporate Europe Observatory, effectively contributing to build the movement of people demanding access to water as a human right.

lessons learned

A comprehensive and colorful 35-minute audio-visual record of the event was made, for other groups to use and learn from. This has already been shared with other organizations around the world, when it was shown at the International Conference of Affected People in Honduras, November 2008.

ATALC has become a recognized body bringing forward a social-environmentalist perspective among social movements in the region, with a visible role in spaces like the Americas Social Forum. ATALC groups also have sub-regional campaigns, such the EU-Central American free trade negotiations (involving FoE groups in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica), plantations and pulp mills in the Southern Cone (involving groups in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil), and the building of climate affected peoples movements in Central America and the Andes.

ATALC groups host coordinators in all FoEI programs and represent a vision from the South in FoEI activities.

Read about their achievements on the national and regional levels in 2008 by clicking on the links to the left.

The scale of the problem is massive, but information on current and potential impacts of huge plantations is quite scarce in the region — or at least seldom reaches local communities or social movements and organizations.

what happened: To confront this considerable threat, Friends of the Earth Brazil / Núcleo Amigos da Terra identified the need to design and implement new communication strategies, to tell the public about the socio-environmental impacts of expanding exotic trees monocultures in the Pampas region in Rio Grande do Sul state.

The group produced a booklet to raise awareness about the impacts of the agri-business model, and present alternatives for sustainable production to farmers and rural population of the region.  They gathered available printed materials on the impacts of such developments, information about the Pampas's history and culture, and incorporated information from a debate on alternatives at the May 2008 seminar, “Pampa and Sustainability: The Pursuit of Productive Options.”

The completed booklet, titled “Disputed Pampas: Biodivesity Threatened by the Expansion of Tree Monocultures”, was reproduced in 2,800 copies that reached more than 10.000 people. Recipients included rural producers, experts and politicians of the region. The booklet was written in Portuguese as well as Spanish, which allowed for its distribution in Uruguay and Argentina too.

what is changing: A key result of the publication was the spread of ideas and examples for sustainable production  — some of which resulted from the debate at the above-mentioned seminar. Thus a number of rural communities became informed about alternative production and income generation, as well as exotic tree plantations impacts.

The various steps entailed in creating the booklet also helped increased FoE Brazil’s capacity to address this major social-environmental conflict. It allowed FoE Brazil to expand their capacity and knowledge on deforestation and pulp production impacts, as well as alternatives for the Pampas. This will help campaigners’ reinforce arguments they use in the struggle against expansions of monoculture plantations.

This project also proved useful at the FoE Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) meeting in Porto Alegre in June 2007. The booklet was distributed, and FoE Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay’s strategies to halt the construction of pulp mills in the Pampas were discussed.

what we learned: This project underlined the value of communication strategies and capacity, and reaching wider audiences, as key aspects in campaigning against a dominant development model.

FoE Brazil also learned that people must revisit their collective history and culture if they are to better resist what is being imposed on them and their territories.  Information about alternatives to exotic tree plantations is also vital, if people are to recognize feasible options in the face of the current overwhelming development model. It is also important to realize that putting alternatives in place depends on the political will of government officials and institutions.

what next: For the near future is crucial to advance the development of sustainable alternative production systems, by exerting pressure on the government of Rio Grande do Sul and the governments of the region, as well as on national and international institutions. Continued awareness raising and capacity building will also be crucial.

Some current plans include strengthening skills and sharing experiences among FoE groups in the region, and from there coordinating new actions within the framework of Friends of the Earth International's campaign against forestry monocultures.

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs

Peru’s government lacks the capacity to adequately supervise or monitor the project, or to ensure its revenues fund sustainable development. Moreover, the gas is to be exported, rather than used to enhance Peru’s energy security. This makes the project’s developers (Hunt Oil of the USA, Pluspetrol of Argentina, Repsol of Spain, and others) its main beneficiaries, leaving Peruvians to suffer the costs.

Working to oppose the Camisea Gas Project since 2005, Friends of the Earth Peru / Asociación Civíl Labor has sought to inform the public about their social, environmental and cultural rights in the face of Camisea’s development. They also aimed to expose the Peruvian Government and Interamerican Development Bank’s (IDB’s) flawed appraisal of the project, and to raise social and environmental standards for the companies involved.

what happened: FoE Peru is facilitating a coalition of Peruvian NGOs, called Citizen’s Action on Camisea (Acción Ciudadana – Camisea; www.accionciudadanacamisea.org), to pressure the state, international financial institutions (IFIs) and companies involved to raise the project’s standards. The first months of FoE Peru’s project consisted of research and analysis, leading to  reports on: affected Indigenous peoples’ vulnerability; Peru’s fossil fuel policy; and national energy security. This information was presented to the IDB during an August 2007 public hearing on human rights in Lima.

FoE Peru also carried out a public education campaign throughout 2007 in Cuzco, located in the region where Camisea gas is to be extracted, during the period that new loans were being negotiated for Camisea’s second phase. FoE Peru sought to inform the public about the advantages of using natural gas domestically (rather than exporting it), and why gas is preferable to more costly and polluting oil. Their media and arts campaign pressured local authorities to undertake a cost-benefit analysis on gas use in Cuzco.

what is changing: The campaign generally increased awareness about Camisea Phase II, both nationally and internationally. Parliamentarians, IDB officials, Peruvian engineers and civil society said that they benefited from FoE Peru’s information. In Cuzco this translated into local people wishing to gain control over Camisea’s gas, and to see Peru’s national oil and gas policy reflect social and environmental imperatives.

FoE Peru also ensured that the voice of local communities was heard, by reflecting their opinions in proposals to the IDB, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, the Peruvian state and the companies involved. Importantly, this work resulted in the condition that a Peruvian Environment Ministry be created, and a commitment made to undertake studies to safeguard national energy security. Citizen’s Action on Camisea, coordinated by FoE Peru, is now a recognized and respected entity which participates in various high-level fora, including IDB Hearings and parliamentary meetings.

The Congressional committee tasked with investigating Camisea integrated parts of FoE Peru’s reports into their Pipeline Audit. The group’s reports were also used at an October 2007 hearing at the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights. However, this commission will likely fail to extend precautionary measures to protect affected Indigenous peoples, to denounce irregularities on pipeline audits, or set conditions for the IFI loans extended to build Camisea Phase II.

Through this project FoE Peru developed a series of new allies, and a deeper understanding and analysis of the importance of using natural gas domestically in the southern region. The project also strengthened their capacity to carry out advocacy campaigns, fortified their alliances with local groups across the country, and built the capacity of civil society to deal with emblematic cases like Camisea.

what we learned: Due to an unforseen political situation which led to demonstrations and strikes in Cuzco, FoE Peru had to postpone its public awareness campaign there. This was a lesson on the importance of flexible planning in the face of a changing political context.

with thanks to our funders: the c.s. mott foundation