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Resource Rights

The Contamination of Native Mexican Corn Varieties by GM Strains

By: Carol Schachet | Maio 21, 2014

This presentation was given during the final thematic hearing of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal in Mexico on “Violence against Maize, Autonomy and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights” in November, 2013. Gabriela Linares Sosa is a member of the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO), a partner of Grassroots International and a leading indigenous voice in efforts to unmask the presence of genetically-modified (GM) corn in the Oaxacan countryside.
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Resource Rights

Building Women’s Leadership in Palestine

By: Jonathan Leaning | Maio 20, 2014

The Women’s Empowerment and Food Sovereignty Project in Palestine, sponsored by Grassroots International and implemented with our Palestinian partner the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, works to bring practical, locally controlled food projects to various communities in the West Bank.
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Resource Rights

Monsanto Meets its Match in the Birthplace of Maize

By: Carol Schachet | Maio 12, 2014

On April 21, a Mexican judge dealt a blow to the efforts of agricultural behemoth Monsanto and other biotech companies to open the country to the commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) maize. The ruling upheld the injunction issued last October that put a halt to further testing or commercial planting of the crop, citing “the risk of imminent harm to the environment.”
In a fitting tribute to Mexican surrealism, Monsanto had accused the judge who upheld the injunction of failing to be “impartial.” I don’t know if the presiding judge smiled when he denied Monsanto’s complaint, but I did.
I had just arrived in Mexico to look at the GM controversy, and I could tell it was going to be quite a visit.
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Resource Rights

Videos Explore Farming in Palestine Under the Israeli Occupation

By: Mina Remy | Abril 25, 2014

Farmers everywhere need certain things to thrive: Land, water, seeds, and a little help from the weather. But Palestinian farmers face relentless obstacles even to get to their fields, let alone irrigate them. For almost a decade Grassroots International has supported the work of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in the West Bank. UAWC has been a key ally for Palestinian farmers exerting their right to farm in the face of settler violence, restricted access to farmland, confiscation of olive trees, and destruction of farms. In the videos below, UAWC farmers in two West Bank towns (Wadi Qana and Al Falamyeh) detail the many ways in which the Israeli occupation affect their livelihoods.
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Resource Rights

Land Means Everything: Palestinian Land Day, the Separation Wall and Land Grabs

By: Carol Schachet | Março 31, 2014

On Palestinian Land Day (March 30) the world has an opportunity to learn some of the facts of the ongoing land grabs in the region. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories not only takes Palestinian land for Israeli use. The settler-only structures and infrastructure also annex land and cut off Palestinians from each other, curtail their ability to move freely, and make it difficult – and often impossible – for students to go to schools, patients to visit hospitals, and farmers to access their land and grow food.
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Resource Rights

Troubled Waters: A fact sheet on water grabs in Palestine

By: Carol Schachet | Março 31, 2014

While Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are portrayed as a region where water is scarce and where innovation has enabled Israelis to "turn the desert green," the truth is far more troubling. A new fact sheet from Grassroots International outlines elements of the 60-year water grab by Israel of area water resources, from the Jordon River to the Western Mountain Aquifer.
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Resource Rights

2016 Projects and Partners Guide

By: Carol Schachet | Março 31, 2014

Grassroots International combines savvy political analysis, reliable funding, and international networking to support global movements that are solving the root causes of poverty and climate change. For more than three decades, Grassroots International has worked in partnership with social movements and frontline organizations at the local and global level to advance thes no guarantee a donor-advised fund will just support our docket.o forward, because there' vewe human rights to land, water and food through grantmaking, building solidarity across organizations and movements and advocacy in the US.
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Resource Rights

Guatemalan Farmers Stop a Mining Operation

By: Jonathan Leaning | Março 28, 2014

Land defenders in Guatemala are celebrating. In a country not known for its respect for human rights and due process of law, indigenous community activists have scored a recent victory whose impact will surely ripple through the nation.
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Resource Rights

Leading a River Revolution in Brazil

By: Carol Schachet | Março 26, 2014

The Tapajos River basin is one of the best preserved regions in Brazil, a mosaic of protected forest reserves and indigenous lands. This river is located in the heart of the Amazon and is the home of the Munduruku’s indigenous people and other riverine communities. It is the only river in the Amazon River basin currently free of dams. And a river revolution is happening there, led by Brazil’s Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), a Grassroots International partner working in solidarity with indigenous people to stop the government’s outrageous plan to build six dams along the Tapajos River.
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Resource Rights

In Their Own Words: Gaza’s Farmers and Fishers Speak Out

By: Mina Remy | Março 4, 2014

In this remarkable video, the Gaza branch of Grassroots International partner the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, documents the plight of fishers and farmers in the Gaza Strip. This video is a testament to Palestinians’ commitment to their land and livelihoods despite overwhelming Israeli military pressure to give up. Palestinian farmers and fishers continuously risk their lives by pursuing their craft amidst the Israeli blockade of Gaza. For them giving up their way of life, and a means to sustain their families, is not an option.
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Resource Rights

