Together with allied social movements including La Via Campesina (LVC) and the World March of Women (WMW), we aim to support women to resist, transform and mobilize, both at the local and international levels, to bring about the world they want to live in.

what happened

We recognize that the incorporation of a feminist perspective into a broad, multicultural federation such as FoEI is an ambitious task that will require time: we thus aim for a step-by-step approach. Some of the policies aimed at gender equity within FoEI have already been effective - in terms of responsibilities for coordination and participation at international meetings, for example.

But we are seeking more fundamental and far-reaching changes in the way that FoEI thinks and acts. In 2009, we focused on integrating a gender analysis into our programs on Food Sovereignty and Economic Justice-Resisting Neoliberalism (EJRN). We were in close contact with WMW in the run up to FoEI’s Food Sovereignty Program meeting in April 2009, for example, and able to learn from WMW and LVC gender perspectives during that gathering. FoEI was also invited to participate in WMW’s Second Regional Encounter in the Americas, in August 2009, in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Members of Friends of the Earth also participated in La Escuela de Formación de Dirigentas (a school for women leaders) organized by the Coordinadora de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC) and Via Campesina del Cono Sur, in Paraguay, in July 2009.

Overall, the gender coordinators are working to develop both theoretical and practical proposals that will help FoEI to develop its understanding and practice in relation to gender issues, as quickly and effectively as possible. A document on how to work from a gender perspective has already been completed and circulated internally.

Friends of the Earth Uruguay/REDES has been particularly active in promoting FoEI’s focus on gender, in terms of supporting the international coordination of this complex and cross-cutting issue, providing conceptual contributions, and engaging actively at the national level.

In June 2009, this included publication of a book “Estamos rodead@s: agronegocios, derechos humanos y migracione: el caso Uruguayo.”  This considers the impacts of forest monocultures and soya on the displacement of rural populations, with a special emphasis on the consequences for human rights and gender relations. The book was also presented at a roundtable at the University of the Republic of Uruguay in November 2009.

FoE Uruguay also drafted numerous papers on food sovereignty and gender concerns including a report on the role of rural women in the defense of food sovereignty, based on investigation and interviews with women from la Red de Grupos de Mujeres Rurales (the Network of Rural Women) with whom they are developing a strong working relationship.

what changed

Building links with LVC and WMW has been very productive, both in terms of deepening our shared understanding of the gender/feminist perspective, its links to neoliberal economic globalization, and its relevance for FoEI’s work. We have exchanged ideas and perspectives, learned from each other, and inspired each other to move forward with our own and collaborative efforts in coming years.

This growing partnership has also been effective in engaging the interest of FoEI member groups, especially some of those participating in the Food Sovereignty and EJRN Programs. Many participants committed to taking forward concrete projects and actions integrating gender concerns in their existing campaigns. There is an increasing awareness that it is not possible to ‘change the system’ without incorporating an analysis of gender concerns, along with those of class, race, etc.

FoE Uruguay’s long-term commitment to collaborative work with la Red de Grupos de Mujeres Rurales is an excellent illustration of the way forward. All those involved deepened their understanding of the real world implications of differentiated gender impacts. The links between local communities, those working at the national and international levels, and people living in working in other countries have also significantly improved. These benefits were eloquently expressed by women from the Red de Grupos de Mujeres Rurales during an external evaluation of FoEI’s work.

what next

FoEI aims to extend and deepen its collaborative work around gender concerns and the feminist perspective. Such efforts could include inviting and supporting the women from the Movement of Victims Affected by Climate Change (MOVIACC) to participate in the combined work of FoEI, LVC and WMW; fundraising for further collaborative efforts; participating in LVC’s campaign on violence against women; and a joint meeting of FoEI, LVC and WMW in 2010.

Specific projects such as the FoEI Food Sovereignty “Cook Book” are also underway. When complete the Cook Book will include testimonies, recipes, and information about food sovereignty, with contributions invited from FoEI members and our allies, including organizations members of LVC.

Other proposals include a study of the impact of agribusiness on productive and reproductive relationships at the local level; and research into family farming and how to fight climate change (an idea elaborated together with organizations from LVC and WMW).

Photo credit: Ramesh Soni

• In January 2009, FoE Indonesia sent a complaint to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, following the Australian government’s failure to fulfil a promise to respond directly to Indonesian organizations challenging the activities of Australian mining companies. FoE Indonesia has compiled a dossier detailing the involvement of numerous Australian mining companies in environmental destruction and human rights violations.

• In February 2009, communities in Guatemala asked the legislature and the Ministry of Energy and Mines to issue a moratorium on mining licenses of all types, until reforms to the Mining Act are agreed with them. Social organizations in the affected municipalities claim that current amendments to the document do not provide for community interests. 

• Also in February, and after years of being marginalized in relation to decisions about their ancestral lands, the Subanon people on Mindanao island came another step closer to asserting control over their territory. Their lands are currently being exploited by TVI Resource Development Phils (TVIRDI), a subsidiary of Canadian mining company TVI Pacific. Around 20 Subanon Indigenous People and farmers living within the TVIRDI mining area in Mount Canatuan, the Subanon tribe’s sacred site, halted blasting and drilling activities at the Canadian company’s open-pit mining operation, after a successful occupation of the site. 

• In March 2009, the Ghana National Coalition on Mining, a group of communities affected by mining in Ghana and civil society organizations including FoE Ghana, opposed the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency, which had granted environmental permits to Newmont Ghana Gold Limited and Adamus Resources to conduct surface gold mining activities. 

• In September 2009, FoE Hungary published their first annual alternative report on the Hungarian Oil Company (MOL). The report held a mirror up to the company’s annual report and assessed the company’s activities in 2008. After examining company data, the authors gave examples showing that the company’s practices do not actually match up to its rhetoric. 

• Also in September, FoE Costa Rica, together with and as part of Costa Rica’s popular movement, participated in a visit to mining company Crucitas, organized by the Supreme Court of Costa Rica, which had suspended Crucitas’s mining permit. There is a risk that the Supreme Court will favor the mining company, in which case FoE Costa Rica plans more mobilizations across the country, to stop this mining company restarting its activities.

• Again in September, FoE Guatemala organized an international mission to verify violations of human, environmental and economic rights by mining transnational corporations operating in Guatemala, such as GoldCorp. The aim of the mission was to ensure that the voices of victims, who are criminalized in Guatemala, can be heard at the international level. Participants included FoE Uruguay, FoE El Salvador, and FoE Costa Rica, together with people from Amnesty International and others. 

Building strong networks and alliances against the mining and extractive industries is also a priority for the RMOG Program. For example, a new network in Colombia, the Colombian Network Against Mining, has been established to challenge transnational corporations operating in Colombia with the support of the Colombian government. One of the first acts of this network was to support the demands of workers and the population struggling against British Petroleum in Tauramena, Colombia.

Many other critical activities were also undertaken by the Federation in 2009. For example:

• In Nigeria, the Second National Consultation on the Environment, 25 - 26 November 2009, saw civil society leaders, community-based organizations, civil society organizations, development experts, academia, legal practitioners, the media and representatives of government agencies come together to consider a post-petroleum Nigeria. The event was organized by FoE Nigeria in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment.

• FoE Philippines and Alyansa Tigil Mina co-hosted a discussion on "Tracing the Gold, Tracing the Money," in Cagayan de Oro City on 29 June. The event was designed to give participants the knowledge and skills they need to find out how mining companies finance their activities and where they sell their products. This kind of research often reveals excellent intervention points for advocates wanting to stop mining operations in their localities.

• A new report from FoE Netherlands, "Mining Matters," which was published in June 2009, reviewed practices used in mining tin (in Indonesia, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burma), bauxite (Guinea and Jamaica), and copper (Chile, Peru, Zambia and Indonesia (Grasberg)). It also examined the policies of seven companies using imported metals in the Netherlands.

• Security forces arrested the director of FoE Indonesia and the Head of FoE Indonesia's Regional Department during a peaceful protest organized by FoE Indonesia and other NGOs together with fisherfolk organizations. The groups organized an event parallel to the World Ocean Conference (WOC) and Coal Triangle Summit 2009 which was held in Manado, Indonesia, 11-14 May. The peoples’ gathering was to draw the attention of WOC to small fisherfolks’ concerns – especially their call to ban the dumping of tailing minings into the sea - and to demand that these concerns be put on the WOC’s agenda.

• In 2009 Young FoE Norway’s priority campaign was against oil drilling off the beautiful Lofoten Islands, home to the world’s largest stock of cod and biggest cold water coral reef. They started several local groups in a network called "O`olkaction against oil drilling outside the Lofoten Islands." They also took a group of representatives from political youth parties out to the Lofoten Islands for one week, to highlight the fact that there are other possibilities besides drilling for oil in Northern Norway. 

