Before the financial crisis in 2008, the IDB provided loans to the agrofuels sector for new projects to expand plantations and build more mills. The financial crisis triggered a change in approach, as oil prices fell, affecting demand for agrofuels. The IDB switched track, and began to focus on monitoring national policies that could shape and promote investment in the sector.

This included “Sugar Cane Agro-Ecological Zoning” launched by the Brazilian government in October 2009. This defines zones in which the Brazilian government will support an increase in agrofuels production, including by providing access to credit and loans from the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES).

what happened

Friends of the Earth Brazil campaigns to expose the lack of coherence between IDB’s climate policies and its support for agrofuels. 

In March 2009, the IDB’s 50th anniversary and governors’ annual meeting in Medellin, Colombia, provided an important campaign opportunity. Friends of the Earth Brazil and Friends of the Earth Colombia / CENSAT participated in the organization of the parallel public forum on behalf of Friends of the Earth International. They distributed Portuguese and English language copies of the report “New road to the same old place: the false solution of agrofuels,” published by FoE Brazil, FASE and Terra de Direitos. This evaluates the sugar cane sector and associated investments in Brazil. The FoEI agrofuels cartoon collection was also on display at the forum, and copies of it were distributed to the media.

In August 2009, Friends of the Earth Brazil and FASE also published an updated report on the sugar cane ethanol sector in Brazil, analyzing the changes in policies, actors and scenarios in the sector following the financial crisis. The report, “Agrofuels after the financial crisis: foot on the brake or accelerator of social and environmental destruction?” was presented at the Forum Against Agribusiness in Asunción, Paraguay, which was organized by ATALC and Friends of the Earth Paraguay/Sobrevivencia. It was also widely distributed among networks, partners, and the media.

Friends of the Earth Brazil and other national groups and alliances also responded critically to Brazil’s new agro-ecological sugar cane zoning plan, through Rede Brazil and the BNDES Platform. These organizations brought up the issue of public national investments in ethanol during a seminar on BNDES held in November 2009, in Rio de Janeiro. 

The IDB’s investments were also monitored throughout the year by FoE Brazil, as a member of the Brazilian Network on International Financial Institutions (Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Finaceiras Multilaterais). In addition, the group tracked funds lent to Brazil by the World Bank for environmental and climate adaptation purposes. 

News updates and other information were also published on an on-going basis, on the Rede Brazil website (www.rbrasil.org.br). 

what changed

Friends of the Earth Brazil’s ongoing campaign continued to shine a spotlight on IDB’s climate change policies and its investments in ethanol projects in Brazil. Thoughtful and critical analysis about the sugar cane ethanol sector, combined with effective public campaigning, lobbying and media work, has enabled FoE Brazil and partner organizations to bring a strong critical voice to the agofuels debate. This is essential, especially in Brazil, which is a global leader in the production and use of sugarcane based ethanol.

what next

In 2010, Friends of the Earth Brazil will continue to monitor and highlight public banks’ policies and projects on climate, energy and infrastructure in Brazil, focusing on the role of IDB and BNDES in particular. 

It will also monitor and challenge the development of other socially or environmentally risky projects, such as large dams in the Amazon region and Uruguay river basin.

The group will also channel and publicize information about social movements’ responses, resistance activities and alternatives, and continue to edit the bi-monthly bulletin "Energia Nova."

You can view the cartoon collection at:
www.natbrasil.org.br/Docs/biocombustiveis/Cartoons%20FoEI%20(draft).pdf

Download the most recent sugar cane ethanol sector analysis here: www.natbrasil.org.br/Docs/publicacoes/newroadsoptmweb.pdf

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

Friends of the Earth’s ability to mobilize people was amply demonstrated when ten thousand people turned out to dance Bollywood-style on the beach in Ostend, Belgium, for a film for our ‘Big Ask’ campaign, organized by Friends of the Earth Belgium and the Belgian Climate Coalition. 

Another successful Big Ask action saw four thousand people ‘flooding’ the Finnish parliament to call for a climate law, in the biggest environmental gathering in Finland’s history. 

