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<http://rajpatel.org/2012/02/16/since-when-is-compassion-illeg/> La
Via Campesina on What Needs to Happen in RioBy Raj
<http://rajpatel.org/author/raj/> on 02/17/2012 in Uncategorized
<http://rajpatel.org/category/uncategorized/> La Vía Campesina
Call to action Reclaiming our future: Rio +20 and Beyond
On 20-22 June 2012, governments from around the world will gather in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, to commemorate 20 years of the "Earth
Summit", the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) that first established a global agenda for
"sustainable development". During the 1992 summit, the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB), the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Convention to Combat
Desertification, were all adopted. The Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD) was also established to ensure effective follow-up of
the UNCED "Earth Summit."
Twenty years later, governments should have reconvened to review their
commitments and progress, but in reality the issue to debate will be the
"green economy" led development, propagating the same capitalist
model that caused climate chaos and other deep social and environmental
crises.
La Vía Campesina will mobilize for this historical moment,
representing the voice of the millions of peasants and indigenous
globally who are defending the well-being of all by implementing food
sovereignty and the protection of natural resources.
20 Years later: a planet in crisis
20 years after the Earth Summit, life has become more difficult for the
majority of the planet's inhabitants. The number of hungry people
has increased to almost one billion, which means that one out of six
human beings is going hungry, women and small farmers being the most
affected. Meanwhile, the environment is depleting fast, biodiversity is
being destroyed, water resources are getting scarce and contaminated and
the climate is in crisis. This is jeopardizing our very future on Earth
while poverty and inequalities are increasing.
The idea of "Sustainable Development" put forward in 1992, which
merged "development" and "environment" concerns, did not
solve the problem because it did not stop the capitalist system in its
race towards profit at the expense of all human and natural resources:
- The food system is increasingly in the grips of large corporations
seeking profit, not aimed at feeding the people.
- The Convention on Biodiversiy has created benefit sharing mechanisms
but at the end of the day, they legitimize the capitalization of genetic
resources by the private sector.
- The UN Convention on Climate Change, instead of forcing countries and
corporations to reduce pollution, invented a new profitable and
speculative commodity with the carbon trading mechanisms, allowing the
polluter to continue polluting and profit from it.
The framework of "sustainable development" continues to see
peasant agriculture as backwards and responsible for the deterioration
of natural resources and the environment. The same paradigm of
development is perpetuated, which is nothing less than the development
of capitalism by means of a "green industrialization."
The "Green Economy" Final Enclosure?
Today the "greening of the economy" pushed forward in the run-up
to Rio+20 is based on the same logic and mechanisms that are destroying
the planet and keeping people hungry. For instance, it seeks to
incorporate aspects of the failed "green revolution" in a
broader manner in order to ensure the needs of the industrial sectors of
production, such as promoting the uniformity of seeds, patented seeds by
corporation, genetically modified seeds, etc.
The capitalist economy, based on the over-exploitation of natural
resources and human beings, will never become "green." It is
based on limitless growth in a planet that has reached its limits and on
the commoditization of the remaining natural resources that have until
now remained un-priced or in control of the public sector.
In this period of financial crisis, global capitalism seeks new forms of
accumulation. It is during these periods of crisis in which capitalism
can most accumulate. Today, it is the territories and the commons which
are the main target of capital. As such, the green economy is nothing
more than a green mask for capitalism. It is also a new mechanism to
appropriate our forests, rivers, land
of our territories!
Since last year's preparatory meetings towards Rio+20, agriculture
has been cited as one of the causes of climate change. Yet no
distinction is made in the official negotiations between industrial and
peasant agriculture, and no explicit difference between their effects on
poverty, climate and other social issues we face.
The "green economy" is marketed as a way to implement
sustainable development for those countries which continue to experience
high and disproportionate levels of poverty, hunger and misery. In
reality, what is proposed is another phase of what we identify as
"green structural adjustment programs" which seek to align and
re-order the national markets and regulations to submit to the fast
incoming "green capitalism".
Investment capital now seeks new markets through the "green
economy"; securing the natural resources of the world as primary
inputs and commodities for industrial production, as carbon sinks or
even for speculation. This is being demonstrated by increasing land
grabs globally, for crop production for both export and agrofuels. New
proposals such as "climate smart" agriculture, which calls for
the "sustainable intensification" of agriculture, also embody
the goal of corporations and agri-business to over exploit the earth
while labeling it "green", and making peasants dependent on
high-cost seeds and inputs. New generations of polluting permits are
issued for the industrial sector, especially those found in developed
countries, such as what is expected from programs such as Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD++) and other
environmental services schemes.