• FoE France has published a synthesis report "Public subsidies to fossil fuels in France and the European Union," which reveals that the wealthy oil industry benefited from French subsidies of over €400 million between 2004 and 2008, mainly in the form of export guarantees. FoE’s research also shows that €6 billion of European money has been given to the fossil fuel industry over the past five years. 

The main areas of work of the program are:

• Community Resistance
• Campaign Against Corporations
• Policies and Mechanisms that Promote Mining, Oil and Gas
• Decreasing Consumption to Stop Demand for Mining, Oil and Gas

coordinators and participants

Co-coordinator: Natalia Atz Sunuc, FoE Guatemala
Co-coordinator: Romel Cardenas de Vera, FoE Philippines

The RMOG steering group includes:

• For Africa, Chima Williams, FoE Nigeria
• For APac, Natalie Lowrey, Australia
• For ATALC, Andres Idarraga, Colombia
• For Europe, Geert Ritsema, Netherlands
• For North America, Adina Matisoff, FoE USA

This is a new FoEI program and the co-coordinators and steering group are still in the processing of developing and implementing a fully-fledged strategy and workplan. Groups that have expressed an interest in participating include: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curacao, El Salvador, FoE Europe, EWNI, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Togo and the US.

The Forest and Biodiversity Program’s focus on strengthening and promoting sustainable local initiatives means that some of its key activities and successes occur at the national level. 

For example, in Uruguay, Friends of the Earth succeeded in a case against logging company ENCE for misleading advertising and destruction of native forests in Uruguay. We successfully halted construction of the controversial pulp and paper mill proposed by ENCE, who had been planning to invest US$1,500 million. The company was financially sanctioned and then decided to sell its land and leave the country. We also supported a local community in Uruguay to sue a company that was going to plant genetically modified soybeans in an area rich in family and organic farming.

In Malaysia, Friends of the Earth has also filed a lawsuit to save a water-catchment forest on the Jerai mountain in Kedah, from a quarry project that has been illegally approved by the State Government. The communities located in the foothills of the mountain depend on the mountain’s rivers for water supply for domestic use and to irrigate their rice fields.

The Forests and Biodiversity Program is also focused on challenging and changing intergovernmental policies that already or potentially could contribute to the destruction of forests and biodiversity, in forums such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the World Forestry Congress.

For example, the Forests and Biodiversity program participated in the CBD’s High-level Working Group on the 2010 biodiversity target and post-2010 target(s), which took place 11 March 2009 in Bonn, Germany. FoEI successful persuaded governments to inorporate a number of key paragraphs into the final 2010 Biodiversity Targets document (even though it still generally favors the dominant vision of mercantilization and commercialization).

Collaborative side and parallel events during intergovernmental forums have also been extremely successful in raising civil society’s concerns and challenging government perspectives. The joint efforts of FoEI's Forests and Biodiversity, CJE and EJRN programs, together with key allies such as the Global Forest Coalition, has helped to ensure that a number of governments, such as Bolivia and Paraguay, have voiced their concerns about the potential negative impacts of policies on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), especially if REDD is used to support plantations and is funded through carbon markets. The subsequent REDD draft reflected these concerns. 

A key element in this effort was a side event on the potential impacts of REDD on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and biodiversity and the risks of genetically engineered (GE) trees, on 3 June, parallel to the meetings of the Subsidiary Bodies to the UNFCCC in Bonn. This was co-organized with the Global Forest Coalition and the International Alliance on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forest. Many FoEI member groups have also been enabled to participate in national REDD policy discussions currently underway.

Similarly, a three-day capacity-building event on the impacts of tree plantations was organized prior to the World Forestry Congress, 16-18 October, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, together with the World Rainforest Movement, the Global Forest Coalition and La Via Campesina Argentina. This event helped to build capacity and provide a space for more than 150 representatives of indigenous organizations, farmers’ movements and NGOs, enabling them to voice their concerns about the current forestry model and to propose alternative solutions on an international platform.

The Plantations Campaign and a delegation of ATALC groups also produced a video about the performance of Finnish pulp and paper company Stora Enso in Uruguay, and presented a photo exhibition on the impacts of cellulose/logging corporations in the Southern Cone of South America, which was exhibited at the World Forestry Congress.

FoEI is collating vital information about alternative approaches to forest management, which clearly demonstrate that community management of forests is a viable contribution to food sovereignty and community control of resources, and is already practised in many parts of the world. To this end, we published and distributed "Community-based Forest Governance: from resistance to proposals for sustainable use" in 2009.

We also highlighted local struggles and promoted alternative practices for sustainable livelihoods through a number of publications and statements. With FoE groups from Nigeria, Brazil, and Papua New Guinea, and the World Rainforest Movement, we compiled three detailed case studies that show the impact plantations have on women. These were launched to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March 2009, and celebrate women’s role in opposing plantations and fighting for a better world. On the back of these studies, and in collaboration with FoE France, the Forests and Biodiversity Program also initiated a campaign against Michelin’s destructive activities in Nigeria. FoE Liberia, FoE Cameroon and FoE Netherlands also produced a video on "Illegal Logging: African stories," which has so far been viewed 1,139 times on YouTube in addition to viewings via FoE websites.

In reaction to the alarming data released in the 2009 "State of the World’s Forests" report from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), FoEI and the Global Forest Coalition again called on world governments to stop promoting plantations, and to halt the conversion of forests into biofuel plantations. The FAO report notes that the expansion of large-scale monocultures of oil palm, soy and other crops for agrofuel production has been a key factor in the failure to halt deforestation, and that cellulosic biofuels could have further dramatic impacts. It also says illegal logging could increase due to the global economic crisis, if it leads to a contraction of the formal forestry sector.

The Forests and Biodiversity program, together with other FoEI programs, also collaborated with La Via Campesina to elaborate a declaration on the International Day of Action on Monoculture Tree Plantations on 21 September 2009. Various FoEI groups – including from France, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Colombia, Chile and Argentina – marked the day with a variety of actions.

The program also participated in the 2009 World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, co-hosting a workshop on plantations, market mechanisms and false solutions, with the Global Forest Coalition. 100 hundred people participated.

The Forest and Biodiversity Program’s working areas are:

• Plantations campaign
• Destructive logging campaign
• Community forest governance
• Biodiversity agenda
• Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD)

The Forest and Biodiversity Program currently works with the following FoEI Programs on cross-cutting themes:

• With the Economic Justice Resisting Neoliberalism Program -  the Plantations campaign
• With the Climate Justice and Energy Program, - the REDD campaign

Coordinators and participants

Coordinator: Isaac Rojas, FoE Costa Rica, isaac@coecoceiba.org
The Forests and Biodiversity Steering group includes:

• For APac: Shamila Arifin, FoE Malaysia
• For Europe: Danielle van Oijen, FoE Netherlands
• For ATALC: Eduardo Sanchez, FoE Argentina
• For Africa: discussion with African region is ongoing

Groups that participated actively in 2009 included Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Finland, France, Honduras, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Switzerland and Uruguay.

As a follow up of the FoEI Conference and workshops on Investor/State Dispute Settlement Mechanisms held in Montevideo, in 2007, FoE Uruguay launched the report, “People's sovereignty or corporate interests?". This homes in on the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), highlighting the way in which this World Bank mechanism is biased towards corporate interests. The report was presented several times in Bolivia, at the CEDIB (Bolivia’s center for documentation and information), at FTFC (the Factory Workers’ Union) in Cochabamba, and at Bolivia’s Press Federation in La Paz: it was received with great enthusiasm, and we succeeded in reaching out to more than 800 organizations. FoE Uruguay was also invited for an audience with senior officials at Bolivia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and representatives of the Solón Foundation. In May 2008, Bolivia became the first country in the world to withdraw from ICSID, and Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela seem prepared to follow its example.

FoE Cameroon published an assessment of the relevance of the different certification mechanisms within the context of Central African forests, in 2007. The main conclusions of this report (with regard to socio-economic aspects, corruption, participation and access to information) also fed into above-mentioned discussion on FLEGT’s Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs).

To do this more effectively, we focused on the use of innovative and mass means of communication, to disclose our research findings to a much wider audience than ever before, and to mobilize people to fight for environmental justice.

We have developed new ideas to convey our campaign messages in more innovative and creative ways; and used creative campaign tools so that people can understand and support our messages more easily. These included a series of video clips (community testimonies) and using YouTube to broadcast them to the public. We have also started to work with artists in designing strong visuals with a clear message.

