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In the News

GMO Avalanche Threatens the Cradle of Corn

By: Carol Schachet | Dezembro 20, 2012

A decision in Mexico that could allow Monsanto, Dow, and ConAgra to plant 2,500,000 hectares (or over 6 million acres) of GMO corn in Northern Mexico has been temporarily postponed. Outgoing president Felipe Calderon was expected to approve permits requested by the biotech giants to plant GMO corn beginning this spring on land areas larger than the size of El Salvador.

The decision has been left for President Enrique Peña Nieto who took office December 1. Nieto, who is expected to approve of the plans, was quoted in Reuters saying “I think we are in agreement generally over the importance of having this instrument, and that farmers have the tool of genetically modified organisms.”
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Defending Palestinian Human Rights

By: Mina Remy | Dezembro 18, 2012

Globally, activists at the forefront of human rights protection are coming under increased scrutiny and attack by state and non-state actors. Although being a human rights defender is becoming dangerous work, the commitment to human rights promotion and defense amongst activist has not waned. Nowhere is this truer than in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), where our partners have had their offices raided and equipment confiscated by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
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In the News

Protecting Human Rights in Haiti

By: Jonathan Leaning | Dezembro 17, 2012

On March 28, 2012—more than two years after the devastating earthquake—884 displaced families living under makeshift tents and tarps in the displacement camp of Gaston Magron in Port-au-Prince were busy putting their children to sleep when bullets suddenly began flying. A gang of thugs had broken into the camp searching for the camp’s security volunteers, apparently in retaliation for being stopped from entering the camp previously. They shot and killed three people, wounding several dozen others including a pregnant woman. They set fire to tents, raped several women and girls, verbally threatened terrified camp residents, and then left.
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International Solidarity Moves Brazilian Governor, Supports Landless Families

By: Saulo Araujo | Dezembro 13, 2012

It is rare to see direct changes resulting from international solidarity. But it does happen. And while international solidarity alone doesn’t move governments to protect the land rights of landless peasants, when combined with and informed by actions on the...
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Solidarity with Detroit Communities to Stop Land Grabbing

By: Sara Mersha | Dezembro 10, 2012
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Indigenous Kaiowá in Brazil Pledge ‘Collective Death’ to Defend Ancestral Territory

By: Saulo Araujo | Novembro 26, 2012

Leaders of the Guarani Kaiowá boldly announced that the entire community would rather die in their land defending from businesses and corporations. Their assertion is more than a war declaration. For us, the buyers of “clean energy,” their pronouncement is a jarring wake-up call that the “Green Economy” actually promotes genocide of indigenous people and Afro-descendent communities –whether in the form of a slow die off of disposed peoples or a quicker resistance.
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In the News

People Power versus Hydropower

By: Jonathan Leaning | Novembro 26, 2012

A massive, very active social movement against the loss of land and ecosystems caused by hydro-electric dams is making headway in Brazil. The movement is little known in North America so far, but that’s changing. And it’s on the brink of spreading across the world wherever large dams are being built and waterways threatened.

But what’s all the fuss, some may ask. Doesn’t it usually only affect isolated communities, and isn’t hydropower a much more environmentally friendly source of cheap energy, especially compared with nuclear, coal, or oil? Are these anti-dam activists clinging to a kind of prosaic, but impractical pastoral way of life, or just trying to push the dams into somebody else’s backyard?
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SOFA’s Violence Against Women Campaign in Haiti, One Year On

By: Mina Remy | Novembro 21, 2012

Although the January 2010 earthquake suspended the government’s work on a national strategy to combat violence against women, women’s organizations led by SOFA (Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen/Haitian Women’s Solidarity) have pressed on in their struggle.
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Saving Water with Agroecology

By: Saulo Araujo | Novembro 21, 2012

It is still dark outside when the farmers awaken. The cool air of the morning won’t last too long once the sun rises. When the sun slowly breaks the dawn, the sleepy bodies demand a cup of coffee. The flame...
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In the News

Who Fishes Matters

By: Sara Mersha | Novembro 21, 2012

I recently had a chance to interview Grassroots International friend and ally Niaz Dorry, Executive Director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA). The organization brings together fishing communities in Grassroots’ own backyard (from southern New England up to Atlantic Canada). As a self-organizing and self-governing organization, NAMA seeks to restore and enhance an enduring marine system supporting a healthy diversity and an abundance of marine life and human uses. NAMA is a member of Grassroots’ the National Family Farm Coalition (a Grassroots’ grantee), which in turn a member and anchor group of the Via Campesina (a Grassroots’ partner). I’m happy to share highlights of this interview during the month of World Fisheries Day (November 21).
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Rehabilitating Haiti’s Central Plateau Through Agroecology and Water Access