While the results of the Copenhagen climate talks in December 2009 were highly unsatisfactory, Friends of the Earth Europe, as part of the Friends of the Earth International federation, also had a strong presence in Copenhagen. One after another, groups of activists from across Europe joined together to form a five thousand-strong human ‘flood for climate justice’, showing the incredible strength of the network. 

Young Friends of the Earth Europe also mobilized many more young activists, encouraging them to make their voices heard in Copenhagen. They held four regional conferences in Malmo, Montpellier, Berlin and Dublin bringing together nearly 200 young people for training and action workshops in the run-up to the global climate talks. 

Friends of the Earth groups in Belgium, Spain and Austria also hosted a tour of climate witnesses, in advance of the Copenhagen negotiations. Beginning in Flanders, the "Climaxi" tour, brought stories from the frontline of climate change. The speakers came from Kiribati in the South Pacific, where rising sea levels are already a serious problem, and from Brazil, where indigenous peoples in the Amazon are struggling against rising water levels and the expansion of mining activities. 

Young people throughout the network also developed and organized their own actions and events in the build-up to Copenhagen, and produced and distributed hundreds of activists’ handbooks with ideas and messages for promoting climate justice. Young Friends of the Earth Netherlands, for example, collected 3,000 messages from the public about their opinion on their government’s action on climate change. They then created a beach where the washed up ‘SOS’ messages could be read (inside 3,000 recycled plastic bottles), and where young activists delivered the messages in person to the Dutch Minister for the Environment.

Friends of the Earth Europe has also been making sure that concerns about climate change are heard loud and clear in Brussels. Friends of the Earth Europe and the Stockholm Environment Institute joined forces to prove that Europe can cut its domestic emissions by at least 40% by 2020, and 90% by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels). Friends of the Earth Europe also organized a preview screening of the climate change film ‘The Age of Stupid’ in the European Parliament, before its official release. It was a unique opportunity to screen a powerful film on the consequences of runaway climate change.

A joint Friends of the Earth Europe and CEE Bankwatch conference on ‘Climate Proofing EU Structural and Cohesion Funds’ also dealt with the climate impact of EU funds, programs and projects. It explored opportunities for de-carbonization in the transport and energy sectors, and discussed the kind of cohesion policy needed in order to deliver low carbon development in the European regions.

A penguin refugee camp built from non-energy efficient appliances was also erected outside the European Commission. The stunt called on European decision-makers to stop caving in to industry pressure and to strengthen energy efficiency proposals so that Europe can meet its environmental and climate change targets.

Four countries also enjoyed performances by the Energy Union tour in 2009. The tour combines climate and renewable energy messages with music from UK group Coldcut into a multimedia show. The tour began in Munich and toured through Pécs, Vienna, Budapest, Košice, Bratislava, and Graz before finishing in Berlin. It continues in 2010.

Friends of the Earth also rejects nuclear power as a solution to climate change. As part of a wide movement including environment organizations, trade unions and churches, 50,000 people marched through the streets of Berlin declaring that it’s time to switch off nuclear power. It was the biggest antinuclear demonstration in Germany since Chernobyl, and sent a clear message to politicians that nuclear power is not a solution to energy security or climate change.

12 percent of the funding for Friends of the Earth International comes from the membership dues paid by the member groups, and 0.7 percent comes from sales and donations. Member groups contribute a percentage of their income on the basis of their revenue from two years ago to the international network. This core funding is used to cover the

operational costs of the Secretariat.

subsidies

86.5 percent of our income is subsidies received from government agencies and foundations. These funds are granted 

to us for specific projects and campaigns and for our Membership Support Fund.

membership support fund

Our Membership Support Fund seeks to pool resources and share them across FoE member groups for the following 

objectives: network development, program coordination, capacity building, strengthening national campaigns, and increasing participation in international campaigns.

In 2009, we distributed 995,266 Euros to 32 of our members: Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, El Salvador, England, Wales & Northern Ireland, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Malawi,Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestina, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Togo, Tunesia, Uganda and Uruguay.