‘Lost in Palm Oil’ is a documentary about the impacts of oil palm plantations on local communities in Indonesia, and the production, trade and consumption of palm oil. The documentary was screened (sometimes fully, sometimes partially) on TV and at film festivals. Many of these broadcasts reached out to audiences of more than 100,000 viewers. A list of TV broadcasts and slots in 2008 includes: Eenvandaag (Netherlands); ORF Weltjournal (Austria); TV Eco (Switzerland); French TV channel France 2; YLE (Finland); SWR Auslandsreporter, Phönix and NDR ARD (Germany); RTP (Portugal); TVN27 (Poland); TV2 (Finland); SVT (Sweden); Green Film Festival-Seoul (Korea); NHK (Japan); and the Berlin Film Festival (Germany). ‘Lost in palm oil’ was also screened at an alternative summit in Bali, Indonesia, during the United Nations climate talks (UNFCCC) in December 2007; and about 500 DVD copies of the film were circulated to communities in Indonesia (in Bahasa Indonesia). The DVD version is available in English, French, German and Bahasa.

For ‘Poison Fire’ FoEI contracted Lars Johansson to make a documentary about the impacts of oil in Nigeria, using a 'participatory approach' to film-making and at the same time training local community members in Nigeria to use video tools in their campaign activities. Poison Fire shows how increasing people’s capacity to advocate on their own behalf with video tools and skills led to exposing oil giant Shell’s violations of Nigerian law and the fact that it was ignoring court judgments in Nigeria.

Footage of the documentary was even aired by the Dutch investigative program 'Netwerk' and mainstream news program 'RTL news' in the years previous to the film’s formal launch.  A short film based on footage from Lars Johansson was produced with Element TV (a project focused on the UN millennium development goals) and broadcast on other MTV channels in 2007. Element was initially broadcast on three European MTV 'feeds' and in Israel, and was picked up for 'Switch', a global campaign for MTV which reached a potential audience of 1.5 billion viewers in 62 countries. Guardian films also used footage from Poison Fire (and took on board information exposed in the film) in a video report by The Guardian's George Monbiot (a renowned environmental writer and author of a number of bestselling books). The report focused on an interview with Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, and generated substantial debate on The Guardian newspaper’s website. A short version of the documentary was also aired on MTV and at the March 2008 Amnesty ‘Movies that Matter’ film festival in Amsterdam.

The film, which can be viewed online on various websites including its own, at www.poisonfire.org, also caused intense debate in Nigeria, where it has been screened to many local communities and policy makers. Nigerian lawmakers have watched it in special screenings and commented on it. A high policy committee annexed it to its report on the Niger Delta sent to the Nigerian President. It also had an impact on Shell; the company made direct references to the film in a Shell video online on www.shell.com. In 2008, the film-maker entered a co-production agreement with Danish production company Everest Pictures (Anders Ostergaard, the director of the highly successful documentary 'Burma VJ') which decided to finance a longer, more ambitious version of Poison Fire.

In February 2008, following up on a project which started in 2006, a map with details of 50 environmentally damaging and economically dubious infrastructure projects in Central and Eastern Europe was launched by CEE Bankwatch Network and FoE Europe. The projects are either already financed, or in preparation and likely to be financed by EU structural and cohesion funds and/or the European Investment Bank (EIB). FoE Europe continues to monitor the developments of these projects, raise public awareness and campaign to stop them.

To respond to various destructive projects in Southern and Eastern Africa, FoE South Africa and FoE Mozambique, together with the International Working Group on Oil, hosted the East and Southern African workshop in September 2008. Participation was from a variety of sectors that had close links to the daily reality on the ground: fishermen from Mauritius, Islamic clerics from rural Mozambique, community members from Lake Albert in Uganda, and rural community folk from Ethiopia, together with other representatives of social organizations and local communities from Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda, A number of participants also came from West African countries including Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Mali and Nigeria. Critically, community people shared the experience of their present struggles and considered how these struggles could provide a platform for articulating their efforts in the future.

FoEI continued, along with others around the world, to denounce the abuse by companies aiming to put Latin American governments under pressure. ATALC is monitoring the cases with ETI Telecom in Bolivia, RDC in Guatemala, Harken and other oil companies in Costa Rica, and Katoen Natie in Uruguay.

FoE groups in Europe and Latin America also worked together to address the impacts of European (mostly Scandinavian) pulp and paper producers in Latin America. At the European Social Forum, an exhibition exposing these impacts was displayed. Groups also worked together on a specific project relating to the Finnish company Botnia, and its activities in Uruguay. Several European investors, such as ING, decided not to finance the project as it has been highly controversial in Uruguay and Argentina and did not adhere to World Bank’s environmental standards.

In 2008, we also exposed the myth that fossil fuels are central to development. FoEI believes this assumption is misguided on both climate and development grounds, and subsidies to the fossil fuel sector must be ended. We challenged the Asian Development Bank during at its annual meeting in Madrid in May 2008. The ADB issues calls for clean energy investments to fight global warming, while providing massive financial support to dirty coal projects in Asia. Together with WEED, Oil Change International and APMDD Jubilee South, we produced a concise argument about the link between oil and poverty, which was distributed at the 2008 ADB annual meeting, the Netherlands conference in July 2008 on ‘The Future of the World Bank,’ and at the national level.

FoEI had a strong presence at several international events in 2008. We also supported the participation of community representatives and civil society organizations from the South in many international events, giving them an opportunity to publicize their experiences and struggles.

Some of the events in 2008 included:

• the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank
• the spring and annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank
• UN Framework Convention for Climate Change meetings
• UN Convention for Biological Diversity meetings
• MOVIAC’s meetings
• Via Campesina´s 5th International Conference
• the EU-Latin American Summit and the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Corporations
• the III Americas Social Forum
• the European Social Forum 2008
• meetings of the Latin American Network on Dams

In 2009, FoEI’s advocacy efforts in the area of economic justice contributed to several positive developments in the EU, the OECD, the UN and a number of countries, regarding corporate practices that threaten the environment, human rights, and people's livelihoods. They have variously helped to influence policies and policy dialogue, and to strengthen civil society.

For example, through the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ), which FoEI is a very active member of, the EJRN Program has developed legal proposals for corporate accountability and to improve OECD guidelines. The OECD now plans to revise its guidelines for multinational companies in order to improve them.

The EJRN Program has also been successful in its efforts to persuade the EU to improve its policies and practices with respect to human rights, international trade, and corporate regulation. The EU has finally started research into improving protections for developing country citizens, against the negative impacts of EU-based business.
  
EJRN also developed proposals for the EU and G-20 to regulate both EU lobbying and the financial sector. This included a campaign for the implementation of an EU lobby registry, which has now been implemented, although it only calls for voluntary registration. FoE is now pushing for this registry to be made mandatory, and together with ALTER EU has published research on current low levels of participation in the register and insufficient data quality ("The Commission's Lobby Register One Year On: Success or Failure?").

Friends of the Earth also filed a complaint with the European Commission arguing that the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), the main lobby group of the chemical industry in Brussels, had falsified its lobby expenditure report. The European Commission agreed with our conclusions and deemed CEFIC's lobby registration inaccurate and in breach of the code of conduct. The Commission temporarily suspended CEFIC and asked it to correct its stated lobby budget.

FoE also won a case with the European Ombudsman, challenging a case of conflict of interest, concerning EU officials that accepted gifts from companies that they were supervising. The EU is now preparing new rules concerning EU officials and conflicts of interest.  

A successful multilingual, easy-to-use cyberaction also saw 381 parliamentary candidates, including 75 MEPs-elect from 16 countries, signing pledges on lobby transparency and ethics, trade policy, financial market rules and corporate accountability.

As part of its ‘Global Europe’ campaign, the EJRN Program continued to support and strengthen civil society organizations representing Indigenous communities and local communities impacted by these policies. In 2009, this included calling for the suspension of the EU-Peru trade negotiations particularly over concerns about human rights violations. FoE also supported a delegation of representatives of Indigenous Peoples from Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, who toured European capitals to publicize the impacts of mining and biofuels. Although the EU-Peru negotiations have not yet been suspended, this collaborative campaign has so far resulted in a commitment from the European Commission that the negotiated Associated Agreement with Peru will not contain any provision which would be detrimental to the rights of indigenous people; and will contain proposals that guarantee that trade and economic development respect the environment, as well as a binding human rights clause.  

A focused effort to persuade Shell in particular to improve its business practices continues to be a priority for the EJRN Program. This has included support to FoE Nigeria in its campaign to expose the harmful nature of gas flaring. Shell's Utorogu Gas Plant and Chevron’s Escravos Gas Plant are the main sources of gas that feed the West African Gas Pipeline Project (WAGP) financed by the World Bank and its private sector insurance arm, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). FoE Nigeria's research and consultation with local communities revealed the harmful health impacts of processing a local cassava snack which is dried directly from the heat emitted from the flared gas. As a result, local residents raised the issue with the government and the campaign contributed to the decision by the Foreign Minister to publicly commit to enforcing the ban on gas flaring as of January 2010. FoE Nigeria has also prepared a lawsuit against ENI, an Italian gas company, for gas flaring.  

