Costa Rica has been the only country in the region not to ratify this agreement with the US, Central America and the Dominican Republic, known as CAFTA-DR. The agreement had already been in force for signatories including Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

With Costa Ricans set to vote in an October 2007 referendum on whether to endorse CAFTA-DR, FoE Costa Rica made a dynamic and effective contribution to a major social movement that aimed to build opposition to the agreement.

Called the Patriotic Movement, the nationwide effort of trade unionists, universities and environmentalists rejects ratification of the free trade agreement with the US. Their efforts led to a massive demonstration in San Jose, Costa Rica's capital, at the end of September. Thought to be the largest in Costa Rica’s history, it saw between 100,000 and 150,000 people participate in the “NO to the FTA with the US” campaign, ahead of the referendum vote.

Although FoE Costa Rica members were deeply saddened by the following referendum vote, which decided in favour of CAFTA-DR by a narrow margin, the group almost immediately began planning next steps in the new stage of their fight against the agreement.

“The dreams, the hope, and the push and work that this will require are still strong. Importantly we are inspired by the satisfaction of having contributed actively and strongly to the building of a social movement whose future will bring us much happiness,” said Isaac Rojas of FoE Costa Rica.

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

The network came out of an“ "Encuentro bajo la Ceiba" (Encounters under the Ceiba tree), a space facilitated by COECOCEIBA/FoE Costa Rica in order to bring people together to discuss and agree upon different environmental and social issues. At this meeting, more than 40 small farmers and indigenous peoples from around the country shared their experiences in the management of the forest. They discussed conservation and sustainable practices, the recovery of seeds and trees species, how their communities are organized, and what challenges and success they have had. In this way, they are able to learn from each other in a horizontal way. FoE Costa Rica feels that the creation of this network is an important step for a better and sustainable future.

Community forest management in Costa Rica has proven to be an effective alternative to the unwanted commodification, privatization and devastation of forest territories. Other enticing alternatives include agroecological systems such as those developed by peasants like Señora Zinia. Yet there is still a great need to share information about these alternatives amongst different communities.

what happened?

Friends of the Earth El Salvador and Friends of the Earth Costa Rica decided to support a ‘community exchange’ to open a space for grassroots leaders to participate in a collective learning process around community forest management, food production in agroecological systems, and community resistance to megaprojects that impact on biodiversity and livelihoods.

Visitors from El Salvador visited an old pineapple field in Costa Rica, which has been managed for 20 years by Felix Diaz and his family. The family had decided to let the original forest recuperate , allowing biodiversity to flourish again. Today the family and the community enjoy a highly diverse secondary forest with 137 identified tree and plant species, 2 endemic species from Costa Rica, 9 of which can be used for medicinal purposes. Wildlife also came back as a result of the improved environmental conditions, including two species of quite unique poisonous frogs.

The family has build an interactive school around the forest and they were eager to exchange their knowledge and experience with peasants from El Salvador, hoping to contribute to the recuperation of other highly diverse territories.

With the Diaz family, participants learnt an interesting method for regenerating forests, in which saplings are grown at 3 meter intervals. This means that when the trees reach a certain height, the best ones can be retained, and the others used as wood for building houses or handicrafts, leaving a final distance of 6 meters between trees.

The next visit was to Señora Zinia's field. Señora Zinia is a peasant woman who has developed a 4ha organic pineapple field. She designed a closed system in which everything is recycled within the field, allowing for meat and fish production, the natural fertilization of soils, the production of plant fertilizers, and the use of beneficial bacteria which live in a latent state in the forests, but can be activated with a homemade compound of molasses and water (which is used to control bad odors coming from the piggeries). Señora Zinia also shared her knowledge about the medicinal plants used by her family. The visitors learned how to produce organic pineapple in a highly diversified field, and also found that the taste of those pineapples was quite different from that of conventional ones.