By: Mina Remy | Novembro 21, 2012

The Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) is one example of the amazing work peasant organizations are doing across rural communities in Haiti. In those communities, peasant organizations are working hard with limited resources. While post-2010 earthquake relief funds from big international funders (like USAID) are being squandered building large industrial complexes on productive agricultural land, peasant organizations are planting trees to stave off soil erosion, preserving Creole seeds to ensure seed sovereignty for future generations, and improving access to life-giving water.
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Gaza’s Civilians under Attack

By: Mina Remy | Novembro 20, 2012

The toll Operation Pillar of Defense (Pillar of Cloud in Hebrew) is taking on Gaza’s population is unimaginable to most Americans, but Twitter is changing that. As information flows from Gaza City, Beit Hanoun, and Khan Younis the pain, suffering, and senseless death of innocent men, women, and children cannot be denied. More than half of the 105 Palestinians killed during the last seven days of this operation have been civilians, including children.
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Message from Raji Sourani, Director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights

By: Mina Remy | Novembro 19, 2012

Operation Pillar of Defense (Pillar of Cloud in Hebrew) is once again destroying Gaza missile by missile, building by building. Our partner Raji Sourani, the director of Palestinian Center for Human Rights, sees history repeating itself with each civilian casualty. As he makes clear in a recent article on Al-Jazeera (posted below), the world is standing by while scores of civilians lose their lives, Gazans human rights are violated and community infrastructure is destroyed.
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Grassroots International Condemns Violence in Palestine/Israel

By: Nikhil Aziz | Novembro 15, 2012

Once again, the steady violence that passes for “normal” in Palestine and Israel has escalated to alarming proportions. After months of rocket exchanges between militants in Gaza and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the situation rapidly deteriorated in the past 24 hours. Grassroots International joins the growing chorus of voices calling for an end to violence from both sides, a return to negotiations for a just and lasting peace, and enforcement of international human rights and humanitarian law as outlined by the Geneva Conventions.
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First Global Encounter on Agroecology and Peasant Seeds

By: Carol Schachet | Novembro 13, 2012

Members of the Via Campesina gathered in Thailand to discuss, strategize and coordinate about one of the mainstays of farmers across the globe: Seeds.
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In the News

Communities Stand with those Impacted by Hurricane Sandy in Haiti, Cuba, and the Northeast US

By: Sara Mersha | Novembro 13, 2012

Last week, a broad group of organizations involved in a Climate Justice Alignment process in the US released the statement below, in solidarity with communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean and the US Northeast. Grassroots International is proud to be part of the Climate Justice Alignment, working with allies such as the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, and the Black Mesa Water Coalition to build up a campaign for a Just Transition. This critical effort aims to move us away from an economy based on extreme energy (such as oil, tar sands, gas, agrofuels, mega-dams, nuclear power, and other forms of death-dependent energy). At the same time
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Brazil’s “Green Energy” too Costly, say People Affected by Dams

By: Saulo Araujo | Novembro 9, 2012

Before becoming Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Roussef helped to engineer an ambitious development plan that would change the country. Known as the Accelerated Growth Plan and the Ten-year Energy Plan, it would build 134 dams by the year of 2020 in the Amazon alone. Among the losers in the plan: thousands of acres of forest; habitat for endangered species; and thousands of families unfortunate enough to have ancestors who chose to settle these lands. According to Grassroots International’s partner, the Brazilian Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the ambitious development plan failed to include any funding to offset hunger and unemployment, or to revamp public services for those displaced populations whose livelihoods will be wiped.
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Hurricane Sandy Washes Away Haitian Livelihoods

By: Mina Remy | Novembro 5, 2012

Hurricane and Superstorm Sandy caused billions in damages from the Caribbean to Canada, killed more than 100 people and left many in its wake without basic necessities. For those of us who live in countries where our cities, states, and federal governments have the resources to tackle complex emergencies, the return to normal life, though unimaginable now, will slowly unfurl.
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Preparations Underway for the World Social Forum-Free Palestine

By: Mina Remy | Outubro 22, 2012

For the past year, Stop the Wall and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (both Grassroots International partners) have been working diligently with their Palestinian and Brazilian allies to fulfill the call issued in 2011 at the World Social Forum in Dakar. Then, participants expressed a desire to hold a thematic World Social Forum to explore ongoing social injustice in the occupied Palestinian territories; and to formulate an international response from the peoples of the world since states have either been unwilling or unable to provide pathways toward a just peace.
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In the News

For-Profit Folly in Haiti

By: Mina Remy | Outubro 18, 2012

Over the past few decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has seen its staff level drop significantly at the same time as the amount of money under its discretion has rapidly increased.
Over this time, USAID has stepped up its reliance on for-profit contractors to fill the void. The result, as Hillary Clinton stated in her confirmation hearing (USAID is part of the State Department), is that USAID has “turned into more of a contracting agency than an operational agency with the ability to deliver.”
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