Efforts in Nigeria have been complemented by campaigning at the international level. FoEI collaborated with several organizations to publish "Shell's Big Dirty Secret," which documents Shell's continued investment in the dirtiest forms of energy and its position as the world's most carbon intensive oil company. An OECD complaint filed by FoE Netherlands resulted in a commitment by Shell to improve its oil depot in the Philippines and its communication with surrounding communities, but Shell refused to engage on the most crucial element of the case, relocation of an oil depot.

On 3 December the Netherlands-based court case against Shell got under way in The Hague. The case has been brought by three Nigerian communities and FoE Netherlands/Miluedefensie over oil pollution in Nigeria. Shell asked the court to rule that the Dutch court has no jurisdiction over Shell Nigeria, but on 30 December the court held that the Dutch court does have jurisdiction. Given that Shell has now lost this point, an important hurdle has been overcome, and the 'real' lawsuit can begin. This is the first time in history that a Dutch company has been brought to trial in a Dutch court for damages occurring abroad.

In the US, the ShellGuilty campaign launched by FoEI, Oil Change and Platform London, finally saw justice done when Shell was forced to pay US$15.5 million in an out-of-court settlement for its complicity in the 1995 murder of nine Nigerian activists who opposed its gas flaring, under the US Alien Tort Statute.

Among the many national campaigns that fall under the umbrella of the EJRN Program, FoE Uganda's efforts to stop or improve the Bujagali dam has been very effective. Bujagali Electricity Limited (BEL) and the Ugandan government have revized their compensation policies and procedures for communities affected by the construction of a dam on the River Nile that is financed by World Bank and the African Development Bank. Bujagali Electricity Limited is now providing water tanks to communities affected by the dam and those affected by the transmission line have been promised electricity to their homes. FoE Uganda has also succeeded in submitting a legal case against Lafarge group (a mining company) for illegal mining operations in Queen Elizabeth National Park, a 1,978 square kilometer protected area.

Friends of the Earth has also succeeded in getting the world’s largest steel company, Arcelor-Mittal to make some improvements to its operations in India, South Africa, and Liberia. In collaboration with several other organizations including Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance, Karaganda Ecological Museum in Kazakhstan and the Sustainable Development Institute in Liberia, we published a report on the company's operations operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, India, Liberia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Romania and the Czech Republic. The report, "Arcelor-Mittal: Going nowhere slowly - A review of the global steel giant's environmental and social impacts in 2008-2009," looks at the company's current practices and makes concrete recommendations to management, shareholders, International Financial Institutions and local and national authorities. FoEI also participated in shareholder meetings of ArcelorMittal and a community meeting with the board; and sent a fact finding mission to Liberia, with seven national and European media representatives, to investigate the company’s environmental, social and human rights impacts.

In 2009, the UN adopted the Ruggie Framework for Business and Human Rights, in response to pressure to improve its oversight of corporate behavior, from civil society groups including Friends of the Earth International. In a Joint NGO statement, a group of NGOs including FoEI congratulated the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises, whilst agreeing with him that the “international community is still in the early stages of adapting the human rights regime to provide more effective protection to individuals and communities against corporate-related human rights harms.” The Human Rights Council must now broaden the focus beyond the elaboration of the ‘protect, respect, and remedy’ framework, to include an explicit capacity to examine situations of corporate abuse.

The EJRN Program was also very successful in strengthening the impact of hundreds of community individuals and activists across the world, including through:

• Friends of the Earth's Third Annual Latin American Sustainability School, which trained 40 activists from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,  Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.   

• The Asia Pacific Workshop on Economic Justice and Strategic Planning for Campaigns, which trained 25 activists from Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste. 

• Community exchanges between communities in Central America affected by climate change (120 individuals attended), between communities throughout Latin America affected by agribusiness (150 individuals), and between communities in Africa affected by Arcelor-Mittal's mining operations. 

• Supporting FoEI representatives to attend EU conferences on corporate social responsibility, transparency with respect to lobbying, and meetings with members of the European Parliament. This included a delegation of FoEI representatives from Central American to the European Parliament, to testify to the behavior of European companies in Latin America.

• On-going technical assistance for civil society organizations in the South campaigning against harmful corporate practices. This assistance has facilitated joint North-South work on many European companies including Stora Enso, Shell, Arcelor Mittal, Monsanto, ENI, and Wilmar. 

Many other publications and other communications materials have been published including:

• "Global Europe: The tyranny of ‘free trade’ the European Way," which examined the negative consequences of Europe's shift away from a social-liberal foreign policy discourse to an approach that puts economic motivations front and center.  

• "Poison Fire," a video documentary exposing oil and gas abuses in Nigeria and featuring FoE Nigeria volunteers.

• "Would you Bank on Them?" a report on the biased composition of La Rosiere group, that advised the EU on policies to address the financial crisis, which was published in collaboration with SpinWatch, Corporate Europe Observatory and Lobby Control. 

• "A Captive Commission, the role of the financial industry in shaping EU regulation," a report on the biased composition of EU advisory groups in the financial sector. The findings of the report formed the substance of a FoE complaint to the EU Ombudsman. 

• "Public money for fossil fuels in the EU and in three EU member states," by Friends of the Earth, Oil Change International and PLATFORM.

• In the US, a written presentation was submitted to the Obama Administration committee reviewing Investor Protection Agreements, at the beginning of 2009.

• In addition, research and preparation of the upcoming publication "Calling the EU’s Bluff: Who are the real champions of biodiversity and traditional knowledge in the EU-Central American and EU-Community of Andean Nations Association Agreements?" was completed.

The EJRN Program working areas are:

• Global Europe. The objective is to expose the negative impacts and the corporate bias of the European Union’s ‘Global Europe’ agenda, and to counter trade and investment agreements that are likely to harm men and women and the environment. The ATALC region is very much involved in the Global Europe campaign, as is Friends of the Earth Europe, which has called on the EU to suspend trade negotiations with Peru and Honduras, especially after the killings of Indigenous People in Peru, and the military coup in Honduras. These violent events are indicative of the harmful effects that the EU’s Global Europe agenda can have on indigenous and local communities.

• Corporate Power: The objective is to expose and counter corporate crimes and their social, environmental and human rights impacts, specifically on women and men’s productive and reproductive activities. This campaign also aims to counter corporate influence over governments and institutions including international financial institutions, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). In particular, it seeks to develop and advocate for legal measures that give rights to women, men and communities, to protect themselves against corporate power. 

The EJRN Program is very much engaged in collaborative work with the other FoEI Programs. Cross-cutting areas, include the following:

• With the Forests and Biodiversity Program, EJRN is driving the Campaign against Plantations, currently focused on ATALC and some FoE Europe groups, and soon to include the African and APac regions. EJRN’s contribution is to contribute to the Plantations campaign by exposing and countering the role of relevant corporations, trade and investments; and to foster activities that enable communities to resist. 

• With the Resisting Mining Program, the EJRN is supporting concrete campaigns to stop the mining activities of certain companies such as Shell, Holcim and Arcelor Mittal.

• With the Climate Justice and Energy Program, EJRN is focusing on Climate and Finance, particularly building a common position at the federation level, including on carbon markets and the Clean Development Mechanism. EJRN is also involved in efforts to build the Movement of Victims and People Affected by Climate Change in Latin America (MOVIAC); and exposing and rejecting World Bank involvement in climate change, including through policies and programs to promote Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) and its Climate Investment Funds (CIFs).

• With the Food Sovereignty Program, EJRN is working to create a joint campaign against agribusiness companies worldwide. 

• Similarly, the EJRN Programme is contributing to the Agrofuels Campaign by exposing and countering the role of corporations, trade and investments.

Coordinators and participants

Co-coordinator: Sebastián Valdomir, FoE Uruguay, sebastian@redes.org.uy 

Co-coordinator: Anne van Schaik, FoE Netherlands, anne.van.schaik@milieudefensie.nl (until Sept 2009)
Corporates Campaign Coordinator: Paul de Clerck, FoE Netherlands, paul@milieudefensie.nl

The EJRN Steering Group includes:

• For ATALC: Grace García (FoE Costa Rica), Mario Godínez (FoE Guatemala) as alternate; 
• For Africa: Bobby Peek (FoE South Africa); 
• For Europe: Asad Rehman (FoE EWNI), Charly Poppe (FoE Europe) as alternate; 
• For the US: Karen Orenstein (FoE US); 
• For Asia Pacific: Hemantha Withanage (FoE Sri Lanka)

Groups that participated actively in the EJRN Program during 2009 included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, EWNI, FoE Europe, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, México, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leona, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Uruguay and the United States.

Photo: FoEI's Angry Mermaid Award targeted the worst corporate lobbyists around climate change in Copenhagen, December 2009. Naomi Klein and FoEI's Nnimmo Bassey helped to deliver the award at the ceremony.