We also distributed 106,142 Euros to the our regional groupings for regional meetings and capacity building.

our funders

Friends of the Earth International gratefully acknowledges financial support from:

• HIVOS
• NOVIB/Oxfam Netherlands
• The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS-TMF/MFS)
• The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Matra)
• The European Union (joint grant with IPS)
• The Sigrid Rausing Trust
• The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation
• The Netherlands Committee for Sustainable Development (NCDO)
• The Isvara Foundation
• The C.S. Mott Foundation
• The Wallace Global Fund
• The Rockefeller Brothers Fund
• The V. Kahn-Rasmussen Foundation

Their financial support has been crucial in strengthening our campaigns and our network.

The first Sustainability School took place in 2007, and was organized by Friends of the Earth Colombia/CENSAT. It set the scene for the School’s future activities by considering the theoretical and conceptual perspectives of the environmental movement, and its actions and development within the economic, political and social contexts of the region. Friends of the Earth Uruguay/REDES then hosted the second Sustainability School in 2008, focusing on Friends of the Earth International’s programs and campaigns, and ATALC’s involvement in them.

what happened

In 2009, the Sustainability School moved to Costa Rica. 35 participants joined FoE Costa Rica/COECOCeiba in the community of Juanilama, a rural settlement in the Northern Zone that is home to some 124 campesinos, who grow grains and manage a small forest reserve. The participants - who came from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay - enjoyed the generous hospitality of the community, staying with peasant families for the duration of their visit.

The Sustainability School’s activities were developed collectively and the central theme was the defense of land. In this way, the five-day School aimed to integrate the realities - faced by communities across the region - in to ATALC’s fights and campaigns, including on plantations, forests, biodiversity, food sovereignty, mining, climate change and free trade.

A detailed and colorful report of the meeting was subsequently published, to ensure that the results of the school were accurately recorded and can be shared with others.

what changed

ATALC’s member groups and its allies were enriched by the learning and information exchange that took place at the Sustainability School: 35 personnel have deepened their understanding about the social and environmental concerns prevalent in the continent and associated political implications. They now have a much greater understanding of the complex realities of rural life in the region, including its challenges and opportunities.

The strong friendships built during the Sustainability School will also help these new links between member groups to flourish and endure.

what next?

The Sustainability School will take place again in 2010, with a new focus, building on and developing its important work to date.

Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, which invited a Costa Rican youth group to participate in the School, is now developing a political partnership and common activities with them.

• Read the report from the school (in spanish)
  

with thanks to our funders: the isvara foundation

“Voices of the South for Climate Justice” was launched at the Heinrich Boell Foundation headquarters in Santiago de Chile, and was reviewed by Chile’s Environment Minister Ana Lya Uriarte and well-known foreign affairs journalist Raul Sohr, who also cited the book in his recent publication Chao Petroleo. It has also been sent to various international groups including the Climate Justice Now! network, and the Bolivian Government. 1,000 copies of the 158-page book have been distributed.

A second version of Voices of the South for Climate Justice has also been printed, this time adapted for use in Guatemala and throughout Central America. 1,000 copies were printed with support from the Danish organization Dan Church Aid. The book was launched in a packed auditorium at the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, and copies were also distributed to the peasant and Indigenous sector in various countries in Central America. The book has already been used as a student text with a group of 380 students, and has both shocked and motivated them.

with thanks to our funders: Dan Church Aid

membership support

what happened?

Friends of the Earth International members in Papua New Guinea, Nigeria and Brazil held workshops in late 2008, to help women in areas affected by plantations to share their experiences and find ways of working together to defend their communities and their land.

In Papua New Guinea the focus was on oil palm plantations, which are being promoted mainly to supply the European market with palm oil (used in cosmetics, soap, vegetable oil and foodstuffs) and agrofuels. In Nigeria, the focus was on rubber plantations established on a community’s land by the French company Michelin, to produce rubber for car and bus tires.

In Brazil, the case study looked at eucalyptus plantations set up by three companies – Stora Enso, Aracruz Celulose and Votorantim – to produce pulp for export to Europe for conversion into paper.

Friends of the Earth International then worked with the World Rainforest Movement to develop case studies from the workshop findings, and publicize these internationally. Advocacy and campaigning tools developed using the case studies including a report, an audiovisual resource, short articles, declarations, and sign-on letters, among other outputs.

what changed?