The visit continued on to the community forest in Santa Elena de Pital, next to the peasants' settlement of Santa Elena. This nature reserve belongs to the State, but its protection and management is in the hands of the peasants who - after five years of formalities - were able to declare the 89 ha of tropical rainforest the “Refugio de Vida Silvestre Tres Amigos”.

The visits also revealed that whilst there is a systematization of information about community forest management and forest recuperation, there is little information available about organic production in a highly diversified field like Señora Zinia´s.

What next?

The Diaz family’s forest recuperation experience is a model that FoE El Salvador and the communities they work with could replicate in El Salvador. The methods developed and implemented by Señora Zinia could also be replicated in agroecological production in El Salvador. 

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

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

• 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.

In Europe, Friends of the Earth collaborated with bi-regional networks and the Europe-wide Seattle to Brussels Network. Together we monitored and put pressure on the European Commission, Parliament and European Union member states with regard to ongoing FTA negotiations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, Central America, the Andean Community, Korea and the EuroMed Free Trade Area.

In Asia, we campaigned against the US-Malaysia FTA and the EU-ASEAN FTA. We did this by working with farmers, lobbying the region’s governments, and participating in various demonstrations and protests.

In Latin America, we ran a strong campaign against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). This culminated in a campaign around the popular referendum which allowed Costa Ricans to vote on CAFTA, held in October 2007. It brought about 150,000 people into the streets of the capital, San Jose.

With the referendum result showing in favour of CAFTA by a very narrow margin, FoEI’s battle on FTAs is now continuing in the EU. In the current phase, we are building alliances, particularly with the farmers’ movement. At the same time, we are supporting and developing concrete alternatives to “free” trade along the lines of food sovereignty and solidarity economies.

Resistance to the CAFTA in Costa Rica.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

They came to discuss important regional issues including agriculture, migration and citizenship, indigenous peoples, militarization, the environment, GMOs, women's struggles, resistance and Latin American integration.

Called the Social Summit for the Integration of the Peoples, this meeting was held in parallel with the 2nd Summit of Presidents of the South American Community of Nations. The FoE members from Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Bolivia and Costa Rica who took part also attended a mass mobilization of people, as more than 30,000 packed a Cochabamba stadium for the close of the social summit.  The summit’s organiser, Hemispheric Social Alliance, said the attendance exceeded their expections. Important progress was made, with participating organizations issueing a number of demands and proposals to the South American presidents. 

As Ecuadorian indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso said, “We decided to say ‘no’ to the death agreements, which are the free trade agreements, to say ‘no’ to the military bases, and ‘yes’ to rejecting the privatization of natural resources”

More information.

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

The event, organized jointly by trade campaign networks from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, was attended by more than 100 campaigners from 38 countries from across the world. Campaigners had the unique opportunity to share experiences, exchange information and develop joint strategies to counter the increased number of European Free Trade Agreements.

Participating campaigners also used the opportunity to present their views to MEPs and to build up support for their demands during a well-attended Public Hearing in the European Parliament. In addition, a colorful and cheerful action was organized in the heart of the EU district to reach out to the European public and media.

Friends of the Earth Europe also organised a series of lobby meetings with decision-makers in the European Parliament and the Commission together with Grace Garcia Muñoz from COECOCEIBA/FoE Costa Rica and other partner groups. This was also part of the largest-ever speakers' tour in Europe on EU Free Trade Agreements, with events in Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague.

Photo: Campaigners against FTAs taking part in an action outside the European Commission and Council buildings.
Photo credits: Alexandre Seron

12 percent of the funding for Friends of the Earth International comes from the membership dues paid by the member groups, and 0.3 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

87.5 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, capacity building, strengthening national campaigns, and increasing participation in international campaigns.

In 2008, we distributed 1.22 million Euros to 35 of our members: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, El Salvador, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestina, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Togo and Uruguay.

our funders

Friends of the Earth International gratefully acknowledges financial support from:

• HIVOS
• Oxfam Novib
• The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS)
• 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
• EuropeAid
  
• The Oak Foundation

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

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.

membership support