In June 2008, just before FAO’s High Level Conference on World Food Security, organizations in the Nyeleni Forum launched the statement No More “Failures-as-usual”. In two weeks over 600 organizations and movements had signed the statement. This is a clear indication of the importance of the food sovereignty agenda and the need to promote concrete actions and policies to ensure its implementation.

To date, Nyeleni has inspired many crucial events on food sovereignty all over the world. Many local and regional governments are collaborating to apply its principles. Significant initiatives from national governments include those of ALBA and the Petro-Caribe Conference in Latin America; processes to include food sovereignty in the constitutions of Nepal, Bolivia and Ecuador; and the increased priority being given to peasant-based production by the government of Mali.

An excellent example of our work to empower communities is the Movement of Victims Affected by Climate Change in Central America (MOVIAC) initiative, which continued in 2009. As part of this, more than a hundred representatives of Central American movements, organizations and networks, met in June, in El Salvador. MOVIAC is an invaluable and inspirational component of the Affected Peoples Campaign. Many other FoEI member groups are now inspired to create similar national and regional grassroots movements with affected communities.

FoEI’s work with affected communities also included the Climate School: Building and Mobilizing Climate Justice, which took place on 24 March 2009, in Medellin, Colombia, within the framework of the actions against the Inter-American Development Bank’s 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting, also in Medellin. In addition, a series of community exchanges between communities in Central America has enabled 120 individuals to live in and exchange experiences with other communities challenged by climate change.

FoEI has also focused on developing and deepening key alliances, in order to contribute to building a diverse, effective and global movement for climate justice and energy sovereignty. For the CJE Program this has involved working closely with key social movements such as La Via Campesina and the World March of Women, throughout the year. In particular, we agreed to cohost a joint assembly at Klimaforum09 in Copenhagen, to advance the design of a political agenda that would allow us to move forward in mobilizing and organizing the defence of land. Additionally, we enhanced our cooperation with other coalitions and strategic alliances including Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, Jubilee South, the Global Forest Coalition, Jubilee South, the Durban Group, REDLAR and others.

Key moments in the evolution of these alliances in 2009 included:

• An event, "Talks between Environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples," at the World Social Forum, 31 January 2009, Belem do Para, Brazil. Organized by FoEI and the Global Forest Coalition, these strategic talks between Indigenous Peoples and environmentalists, with over 100 participants, allowed us to advance in the establishment of political agreements and strategic actions to build climate justice and to fight against the exploitation of nature.

• "Environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples united for Climate Justice," at the Foro Andino, in Colombia, 18-19 March 2009. Organized by Friends of the Earth, this event also strengthened the developing relationship between environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples from the Andean region including the U`wa, Wayuú, Nasa, Misak, Quichua and Aymara. The focus of the meeting was the impact of climate change on Indigenous Peoples’ lands and the need to move forward with a shared strategy and joint actions for climate justice.

• The 5th REDLAR Mesoamerican Conference, Boquete, Panama, 22-25 April 2009. FoE was able to promote the idea of combining Energy Sovereignty, Climate Justice and buen vivir  (literally ‘good living’) to the 264 representatives from Mesoamerica and other areas of the continent. This latter concept is central to the social movement and Indigenous Peoples in America, and is referred to as Abya Yala.

• 1st Continental Summit of Indigenous Women of Abya Yala and the 4th Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala, in Puno, Peru, 27-31 May 2009. Together with over 5,000 attendees, Friends of the Earth participated in talks, workshops and meetings at both summits. This was an excellent opportunity to contribute to the establishment of the concept of buen vivir and to strengthen ties and move forward with strategies for climate justice.

• Friends of the Earth also participated in the Asia Pacific Peoples’ Solidarity for Climate Justice organizing meeting, to contribute to preparations for the week of civil society activities that took place in parallel to the Bangkok UNFCCC intersessional meeting, 28 September to 9 October 2009.

• At the 1st International Climate Justice Tribunal, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 14-16 October 2009, FoEI presented a case about sugarcane cutters in South-western Colombia to the tribunal, contributing to the debate on environmental crimes, the climate and environmental debt. This case was the direct result of an international mission for the verification of agrofuels in Colombia, which FoEI organized in July 2009, with the participation of more than 40 international delegates. The mission visited five regions in Colombia which have been severely impacted by the expansion of sugar cane and palm oil to produce agrofuels.

• The months preceding COP-15 in Copenhagen involved extensive and improved collaboration with social movements - especially Via Campesina and the World March of Women - and other civil society organizations, around plans for Copenhagen, including the joint Klimaforum events, mobilizations and media work. FoEI also participated in Climate Justice Action preparations, and organized and participated in a Climate Justice Now! strategy meeting in Bangkok in October.

In 2009 FoEI's campaigning on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations involved the production and distribution of a substantial number of policy proposals and analyses in the run-up to COP-15 in Copenhagen. A new and rapidly developing focus in this respect is climate finance, a cross-cutting campaign being run with FoEI’s Economic Justice Resisting Neoliberalism (EJRN) program. We developed a robust position paper in collaboration with campaigners from the EJRN campaign, which formed the foundation for much of our campaigning before and during Copenhagen. FoEI also began to contribute to the climate finance debate within the climate justice movement. Nearly 10,000 copies of our climate finance materials, "Financing Climate Justice: Ensuring a Just Agreement on Climate Change," and "Financing Climate Justice: Summary of Demands and Ethical Criteria Matrix" were distributed in Copenhagen, in English, French and Spanish. FoEI’s ethical criteria matrix provides governments with a set of criteria for judging climate financing mechanisms proposed during negotiations.

Thousands of copies of our 2008 publication "REDD Myths: a critical review of proposed mechanisms to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries" were also re-printed and distributed in Copenhagen, as was "Voices from communities affected by climate change." In addition, 5,000 copies of the popular FoEI newspaper, "Climate Justice Times," were also distributed.  

The joint efforts of FoEI and key allies has helped to ensure that a number of governments, such as Bolivia, have officially voiced their concerns about the potential negative impacts of UNFCCC, World Bank and national policies to finance Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), especially if REDD is used to support plantations and is funded through carbon markets. As a result of lobbying by FoEI and allies, the UNFCCC’s REDD draft reflected these concerns. A key element in this effort was a side event on the potential impacts of REDD on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and biodiversity and the risks of GE trees, on 3 June, parallel to the meetings of the Subsidiary Bodies to the UNFCCC in Bonn. This was co-organized with the Global Forest Coalition and the International Alliance on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forest. Many FoEI member groups have also been informed and thus enabled to participate in national REDD policy discussions currently underway.

During the year we also produced a video trilogy, "Towards Solutions on Sustainable Energy Practices". In addition, we distributed and publicized a Friends of the Earth Europe Study entitled "The 40% Study: Mobilizing Europe to Achieve Climate Justice," which shows that domestic emissions cuts of at least 40% in Europe by 2020 are both feasible and affordable.

This research, combined with our advocacy activities, also allowed us to be particularly effective in persuading governments in many countries in the global North to introduce binding climate change laws that will help to reduce those countries’ carbon emissions. This was especially the case in Europe where FoE has focused on its Big Ask campaign: France, Scotland and the UK passed climate change laws setting emissions reductions targets, and it seems likely that similar laws will soon be passed in a number of other European countries including Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Ireland and Slovenia.

Other member groups have also been very active on climate change. In March 2009, for example, FoE Japan organized an international workshop on climate change impacts and solutions faced by developing countries, with presentations from the Japanese government, the World Bank and several international organizations. FoEI’s involvement focused on showing how climate change and its false solutions are a result of the current neoliberal production and consumption model.

Although Copenhagen was an abject failure, it was a key moment in the intergovernmental debate on mitigating and adapting to climate change, because of the urgent need to agree and develop a successor to the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012. FoEI took a team of 400 activists to Copenhagen: some of them were engaged in lobbying and advocacy work within the Bella Center, whilst others were focused on the daily mobilizations and alternative events, including the Klimaforum, which were so important to ensuring governments heard the critical voices of civil society.

From the talks in the Klimaforum, demonstrations on the streets, and actions in the conference centre, the message was loud and clear: any climate agreement must be based on climate justice. This was an important development: before Copenhagen the term ‘climate justice’ was much discussed in civil society meetings but more-or-less unknown elsewhere. During Copenhagen on the other hand, it began appearing frequently in the mainstream media.

We promoted the development of many actions/spaces for campaigning and mobilizing during COP-15 and Klimaforum09. This included FoE Europe’s work developing the Flood for Climate Justice, an extremely successful demonstration which more than 5,000 people from many countries participated in. The event also involved mock carbon traders trying to sell carbon offsets to protestors, and a fake carbon stock exchange. It ended in front of the Danish Parliament with the creation of a massive human banner reading “Offsetting is a false solution.”