A Path toward Better Agricultural Investment

By: Carol Schachet | Fevereiro 27, 2014

The food crisis of 2008 led to a broad agreement in the agricultural development community that the lack of appropriate investment in agriculture had been a key contributing factor to unstable prices and food insecurity. The crisis coincided with an increase in land grabbing in many parts of the world, but especially in Africa. It is in response to these events that the idea of developing some criteria on agricultural investments came up in international policy and governance arenas.
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Resource Rights

Promoting Seed Sovereignty

By: Carol Schachet | Fevereiro 21, 2014

Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of Haiti’s Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) muses, “In the old days, Haitian peasants never sold seeds; seeds were for sharing and exchanging.”
Today the old ways have been pushed aside. Seeds have become big business.
This assault on the basic human right to food commercializes and commodifies one of life’s most essential assets. It jeopardizes human health, threatens the global food supply and steals away the livelihoods of small farmers around the world.
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Resource Rights

G8 Brings Big Ag Colonialism to Africa

By: Carol Schachet | Fevereiro 19, 2014

Food sovereignty within several African countries is on the verge of a complete neo-colonial take-over, critics of a recent agricultural initiative being developed by a new G8 alliance warn.

According to a Guardian report published Tuesday, the G8's New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition initiative, supported by the Obama administration, has connected African leaders with major agribusiness corporations in an effort to map out a plan for agricultural development on the African continent in the coming years, which will loosen export and tax laws, award "huge chunks of land" for private investment and change seed laws to benefit international corporations and their GMO products.
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Resource Rights

Life, Death and Bravery in Central America

By: Barbara Polk | Janeiro 27, 2014

Barbara Polk traveled with other Grassroots International supporters to Honduras and Guatemala in the fall of 2013. The article below provides an overview of the trip and her experiences.
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Resource Rights

Alfredo Lopez, Human Rights Defender and Big Headache for Honduran Authorities

By: Jonathan Leaning | Janeiro 24, 2014

Alfredo Lopez is a hunted man.
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Resource Rights

Today’s peasant movement – sophisticated, threatened, and our best hope for survival

By: Carol Schachet | Janeiro 23, 2014

The term peasant often conjures up images of medieval serfs out of touch with the ways of the world around them. Such thinking is out of date. Today, peasants proudly and powerfully put forward effective strategies to feed the planet and limit the damages wrought by industrial agriculture. What’s more, they understand the connections between complex trade and economic systems, champion the rights of women, and even stand up for the rights of gay men and lesbians.

These are not your great ancestors’ peasants.
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Resource Rights

Celebrating 20 years of the Zapatista Uprising for autonomy and self-determination!

By: Jovanna Garcia Soto | Dezembro 31, 2013

On New Year’s Day, 20 years ago, a group of indigenous peoples, known as the Zapatistas, occupied several municipalities of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Not coincidentally, that same day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The Zapatistas considered the free trade agreement and the neoliberal political system that spawned it to be a death sentence for indigenous peoples in Mexico. The magnitude of the Zapatista uprising was due to the participation of different indigenous groups which joined forces to change a system that was marginalizing and exploiting them.
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Resource Rights

Advances on the Journey to Food Sovereignty and Human Rights

By: Jonathan Leaning | Dezembro 19, 2013

This last year has seen many advances around the globe for communities and activists pushing to regain their fundamental human rights to land, water, and food. As we now approach the end of 2013, we take this opportunity a look back at some of the accomplishments that have marked the year. In spite of the great challenges—and seemingly insurmountable odds—there is much to celebrate. Below are some of many highlights from the last year.

Winning land for formerly landless farmers in Brazil
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Resource Rights

TIAA-CREF Divests Social Choice Fund from Controversial Veolia Corporation

By: Mina Remy | Novembro 14, 2013

Grassroots International and its partners in the We Divest coalition join activists from around the country in congratulating TIAA-CREF for taking a step toward living up to its motto, “Investment for the Greater Good”. “TIAA-CREF has made a move in the right direction by divesting its Social Choice Fund of Veolia stock given that Veolia's business model and practices have consistently put profit over people -- whether privatizing water resources around the world, or enabling Israeli occupation and segregation in the West Bank. This is a victory for all those concerned with human rights and justice,” said Nikhil Aziz, Executive Director of Grassroots International.
Read the full press release below.
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Resource Rights

Supporting Progressive Grassroots Organizations in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda

By: Grassroots International | Novembro 12, 2013

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimates that 9.8 million people in and around the city of Tacloban in the Visayas region of the Philippines have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda and that at least 660,000 of the affected people were forced from their homes. And authorities fear as many as 10,000 people have died. With the continued threat of landslides and flash floods from additional storms, it is crucial that survivors get access to clean water, food, and shelter as soon as possible.
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