The project has increased awareness about the differentiated gender impacts of plantations; and the role played by European actors promoting neoliberal economic policies that favor the expansion of their corporations in the South. This issue is now included in the campaigning agenda of a broad number of NGOs and social movements in the affected regions and in Europe, and has contributed to increased South-North and South-South collaboration around this particular issue.

In Nigeria and Papua New Guinea, the workshops helped to empower women, who are shifting from being passive victims to actors capable of generating change. Participants were more able to identify the differentiated gender impacts of plantations and to share their findings with their communities. In both countries, women are play a bigger role in the struggle against plantations, while other groups within civil society are beginning to incorporate the gender dimension into their local and national campaigns against plantations.

In Nigeria, women have publicly demonstrated against Michelin’s land usurpation, backed by an international petition with more than 2,000 signatures from a large number of countries in different regions, giving international visibility to the injustices they face. As a result Michelin has paid full compensation to one of the nine communities directly impacted. A second community was also approached but has rejected the compensation offered, because it is insufficient compared to the damage caused by the invasion of their territory and the destruction of their livelihoods. The women released a communiqué in which they exposed the role played by European governments and demanded the return of their lands and full compensation for the damage done.

In Papua New Guinea, the workshop allowed women to learn from the experiences of women in other parts of the country already affected by palm oil plantations. They are now setting up the Women in Oil Palm Association, to facilitate women’s participation in decision-making processes. They have released a statement demanding a halt in the expansion of palm oil plantations, including a specific demand to the World Bank (the principal promoter of plantation expansion in Papua New Guinea) to shift its Smallholder Agriculture Development Projects facility, which provides credits to small rural producers, towards active promotion of crop diversification. These demands were reinforced by an international action that collected more than 8,700 signatures from individuals and organizations from different regions of the world.

In southern Brazil, the resistance process against plantations is already organized and political demands well developed. Women are the main actors in struggles against plantations. The project helped reinforce this at the regional level and increased the visibility of women’s leadership role and of the transformation agenda, an inspiring example for women living in affected communities across the world.

EU vice-president, Margot Wallström, has taken note of the problems documented by the project and has forwarded information to the EU agencies for Development Aid and External Relations. This will support campaigning around the EU’s energy targets, which involves palm oil plantations and second generation agrofuels.

This project created a space to circulate information and tools around many key networks and information lists, and to share information with European civil society organizations from countries involved in the case studies.

Find out more:

• Read the report: www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/women/fullreport.pdf
• See the slideshow: www.wrm.org.uy/Videos/Women_Voices.html

with thanks to our funder: the isvara foundation

Photo credits: World Rainforest Movement

Additionally, we challenged false publicity about the potential of jatropha, and other plants that might be used for agrofuel production. In particular, FoE Africa groups and others set out to research the extent to which agrofuels are expanding across Africa, through a literature review, on-the-ground observation, and interviews with government officials, community leaders, local authorities, farmers and farmers’ organizations, civil society groups and academics. The resulting report considers the state of agrofuels production in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It records details, where available, on incoming investment, key companies, case studies, issues relating to land and legal rights, and environmental impact assessments. It also delves into government and state policies on agrofuels promotion and energy self-sufficiency.

The FoE Europe campaign on agrofuels was selected by the European Parliament Magazine as the most effective NGO campaign, specifically because of our high-visibility creative actions organized in collaboration with groups from all our regions. Improvements to our web site, and investments in communications in FoE Europe, allowed us to mobilize 47,000 people in May to participate in a poll by EC President Barroso, which changed the poll from 95% in favor of the EU's biofuels target to 89% against, in just three days.

FoEI also organized two speakers’ tours (in May and December 2008) for leaders from the South, in order to raise awareness in Europe about the devastating impacts of growing crops to produce agrofuels. We also organized an action in front of the Brazilian embassy in Brussels to protest against their agrofuels policies, in collaboration with La Via Campesina and FIAN (Face It Act Now – for the right to food). The speakers took part in lobby meetings to demand an end to the EU 10% biofuels target, with Members of the European Parliament and representatives of the European Commission. Similar meetings were organized with national parliaments in France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. The visiting speakers also lectured at universities in Brussels, Grenoble, Leuven, Montpellier, and the UNDP University in Namur. They received good media coverage, including through outlets such as Télé Grenoble, Midi Libre, France 3 TV, Planète Libre Magazine, national TV RFO, Radio Campus in Belgium, Panoramica magazine, ANP Netherlands, Agrarisch Dagblad, and Agripress Belgium.