FoEI also drew public attention to our positions and alternatives for sustainable livelihoods through both traditional and new creative media activities and actions. During Copenhagen, we posted 37 blog entries and 9 videos on FoEI's You Tube channel, and 300 high-quality images on Flickr. Prior to Copenhagen, we created a website to feature the Angry Mermaid Award which included an animation story on the effect of corporate neglect of climate change on communities in the South: the website had 23,851 views. In Copenhagen's Klimaforum09, we presented an interactive Climate Capsule installation with videos, photos and drawings from around the world. We also conducted outreach on climate change during the international tour of the rock band Radiohead, and produced the graphic novel "Speechless" about the history of economic globalization.

A further key objective for the CJE program is to stop World Bank pollution of the climate debate. During 2009 we continued to monitor and conduct advocacy around the World Bank’s framework on clean energy investment and the emission-trading schemes promoted by IFIs. In September we organized a public forum on climate debt alongside the Intersessional Meeting on Climate Change in Bangkok, and a public forum on climate change and financing. FoEI was co-organizer of an international meeting on Financing Strategy and Climate, along with other networks and organizations including Jubilee South, Focus on the Global South, and Oilwatch. FoEI also supported the production of the FoEI Asia Pacific (APac) region’s first climate publication, "Climate Impacts of the ADB's Business: How the Asian Development Bank Finances Climate Change."

FoE also participated in the civil society campaign to stop governments subsidizing the climate-wrecking fossil fuels industry. In April 2009, we published Public Money for Fossil Fuels in the EU and three EU Member States, to identify the many sources of public investments in harmful industries. In 2009, both the G-20 and the UN made agreements to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, which will have a positive impact on policies regarding renewable energy.

Some FoE groups are also focusing on private finance and its role in driving climate change. FoE Netherlands, for example, has conducted research into systems for measuring carbon footprints, which was presented during a Banktrack meeting for private banks in Washington. The Climate Working Group of banks involved in the Equator Principles is now organizing workshops to develop and implement such a methodology. The outcome of our activities is that among these banks the question is not 'whether' or 'why' they should measure carbon footprints, but 'how'. FoE Netherlands has also convinced private banks in the Netherlands to commit to improving their energy-related investment policies.

The Climate Justice & Energy Program working areas are:

• Energy sovereignty
• Climate and finance / Carbon and forest markets
• UNFCCC (including REDD), and
• Stopping World Bank pollution of the climate debate.

Cross campaign areas include:

• With the Forests and Biodiversity Program - the REDD campaign
• With the Forests and Biodiversity Program, the Food Sovereignty Program, and the EJRN Program - Agrofuels
• With the EJRN program - Financing and Climate, particularly building a common position at the federation level, including on carbon markets and the Clean Development Mechanism

Coordinators and participants

In 2009, the co-coordinators of the Climate Justice & Energy (CJE) Program were:

• Hildebrando Vélez and Irene Vélez, FoE Colombia
• Joseph Zacune, FoE EWNI
• Stephanie Long, FoE Australia
  

 The CJE Steering Group included:

• For ATALC: Eduardo Giesen, FoE Chile,
• For Europe: Sonja Meister, FoE Europe,
• For Africa: Michael Keania Karikpo, FoE Nigeria
• For North America: Karen Orenstein, FoE US

Groups that participated actively in the CJE Program in 2009 included: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belgium (Flanders and Brussels), Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, England, Wales & N Ireland, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay and the US.

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.

But Indigenous communities also possess a vast knowledge capable of contributing significantly to the construction of climate justice and energy sovereignty at the local and global levels. They both need and have a right to be heard when it comes to the development of local and national policies and decision-making processes relating to their natural patrimony: climate change and the policies reponses selected are both likely to have a significant impact on their communities, their livelihoods and their territories.

The relationship between environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples needs to be strengthened so that we can work together to build local climate regimes founded in justice and dignity. Opportunities to discuss and develop ideas, and build spaces of resistance are critical.

what happened?

FoE Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) has been developing a programme of activities together with the Movement of Victims and People Affected by Climate Change (MOVIAC), to strengthen the combined capacity of indigenous peoples and environmentalists to shape the climate change agenda.

Indigenous Peoples from Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia were also able to participate in international spaces, informing debates with their vision of the cosmos; their experiences in fighting, resisting and suffering environmental injustices; and the increasing criminalization of their struggles. This contributed to much great shared understanding and solidarity and the gradual development of a common agenda amongst many social movements.

what changed?

The project contributed to increased understanding of global and local visions around climate change, and provided a series of opportunities for Indigenous Peoples and environmentalists to exchanges ideas, perspectives and information.

Everyone participating is now better informed about the structural causes of climate change; resistance struggles against plantations, hydroelectric and other energy projects; and ‘consultation’ processes that actually seek to implement false solutions to climate change that will involve the privatization of territories.

The relationship between FoEI and Indigenous Peoples Organizations has been deepened and reinforced, especially around the defense of territories and ancestral cultures as an alternative to the economic model, which is the main cause of climate change. This has resulted in the development of a common agenda to mobilize for Climate Justice and the evolution of a transformation agenda around the ‘buen vivir’ (good life), the sustainability of pachamama, and peoples territorial sovereignty and autonomy.

It is also important to highlight the increased visibility, at the local, national and international levels,  of Indigenous Peoples’ political, cultural and artistic dynamics, which increases the mobilization capacity of both Indigenous Peoples and environmentalists.

lessons learned?

The lack of knowledge and recognition about the structural causes of climate change slow the process of expansion of the Climate Justice approach. Asymmetries in organizational and resistance processes among IPs, where few are still in the process of reaffirming their identities. The process initiated with this project will certainly benefit them as will bring together experiences of IPs with stronger organizational structures and processes. The underlying challenge is the process of de-colonization of the occidental world, as the transformation agenda connected with the “buen vivir”implies the destructing of many of concepts we use in the normal discur.

what next?

The World Social Forum 2009 will provide an excellent opportunity for a strategic dialogue among environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples. The Andean Forum (18-19 March 2009, in Popayán, Colombia), will also bring together Indigenous Peoples and environmental and social organizations from across the Andean region. As outcomes of the forum we seek the reaffirmation of 12 October as a day to celebrate freedom and the defence of pachamama (mother earth). We also hope to agree on common actions in preparation for the Copenhagen climate change talks in December 2009, and activities to promote territorial sovereignty, among others.

Highlights of the common mobilization agenda for 2009 will include Indigenous Peoples’ gatherings in Brazil at the WSF (January), the USA and Colombia (April), and Peru (May); participation in a global week of action against social and ecological debt, the global day for freedom and the defense of pachamama, and global food day (all in October); and many actions in support of climate justice in December. There is also a proposal to organize a thematic World Social Forum about the crisis of civilization, in 2010.

with thanks to our funders: the isvara foundation

Photo credits: CENSAT Agua Viva / FoE Colombia

FoEI campaigners initiated the publication based on feedback from many national and grassroots people in the federation that they did not understand the range of REDD proposals, and how they would affect efforts to protect land rights and forests on the ground in southern countries.

The reports were distributed widely at the UN climate talks in Poland at the end of 2008. Friends of the Earth International campaigners from the US and Cameroon, as well as allies from the Global Forest Coalition and the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, spoke during a side event about the threats of REDD.

what changed?

The report had a significant impact in the media. Several media reported that the World Bank climate funds were 'under fire' and that more than 142 organizations, led by FoEI, rejected any role for the World Bank in controlling climate change finance.

The publication has been very useful for lobbying progressive southern governments to take a firmer stance against carbon trading based proposals. Our target governments have included Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Cameroon, UK, Malaysia, and Chile. Recently, the Bolivian government tabled a proposals against carbon trading for forests on behalf of the G77 and China, a significant outcome. Also lobbying of northern governments has resulted in some European countries publicly stating their support for including Indigenous Peoples rights to free prior informed consent in REDD methodology and mechanism.

The publication was also edited to a 6-page flyer which has been extensive distributed to grassroots communities during training and outreach activities, other grassroots NGOs and civil society, journalists and policy makers. This has served as a very useful means of informing grassroots forest campaigners in particular about the risks of REDD mechanisms as they are currently being proposed.

what next?

The REDD report has enabled us to build very strong links particularly with International Indigenous People's Organizations and alliances. We have worked collaboratively, particularly with Global Forest Coalition and International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples from the Tropical Forests to ensure that our work on REDD is complementary, and shared research and aligned our positions to run shared events at international climate negotiations. This has greatly strengthened all of our work and enabled us to collaborate together to lobby, do actions and media in international fora.