The green economy seeks to ensure that the ecological and biological
systems of our planet remain at the service of capitalism, by the
intense use of various forms of biotechnologies, synthetic technologies
and geo-engineering. GMO's and biotechnology are key parts of the
industrial agriculture promoted within the framework of "green
economy".
The promotion of the green economy includes calls for the full
implementation of the WTO Doha Round, the elimination of all trade
barriers to incoming "green solutions," the financing and
support of financial institutions such as the World Bank and projects
such as US-AID programs, and the continued legitimization of the
international institutions that serve to perpetuate and promote global
capitalism.
Why peasant farmers mobilize
Small-scale farmers, family farmers, landless people, indigenous people,
migrants women and men are now determined to mobilize to
oppose any commodification of life and to propose another way to
organize our relationship with nature on earth based on agrarian reform,
food sovereignty and peasant based agroecology.
We reject the "Green Economy" as it is pushed now in the Rio+20
process. It is a new mask to hide an ever-present, growing greed of
corporations and food imperialism in the world.
* We oppose carbon trading and all market solutions to the
environmental crisis including the proposed liberalization of
environmental services under the WTO.
* We reject REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation) which allows rich countries to avoid cutting their carbon
emissions by financing often damaging projects in developing countries.
* We expose and reject the corporate capture of the rio+20 process
and all multilateral processes within the United Nations.
* We oppose land grabs, water grabs, seeds grabs, forest grabs
all resources' grabs!
* We defend the natural resources in our countries as a matter of
national and popular sovereignty, to face the offensive and private
appropriation of capital;
* We demand public policies from governments for the protection of
the interests of the majority of the population, especially the poorest,
and landless workers;
* We demand a complete ban on geoengineering projects and
experiments; under the guise of `green' or `clean'
technology to the benefit of agribusiness. This includes new
technologies being proposed for adaptation and mitigation to climate
change under the banners of "geo-engineering" and "climate
smart agriculture", including false solutions like transgenic plants
supposed to adapt to climate change, and "biochar" purported to
replenish the soil with carbon.
* We resolve to protect our native seeds and our right to exchange
seeds.
* We demand genuine agrarian reform that distributes and
redistributes the land the main factor in production
especially taking into account women and youth. Land must be a means of
production to secure the livelihood of the people and must not be a
commodity subject to speculation on international markets. We reject
"market assisted land reform", which is another word for land
privatization.
* We struggle for small scale sustainable food production for
community and local consumption as opposed to agribusiness, monoculture
plantations for export.
* We continue to organize and practice agroecology based production,
ensuring food sovereignty for all and implementing collective management
of our resources
Call to action
We call for a major world mobilization to be held between 18-26 June in
Rio de Janeiro, with a permanent camp, for the Peoples Summit, to
counter the summit of governments and capital.
We will be in Rio at the People's Summit where anti-capitalist
struggles of the world will meet and together we will propose real
solutions. The People's Permanent Assembly, between the 18 and 22,
will present the daily struggles against the promoters of capitalism y
the attacks against our lands. Today, Rio de Janeiro is one of the
cities which receive the most contributions from global capital and will
host the Soccer World Cup and Olympics. We will unite our symbolic
struggles from the urban to the landless movements and fishers.
We also declare the week of June 5th, as a major world week in defense
of the environment and against transnational corporations and invite
everyone across the world to mobilize:
* Defend sustainable peasant agriculture
* Occupy land for the production of agroecological and non-market
dominated food
* Reclaim and exchange native seeds
* Protest against Exchange and Marketing Board offices and call for
an end to speculative markets on commodities and land
* Hold local assemblies of People Affected by Capitalism
* Dream of a different world and create it!!
The future that we want is based on Agrarian Reform, Peasant's based
sustainable agriculture and Food Sovereignty!
GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!!
GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!
La Via Campesina
Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and
medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural
youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and
multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other
type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about
150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the
Americas.
International Operational Secretariat:
Jln. Mampang Prapatan XIV no 5 Jakarta Selatan 12790, Indonesia
Tel/fax: +62-21-7991890 <tel:%2B62-21-7991890> /+62-21-7993426
<tel:%2B62-21-7993426>
Email: viacampes...@viacampesina.org
<mailto:viacampes...@viacampesina.org>
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