When the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) met in Buenos Aires, FoEI helped  gathering civil society from producer countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) as well as importing countries in the EU, to protest against the use of ‘sustainable soy’ certification schemes, which are bound to fail because they do not address the overall expansion of monoculture plantations to produce increasing quantities of agrofuels. Similar round-table approaches around the world have completely failed to address the major social and environmental impacts of industrial-scale soy cultivation and actually serve to frustrate real solutions.

Photo credits: FoE Brazil

FoEI used the analysis and conclusions contained in these reports as a foundation for strong and effective advocacy work around the world. For example, we sent a team of campaigners from FoE USA, FoE Brazil and FoE Haiti to the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) annual meeting in Miami, to present the report and demand that finance ministers and bank officials only use the IDB’s Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative funds for truly clean and renewable energy projects.

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 research, reports, and national and regional positions from the federation’s members, as agrofuels is a relatively new issue and data is sparse. 

Nevertheless, there have already been some excellent external achievements by this relatively young campaign, in part because of its links to FoEI’s ongoing campaign against the 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. In September 2009, the International Finance Corporation (the IFC, the World Bank's private sector arm) announced that it would halt all palm oil investments until a revised strategy for financing the sector was in place. The World Bank Group statement was unveiled on 9 September in a letter from its president Robert Zoellick, who was responding to an appeal from Indonesian and international NGOs. 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 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.

The Indonesian President has also identified illegal logging as another form of entrenched corruption, saying that he appreciated the efforts of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth which have been active in criticising the forest management of his government, saying, "I want to give my appreciation for their concerns and hope they will continue their partnership with Indonesia."

Friends of the Earth 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. An intense advocacy campaign was directed at the Malaysian opposition group in Parliament; the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, Board, and Council; and the Human Rights Council. The groups also tried to lobby the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities, and the Prime Minister. The three groups, together with Sawit Watch, testified to the failure of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) process, and requested the introduction of the proposed legally binding code of conduct. They have so far received positive responses from the Human Rights Council and the Opposition Party, who have accepted that Malaysian palm oil expansion has created adverse impacts, including haze from forest and land fires during land clearing, social conflicts with local communities, and environmental 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, and that the Malaysian Palm Oil Council’s claim that palm oil contributes to alleviation of poverty was also misleading. The ASA found there was “not a consensus of the economic impact of palm oil on local communities” and stated that the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil certification scheme was “still the subject of debate”; and that making a claim that palm oil could be wholly sustainable, which cannot be substantiated, was deemed to be misleading. In November 2009, we followed up on this ruling by filing 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.

FoE Indonesia has played an important role in these campaign actions, and regional coordination of oil palm activities in the Asia Pacific. The group also facilitated communications, and coordinated capacity-building on agrofuels, land rights and monocultures issues, including with communities in remote areas such as Kupang in Indonesia (2,000 miles from Jakarta).

FoEI is committed to strengthening local communities’ capacity to defend their territories. We have worked with and supported communities that are keen to find out more about isolating and analyzing some of the ‘false solutions’ to the climate change and energy crises commonly proposed. A process of capacity-building on agrofuels, land rights and monoculture has also been initiated in Central America. We have also helped to coordinate different groups and communities wanting to work together on agrofuels. In Latin America, for example, this has involved bringing together the food sovereignty network in Guatemala, the food sovereignty and agrarian reform network of Honduras, the Water Valley communities in Honduras, victims of kidney failure due to sugar cane plantations in Nicaragua, and Via Campesina and World March of Women groups in El Salvador, amongst others. A video on "Monocultures, Land and Agrofuels in Central America" was created by FoE El Salvador with these communities’ support.