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

Photo credits: Simon Rawles

climate justice and energy

Our Climate Justice and Energy (CJE) Program’s overall objective is to build a diverse, effective and global movement for climate justice. In 2009, FoEI continued our close collaboration with key social movements, especially La Via Campesina, and the World March of Women, and the new Movement of Victims Affected by Climate Change in Central America (MOVIAC). New links with indigenous networks and movements were also fostered at key events during the year, and FoEI collaborated with many other networks including Climate Justice Now!, Asia Pacific Peoples’ Solidarity for Climate Justice, and Climate Justice Action.

The CJE Program’s goal is to ensure that rich industrialized Annex I countries had committed to needed emissions reductions, and to financing and transferring technology to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. We published a substantial number of policy proposals and analyses in the run-up to the COP-15 UNFCCC in Copenhagen, in December 2009. This included an ethical climate finance criteria matrix, which provided governments with a set of criteria for judging climate financing mechanisms proposed during negotiations.

FoEI took a team of 400 activists to Copenhagen, who variously engaged in lobbying and advocacy work, and organizing and participating in alternative events and daily mobilizations, including our hugely successful Flood for Climate Justice mobilization. The joint efforts of FoEI and key allies helped to ensure that a number of governments, including Bolivia, officially voiced their concerns about the potential negative impacts of UNFCCC, World Bank and national policies to finance Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD).

Although the results of the Copenhagen summit were extremely disappointing, many FoEI member groups in the global North have been very effective in persuading their governments to introduce binding national climate change laws, which will help to reduce those countries’ carbon emissions. This was especially the case in Europe where France, Scotland and the UK passed climate change laws setting binding emissions reductions targets. It seems likely that similar laws will soon be passed in a number of other European countries including Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Ireland and Slovenia.

During 2009 we also continued to monitor and conduct advocacy around the World Bank’s framework on ‘clean energy investment’ and the emissions trading schemes promoted by the international financial institutions (IFIs). In 2009, both the G-20 and the UN made agreements to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, which will have a positive impact on the development and spread of renewable energy technologies.

food sovereignty

FoEI’s Food Sovereignty Program aims to halt the corporate control of food, and stop the spread of genetically modified organisms: it defends the right of people to determine and control their own food systems. In 2009, we attended the High-Level Meeting on Food Security in Madrid where Via Campesina and FoE Spain’s joint actions outside the conference got excellent coverage, and Henry Saragih from Via Campesina was eventually invited to speak on behalf of civil society in the final plenary session. The response from the conference was striking: the applause was deafening, and the meeting ended without consensus on a new 'Global Partnership', which was in line with civil society proposals (although the official website is less clear about this outcome).

The 17th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) also saw important progress on food sovereignty when proposals from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food included peoples’ right to access land and define their own food policies, and the need for governments to support the least protected people and implement food production models that do not contribute to climate change. This position strongly echoes the positions of Vía Campesina and FoEI, although it does not yet go far enough.

The struggle for a GM-free world remains a priority, and includes campaigns against soy monocultures, genetically modified (GM) food aid, and the dominant model of production. FoEI is campaigning to increase land available to family farmers and for rural agriculture. In 2009, we published our annual research report on GM crops, "Who Benefits from GM Crops? Feeding the biotech giants, not the world’s poor," which challenges the ability of GM crops to contribute to poverty reduction, global food security or sustainable farming.

Friends of the Earth groups and allies are also maintaining pressure on the GM industry at the national and regional levels. This has had a particularly marked impact in Europe, where European Commission efforts to allow two new varieties of genetically modified (GM) maize to be grown in Europe, and to force Greece, Hungary and France to drop their national bans on a similar GM maize, were overturned by member states. Civil society organizations were clearly instrumental in this. This resistance received a further boost in April, when Germany banned Monsanto's GM maize MON810. This was a huge success for FoE Germany and other environmental and agricultural organizations who have worked hard for this outcome for many years. There have also been strong FoE campaigns against GM crops in many countries, including Mexico, Nigeria and Paraguay.

FoEI is also starting to build a new global campaign challenging agribusiness, with Via Campesina and the World March of Women. In 2009, this included regional food sovereignty forums in Paraguay and Nigeria. Together with Food and Water Watch and the European Co-ordination of Via Campesina, we also produced a groundbreaking film, "Killing Fields: the battle to feed factory farms," which investigates the impacts of growing soy in South America to feed factory farms in Europe.

agrofuels

FoEI’s Agrofuels Campaign aims to stop the production, trade and consumption of agrofuels, by raising public awareness about its negative impacts on local communities and globally. In 2009, the campaign focused on strengthening local communities’ defence of their territories, and exposing ‘false solutions’ to the climate and energy crisis. A prerequisite for this was compiling FoEI members’ research, reports, and national and regional positions.

The Agrofuels Campaign integrates FoEI’s ongoing campaign against deforestation caused by oil palm plantations. 2009 was particularly notable because of the World Bank’s suspension of its investments in oil palm plantation companies. A coalition of local and international NGOs, spearheaded by the UK organization Forest Peoples Program and including FoE Netherlands, had previously filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC)'s internal watchdog, the Compliance Advisory Ombudsman office (CAO), about a series of loans to palm oil giant Wilmar International. A joint report by three NGOs (FoE Netherlands, Kontak Rakyat Borneo and Gemawan) had examined Wilmar's plantations in Sambas, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and found that the company was working with dubious licenses, and was entangled in land rights conflicts and illegal logging activities. This complaint triggered an audit by the CAO, which concluded that the IFC had violated its own procedures, and that commercial interests had overruled the IFC's environmental and social standards.

FoEI groups from Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea also joined forces to develop and propose a mandatory code of conduct for Malaysian palm oil companies operating in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They received positive responses from Malaysia’s Human Rights Council and the Opposition Party, who accepted that Malaysian palm oil expansion has created adverse impacts. Friends of the Earth also filed a complaint with the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against the Malaysian Palm Oil Council for falsely advertising that palm oil is the "only product able to sustainably and efficiently meet a larger portion of the world's increasing demand for oil crop-based consumer goods, foodstuffs and biofuels." The ASA ruled that this statement was misleading, as was the Malaysian Palm Oil Council’s claim that palm oil contributes to alleviation of poverty. In November 2009, we also filed a grievance with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) against the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, for violating the members' Code of Conduct and continuing to mislead the public and make unsubstantiated claims about the production, procurement and use of palm oil.

A process of capacity-building on agrofuels, land rights and monoculture was also initiated in Central America. We helped to coordinate different groups and communities wanting to work together on agrofuels. A video on Monocultures, Land and Agrofuels in Central America was created by FoE El Salvador with communities’ support. FoEI also organized an international delegation to gather evidence on the impact of agrofuels in Colombia.

Friends of the Earth’s aim of reaching a broader public was also substantially achieved through the broadcasting of footage from our commissioned film, "Lost in Palm Oil."

Lobbying efforts in Europe remain focused on challenging the EU’s target of 10% of all road transport fuel coming from ‘renewable’ sources by 2020, with a majority likely to come from agrofuels. Key to this is increasing Europeans’ awareness of the impacts of agrofuels and about potential alternatives. This included the publication of "Biofuels: handle with care," an analysis of EU biofuels policy with recommendations for action, in November 2009.

forests and biodiversity

FoEI’s Forests and Biodiversity Program campaigns against illegal logging and deforestation, and works with communities and local people to uphold their rights to manage their forests. We also expose and oppose the negative impacts of monoculture plantations of crops such as sugar cane, palm oil and soy, planted to produce agrofuels.

The Forests and Biodiversity program’s focus on strengthening and promoting sustainable local initiatives means that some of its key activities and successes occur at the national level. For example, in Uruguay Friends of the Earth successfully halted construction of the controversial pulp and paper mill proposed by ENCE who had been planning to invest US$1,500 million. In Malaysia, Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit to save a water-catchment forest on the Jerai mountain in Kedah from a quarry project that has been illegally approved by the state government. The Indonesian President identified illegal logging as a form of entrenched corruption, saying that he appreciated the efforts of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth which have been active in criticizing the forest management of his government.

The Forests and Biodiversity Program is also focused on challenging and changing intergovernmental policies that already or potentially could contribute to the destruction of forests and biodiversity, For example, it participated in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s High-level Working Group on the 2010 biodiversity target and post-2010 target(s), and successfully persuaded governments to incorporate a number of key paragraphs into the final 2010 Biodiversity Targets.

Collaborative side and parallel events during intergovernmental forums, including meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Copenhagen, and the World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires, were also successful in raising civil society’s concerns and challenging government perspectives. FoEI also produced a video about the performance of Finnish pulp and paper company Stora Enso in Uruguay, and created a photo exhibition on the impacts of cellulose/logging corporations in the Southern Cone of South America, which was exhibited at the World Forestry Congress.

