The Isvara Foundation
sustainability school
The annual Sustainability School convened by Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) provides space for a new form of learning and information exchange in Latin America and the Caribbean. Now in its third year, it is also forging strong new links between member groups, and with allies in the region.
malawi: calling for climate justice
More than 90% of Malawi’s people, most of whom live in resource-poor rural communities, are engaged in subsistence rain-fed agriculture; 60% of them suffer food insecurity for most of the year. Over the last two decades, they have had to contend with increasingly erratic weather, ever more frequent flooding, droughts, and landslides, and rising temperatures. This is pushing them deeper into poverty and exacerbating food crises and malnutrition, as farmers struggle to keep pace with their changing environment.
united states: fighting forest carbon offsets
Deforestation and forest degradation in tropical forests account for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Forest protection policies are therefore a vital component of national and international climate policy. But many of the forest-related provisions in legislation such as the American Clean Energy and Security Act (also known as the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill) will undermine domestic climate change targets.
africa: opposing land grabs, agra and non-ecological agriculture
Enormous tracts of land on the African continent have been turned over to transnational agribusinesses and others interested in maximizing profits by exporting agricultural products, including for agrofuels production. A combination of African governments’ expropriation of community land and new agricultural systems proposed by donor agencies has proven to be highly damaging to smallholders’ livelihoods and the environment.