FoEI also organized an international delegation to gather evidence on the impact of agrofuels in Colombia, 1-10 July, with 40 international participants. Several members of FoEI took part: FoE Indonesia, FoE Uruguay, FoE Paraguay and FoE Brazil. The main objective of this delegation was to gather empirical evidence about the environmental impacts of agribusinesses producing biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel). This involved identifying and documenting human rights, economic, social and cultural rights violations, as well as violations of ethnic and environmental rights, and infringements on the food sovereignty of afro-Colombian, peasant and Indigenous communities in the country.

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. This document contains a clear set of policy recommendations focusing variously on European policy, European member states, and investors and industry.

Advocacy by FoE Netherlands and allied Dutch NGOs has also led to some important national developments that are influencing the course of EU debates relating to agrofuels. Palm oil remains excluded from the Dutch subsidy ruling for green electricity for 2010, despite RSPO certified palm oil becoming available. However, palm oil is however still part of the agrofuel mix in the Netherlands, and the hard won promise from Dutch Minister Cramer that sustainability concerns would take priority cannot be fulfilled because it is over-ruled by the weaker EU Renewable Energy Directive. However, the Dutch position in Brussels includes having at least some sustainability criteria for solid biomass in the Renewable Energy Directive, and promoting the use of an indirect land use change factor for calculating emissions for agrofuels. This resulted in the postponement of an EC decision, planned for 2009, that was supposed to state that solid biomass would not be subject to sustainability criteria.

FoE Netherlands also commissioned a publication on alternative implementation of the EU Renewables Directive for Transport in the Netherlands, "New Roads for Transport - Towards a sustainable solution for the 10% renewable transport energy target in 2020." This report on agrofuels alternatives also found its way to Brussels and the UK, and has been quoted frequently by industry players from the electric car and food industries.

In April 2009, FoE US and Earthtrack published a report "A Boon for Bad Biofuels: federal tax credits and mandates underwrite environmental damage at taxpayer expense," which focuses on US subsidies to the biofuels industry.

In September, comments were also submitted by the environmental community in the US, including FoE US, on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s draft regulation on the United States Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The RFS, in the Energy Independence Security Act of 2007, mandates a massive fivefold increase in agrofuels use and is a major driver of agrofuels production in the United States and abroad.

FoEI also facilitated research into agrofuels in many parts of the world, including on:

• the increase in agrofuel plantations in Central America and the link with the free trade agreement between the US and Central America; 

• the financing policies of the Inter-American Development Bank and how they are exacerbating climate change by promoting dirty energy and the promotion of agrofuels in Latin America; 

• the size and scope of subsidies for agrofuels in the US; 

• jatropha production in Swaziland; 

• land grabbing in Africa; and 

• agrofuels production in Mozambique. 

This research has also been used to develop position papers on the activities of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS), and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels. It also laid the foundations for the proposed mandatory code of conduct for palm oil companies in Malaysia. FoE has also conducted research into the position of Dutch banks financing agrofuel plantations, and how much money oil companies receive for using agrofuels.

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," which was broadcast on ARTE channel (30 million audience); on Dutch public broadcaster VARA; on Spanish national television (TVE); and on NDR  (Germany).

In keeping with FoEI’s commitment to awareness raising and mobilization we also:

• Participated in a tour to raise awareness about the threats posed by biofuels in Costa Rica and other Central American countries.

• Held a forum in El Salvador on the international day against plantations, denouncing regional plans to promote monocultures of sugar cane, palm and jatropha for agrofuels.

• Participated in public activities such as ‘Biofools Day’ activities, on 1 April. Over 10,000 activists participated, selecting Hugh Grant of Monsanto as 2009’s biggest Biofool.

Held an agrofuels awareness raising event in Tokyo, which was hosted by FoE Japan and its allies.

Created or participated in many other ‘solidarity spaces’ including an international forum on agrofuels in Sao Paolo, Brazil; an international forum on agrofuels in Paraguay; the dialogue of the Americas on agribusiness and agrofuels, "Building Alternatives from the food and energy sovereignty perspectives"; and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) forum in Nigeria.

The EJRN Program has also collaborated with the Agrofuels Campaign to organize a set of concrete activities including a publication on the role of private banks and their funding to promote agrofuels, a photo exhibition and activities on plantations and agrofuels at the European Social Forum.