The program also participated in the 2009 World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, co-hosting a workshop on plantations, market mechanisms and false solutions, with the Global Forest Coalition; and published "Community-based Forest Governance: from resistance to proposals for sustainable use."

economic justice-resisting neoliberalism

The Economic Justice-Resisting Neoliberalism (EJRN) Program’s objective is to build sustainable societies by building people’s power and dismantling corporate power, stopping corporate-led neo-liberalism and globalization, and challenging the institutions and governments that promote unequal and unsustainable economic systems.

For example, through the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ), which FoEI is a very active member of, the EJRN Program has developed legal proposals for corporate accountability and to improve OECD guidelines. The OECD now plans to revise its guidelines for multinational companies. The UN has also adopted the Ruggie Framework for Business and Human Rights, in response to pressure to improve its oversight of corporate behavior from civil society groups including FoEI. The EU has also started research into improving protection for developing country citizens, against the negative impacts of EU-based business.

The EJRN Program also developed proposals for the EU and G-20 to regulate both EU lobbying and the financial sector. This included a campaign for the implementation of an EU lobby registry which has now been implemented (although it only calls for voluntary registration so far). FoE also convinced the European Commission that the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) had falsified its lobby expenditure report, and the Commission temporarily suspended CEFIC as a result. Additionally, FoE won a case with the European Ombudsman concerning EU officials that accepted gifts from companies they were supervizing. The EU is now preparing new rules on conflicts of interest.

In 2009, FoE’s ‘Global Europe’ campaign called for the suspension of the EU-Peru trade negotiations, particularly over concerns about human rights violations. FoE also supported a delegation of representatives of Indigenous Peoples from Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, who toured European capitals to publicize the impacts of mining and biofuels. Although the negotiations have not yet been suspended, this collaborative campaign has so far resulted in a commitment from the European Commission that the Associated Agreement with Peru will not contain any provision which would be detrimental to the rights of indigenous people; and will contain proposals that guarantee that trade and economic development respect the environment, as well as a binding human rights clause.

A focused effort to persuade Shell to improve its business practices continues to be a priority for FoEI. This has included support to FoE Nigeria in its campaign to expose the harmful nature of gas flaring, which contributed to the Nigerian foreign minister publicly committing to enforcing the ban on gas flaring as of January 2010. Efforts in Nigeria have been complemented by campaigning at the international level: FoEI collaborated with several organizations to publish "Shell's Big Dirty Secret," which documents Shell's continued investment in the dirtiest forms of energy and its position as the world's most carbon intensive oil company. An OECD complaint filed by FoE Netherlands resulted in a commitment by Shell to improve its oil depot in the Philippines and its communication with surrounding communities.

In the US, the ShellGuilty campaign launched by FoEI, Oil Change and Platform London, finally saw justice done when Shell was forced to pay a US$15.5 million out-of-court settlement for its complicity in the 1995 murder of nine Nigerian activists who opposed its gas flaring, under the US Alien Tort Statute.

On 3 December the Netherlands-based court case against Shell got under way in The Hague. The case has been brought by three Nigerian communities and FoE Netherlands/Miluedefensie over oil pollution in Nigeria. Shell asked the court to rule that the Dutch court has no jurisdiction over Shell Nigeria, but on 30 December the court held that the Dutch court does have jurisdiction. Given that Shell has now lost this point, an important hurdle has been overcome, and the 'real' lawsuit can begin. This is the first time in history that a Dutch company has been brought to trial in a Dutch court for damages occurring abroad.

The EJRN Program was also very successful in strengthening hundreds of community individuals and activists across the world, including through the Third Annual Latin American Sustainability School, and community exchanges in Latin America. Many other publications and communications materials were published during the year.

resisting mining oil and gas

FoEI’s Resisting Mining, Oil and Gas Program is a new FoEI program, and groups are concentrating on planning joint campaign work and mapping FoEI’s current work with communities. Some international activities are also underway however, and these included a number of actions against Canadian open-pit mines on 22 July, in countries including Australia, Canada, Mexico and Thailand, to mark the Global Day of Action Against Open Pit Mining. Another important event was the "Conference on Extractive Industries: Blessing or Curse? Impacts of the Oil and Gas Industry," held by FoE Europe in Brussels in October.

Some FoEI groups already have established campaigns on mining, oil and gas, resulting in some important national developments and successes. In December 2009, for example, FoE Hungary celebrated the introduction of a landmark ban on the use of cyanide in mining. FoE Philippines has filed an Alternative Mining Bill, intended to introduce a new mining policy to regulate the exploration, development and utilization of mineral resources. Many FoE groups, including in Indonesia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Ghana, Hungary and Costa Rica, are also working on an on-going basis with local communities affected by mining.

Testimonies from mining communities also feature strongly in FoEI’s new media projects, as do videos on tin mining in Indonesia, and oil pollution in Nigeria, both of which can be seen on YouTube. FoEI also embarked on an ambitious project to create a series of video testimonies by women affected by large-scale metal mining.

Friends of the Earth member groups continue to work on issues related to water, defending water territories for the benefit of communities and biodiversity. We work together with local communities in protecting the right to water, and opposing privatization of water and ‘development’ projects that pollute rivers and that use large quantities of water. Finally, we mobilize the public to vote for new laws and regulations that keep water in the public domain and uphold water as a human right.

Gender

FoEI’s gender program focuses on deepening our understanding of why the feminist perspective is critical to the FoEI federation. Such an understanding can shed light on the ways in which the current neoliberal economic model affects men and women differently, both in terms of its social and environmental impacts. It also reveals the self-perpetuating nature of the patriarchal society. For FoEI, a fuller comprehension of the harsh realities faced by women in different countries and regions across the world will help us construct better and more effective campaign strategies, and change the way we ourselves act. A document on how to work from a gender perspective has already been completed and circulated internally.

Together with allied social movements including La Via Campesina (LVC) and the World March of Women (WMW), we aim to support women to resist, transform and mobilize, both at the local and international levels, to bring about the world they want to live in.

In 2009, we focused on integrating a gender analysis into our programs on Food Sovereignty and Economic Justice-Resisting Neoliberalism (EJRN), and to support the inclusion of a feminist perspective into the EJRN Program’s analysis of the global financial crisis. FoEI was also invited to participate in WMW’s Second Regional Encounter in the Americas, in August 2009, in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Gender campaigners also supported the production of video testimonies from ‘Women Re-sisters’, women resisting mining, some of which can currently be viewed on the FoEI YouTube channel.  Friends of the Earth also participated in La Escuela de Formación de Dirigentas (a school for future women leaders) organized by the Coordinadora de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC) and Via Campesina del Cono Sur, in Paraguay, in July 2009.

Friends of the Earth Uruguay/REDES has been particularly active in promoting FoEI’s focus on gender, in terms of supporting the international coordination of this complex and cross-cutting issue, providing conceptual contributions, and engaging actively at the national level. In June 2009, this included publication of a book that considers the impacts of forest monocultures and soya on the displacement of rural populations, with a special emphasis on the consequences for human rights and gender relations. FoE Uruguay also drafted numerous papers on food sovereignty and gender concerns including a report on the role of rural women in the defense of food sovereignty, based on investigation and interviews with women from la Red de Grupos de Mujeres Rurales (the Network of Rural Women).

A joint publication by REDES/FoE Uruguay, Uruguay Sustentable, and Fundación Solón (Bolivia) in 2007 gathers a series of experiences regarding investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms.

The book examines clauses in trade and investment agreements that are created specifically to protect the interests of multinational corporations by creating international arbitration tribunals where corporations can place cases against states, excluding national legislations. The most well-known of these tribunals is the ICSID (International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes), which functions within the World Bank. There are case studies from Latin America, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, and Costa Rica. It also looks at the situation in Uruguay, where there are no cases but where corporations have threatened to take cases to the ICSID. The publication then presents an analysis of other centers (or arbitration panels) and other trade agreements, such as the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union, which hide similar clauses but have the same goal in mind: to protect the profits of European corporations in the rest of the world.

We were present at the following meetings:

The World Social Forum in Nairobi, January 2007.
Nyeleni, The World Forum for Food Sovereignty, Mali, February 2007.
The World Bank spring meetings and counter-summit, Washington DC, April 2007.

An international forum on water privatization, The Hague, May 2007.

The G8 Summit in  Heiligendamm, Germany, May 2007.
A South-North Consultation on shrimp aquaculture in September 2007.
A Public Hearing on the World Bank, The Hague, October 2007.
The Social Summit for the Integration of the Peoples in Bolivia, December 2007.
The UN Climate negotiations in Bali, December 2007 and other high-profile climate events.
A regional mining conference and skillshare in the Philippines in December 2007.

In addition to supporting the participation of Southern organizations and organizing public events that could highlight grassroots environmental struggles, FoEI was able to broadcast special coverage of many of these these events through Real World Radio. In this way, communities throughout the world were able to find out what was going on at the events.