Global Forest Coalition

Used to bump into Chris at Earth First! actions in the early 1990s, a very solid campaigner.

keep on struggling to victory people!

Hi Derek,

Good post - glad to hear about the biofuels protests in the UK. And thanks for the link to the New Scientist article in another post.

REDD looks like its going to be the biggest disaster for the forests since the Tropical Forestry Action Plan. Of course a bunch of consultants, aid agencies, the World Bank and carbon trading firms like it - because it will give them lots of work (and money). Back in the 1980s, the World Bank promoted the paper industry in Sumatra, now one of the major causes of deforestation there (along with oil palm). But we're supposed to forget about the World Bank's history of destruction in the forests, because if only there were a market for "ecosystem services", then the forests wouldn't get could down. It's unbelievable, isn't it? You're right, addressing climate change is about commons, enclosure, rights, local people and leaving fossil fuels in the ground - not about creating a carbon market which will allow us to carry on polluting.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that Global Forest Coalition has its own website, these days: http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/

cheers, Chris

This is from their website:

The main purpose of the Global Forest Coalition is to support and coordinate joint NGO/IPO campaigns that focus on:

* raising awareness of the need for socially just and effective forest policy
* challenging the underlying causes of forest loss
* the rights of Indigenous and other forest peoples.



Lambert-and-Andrey-at-UNFFIn 2007 we are also focusing on raising awareness of the social impacts of market-based conservation mechanisms including carbon trading, gene trading and the sale of environmental services in general. We are particularly concerned about the impacts these schemes are likely to have on women, Indigenous Peoples and the rural poor.

We are also highlighting the impacts that the expansion of large-scale monocultures of crops such as soy, oil palm and eucalypt has on forests and Indigenous Peoples. In particular, we are concerned about agro-fuels (also known as ’biofuels’): the rapid expansion of the agro-fuel business is becoming a major cause of deforestation, depopulation and human rights abuses worldwide.

We also support the worldwide campaign to ban genetically modified trees, which form a major threat to forest biodiversity and forest peoples.