The Stop Agrofuels Campaign working areas are:

• Defence of land
• Building a movement against agribusiness
• Certification mechanisms
• EU and US goals for agrofuels

Cross-cutting areas include:

• With the EJRN Program - a focus on exposing and countering the role of corporations, trade and investments in the agrofuels sector.

• With the Food Sovereignty Program - on Plantations.

Coordinators and participants

Co-Coordinators:

Silvia Quiroa, FoEI El Salvador, yada@navegante.com.sv

Torry Kuswardono, FoE Indonesia, torry@foei.org

The Stop Agrofuels Steering Group includes:

• For Africa: Thuli Makama, FoE Swaziland
• For North America: Kate Horner, FoE US
• For Latin America: Elias Diaz, FoE Paraguay, and FoE Brazil
• For Asia Pacific: Damien Ase, FoE Papua New Guinea
• For Europe: Adrian Bebb, FoE Europe

Groups that have actively participated in the Stop Agrofuels Campaign in 2009 include: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Uruguay.

During the past two years, agrofuels have been a top advocacy priority for the federation, cutting across almost all of our program areas. During this period, more than 35 FoEI groups in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, England Wales & N Ireland, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Malta, Mozambique, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, Uganda, Uruguay and US, worked in solidarity to achieve this goal.

accomplishments

We received a lot of press attention and succeeded in helping to shift public opinion on agrofuels, not just in Europe but throughout producer countries. The fact that increasing attention has been paid to food production, because of the global food crisis, meant that we were presented with an important opportunity to raise concerns about competition between crops for food and crops for fuel (although we approached this issue cautiously as we believe that the food crisis is driven by many significant factors, including speculation in agricultural commodities, and false solutions such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and increased dependence on artificial inputs to agriculture).

Our various activities also reinforced national and regional alliances with social movements fighting for food sovereignty and resisting large scale monocultures, raised FoEI’s profile in debates about energy and climate justice, and contributed to the implementation of FoEI’s Agrofuels campaign internationally.

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.

In recent years we have explored many legal options for holding corporations accountable for their actions, both in the countries where the actions in question took place and in the countries where the corporations are based. As a result, governments around the world are being required to take action to hold corporations accountable for their practices and their impacts on social welfare and the environment. We have also developed a database of 15 (semi) legal cases that FoE groups have brought against TNCs, to make sure that our collective experience is shared, remembered and built upon.

We have also pursued other strategies, including the use of existing corporate regulations on misleading advertisement; working in the European Parliament to ensure lobbyists are obliged to disclose information about their clients and budgets; filing complaints at the OECD and at the World Bank Inspection Panel; and helping affected communities make best use of legal avenues to challenge harmful projects and policies.

Finally, we continued building relationships with other civil society organizations working on legal strategies (the Climate Justice Program in the UK, for example, and Earth Rights International in the US).

Our results in 2008 showed that these strategies are extremely effective. In Africa, for example, FoEI supported twelve Nigerian communities in filing an official complaint with the World Bank’s Inspection Panel concerning the West African Gas Pipeline project in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. We also facilitated an exchange visit from Nigeria and Ghana to Togo, allowing campaigners and community leaders to share their experiences and build stronger solidarity. FoE Nigeria held an environmental monitors’ training workshop in Lagos for communities that were impacted by the pipeline project, and organized a strategy session among Nigerian communities to enable them to learn how to organize themselves more effectively and find out how to engage with the Inspection Panel. We also drafted international media advisories, which received worldwide coverage. Following that, FoE Nigeria presented the project and its problems at the Public Hearing on the World Bank in October in Europe. In the end, the Inspection Panel ruled that many of the communities’ complaints were valid. As such, this campaign is a stellar example of just how effective taking local needs and wishes to the national and global levels can be.

Again in West Africa, oil corporations in the Niger Delta refuse to put a stop to gas flaring, even though it has been illegal in Nigeria since 1984. Most people in the region are poor fishermen and women and farmers, unable to stand up to multi-billion dollar corporations. The Nigerian government has also failed to enforce its ban on gas flaring which should have come into force in December 2008. FoE Nigeria is using legal channels and litigation to stop gas flaring and oil spills being pursued through the Nigerian courts, including by providing close collaboration to the lead counsel, organizing field trips in the Niger Delta to identify communities affected by new spills, and recording damages to be presented as further evidence. With the support of FoE Netherlands, in 2008 four fishermen and farmers from the Niger Delta, who had lost their livelihoods due to oil spills from pipelines or installations owned by Shell, filed a lawsuit in the Netherlands against Royal Dutch Shell for oil pollution in the Niger Delta.

In Asia, recourse to legal tools is more established. Because of the different political contexts in which they operate, many of our groups in Asia are lawyers’ organizations and already use legal strategies as their main means of achieving environmental justice in their home countries. For example, the efforts of FoE Bangladesh, through public interest litigation known as PIL, have truly sensitized the concept of ‘environmental justice' in Bangladesh: the country now has special courts to deal with environmental offenses.

FoE Malaysia assists lawyers working on important legal cases involving Indigenous communities defending their land and Native Customary Rights, against logging and plantation encroachments, illegal sand quarrying, aluminum smelting, and wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution. FoE Malaysia gathered and drafted witness statements, and produced maps. These cases will help shape future interpretation of Native Customary Rights law.

FoE Papua New Guinea carried out a number of important patrols and fact-finding missions to protect the rights of people threatened by illegal and unsustainable forest practices and oil palm expansion in Papua New Guinea.

FoE Indonesia continues to empower communities to defend themselves and to stop environmental destruction in West Kalimantan. This includes sharing and spreading information about similar resistance experiences, such as how Indigenous People in the Ketapang District are persuading their local government to resist exploitative development in the region; and how local communities have been criminalized for demonstrating against oil palm plantation company PT Ledo Lestari which is violating Indigenous People’s rights on the Indonesia-Malaysia border.

Another victory was reported by FoEI's EJRN program in a case they have been pursuing together with other NGOs in the Philippines: the Supreme Court in Manila ordered the transfer of an oil depot housing three oil firms, and dismissed an appeal by Chevron, Petron Corp, and Pilipinas Shell.

During the EU-Latin American Summit in Lima in May 2008, we held workshops at the civil society forums on a number of critical issues, arbitration between companies and governments through the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). A new worldwide campaign on ICSID was launched at the summit, involving groups in Europe, Latin America and US, and this was complemented by a resolution in the European Parliament that supports our demands for community rights and liability of companies. We also launched the booklet ‘The Story of IIRSA’; a popular education production that explains what IIRSA is through attractive illustrations and storytelling. We also prepared three cases for the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on European transnational corporations, focusing on the energy sector.

FoEI also continued to host the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ), which includes many FoE groups. The coalition launched two reports (‘Fair Law’, and ‘With power comes responsibility’) containing concrete proposals about changes to EU law intended to prevent human rights abuses and environmental degradation within the sphere of responsibility of European multinational enterprises. The ECCJ proposes to make parent companies liable for their subsidiaries; establish a parental company duty of care for environmental, social and human rights issues; and introduce mandatory environmental reporting. Our efforts have been rewarded with a resolution in the European Parliament supporting our demands for community rights and liability of companies.

The European Commission also responded with interest, setting up an interdepartmental working group to study and discuss the proposals with ECCJ and FoE. The Commission is finally willing to look into what mandatory measures are needed in addition to its policies on voluntary corporate social responsibility, and has announced it will start a study of the legal framework on human rights and environmental issues applicable to European companies operating outside the EU, in order to identify governance gaps.

Around the world, governments are beginning to take action to hold corporations accountable for their practices and their impacts on social welfare and the environment including in other countries. Examples of this trend include the case that FoE Germany won against the German government, in which the court ruled that the German Export Credit Agency must disclose the climate impacts of subsidies it has provided to corporations for projects in developing countries. The Dutch government will also start research into holding Dutch companies liable for problems they have caused outside the EU, and will also look into how victims can get better access to justice. The UK parliament will start to investigate whether or not the existing legal system in the UK provides sufficient protection against human rights violation by companies. A new law in Argentina will force companies registered in Buenos Aires employing more than 300 workers to report on social and environmental impacts. The criteria for reporting have been developed by the ETHOS Institute (Brazil) and also follow UK standard AA 1000 on Accountability.