Roots Newsletter March 2020: GFC has 101 member groups and a new chairperson!
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Group photo taken at GFC Asian regional members’ meeting in Bogor, Indonesia. Save Amulsar is a campaign against a gold mine in Armenia. Photo: Fahmi/WAHLI
Dear friends,
In these uncertain times we would like to send a strong message of solidarity to our members and allies. We hope that you are able to stay safe and healthy wherever you are, and look forward to reinvigorating our struggles and campaigns in future.
We are very pleased to announce two recent changes to the GFC board: Anna Kirilenko (BIOM, Kyrgyzstan) is our new chairperson, and replaces our outgoing chair, Diego Cardona. We also welcome Johanna Molina (Colectivo VientoSur, Chile) as GFC’s new board member for Latin America and the Caribbean. Whilst we are sad that Diego’s term has ended and thank him profoundly for the energy and enthusiasm he brought to the role, we are very excited to have Anna and Johanna on board and it is a privilege to benefit further from their passion for and experience in feminist and environmental movements. For a full list of GFC’s board members and staff please see here.
In other good news, we welcome our 100th and 101st new members to the coalition! Joining us in struggle are the Institute for Sustainable Development Strategy (ISDS) Public Fund from Kyrgyzstan and Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Campesinado (CIPCA) from Bolivia.
It was wonderful to see so many of our Asia-based members in Bogor, Indonesia, for our regional members’ meeting, the dialogue on climate change, traditional knowledge and alternatives to unsustainable livestock production in Asia, the Women2030 meeting for partners, and the Extractive Industries, Tourism and Infrastructure (ETI) strategy meeting, which all took place back-to-back with our annual Monitoring, Evaluation and Planning meetings. In case you missed these events and would like to keep up with what was decided, reports on them will be available and circulated soon.
Since the start of the year we have also been advocating for the Convention on Biological Diversity’s post-2020 biodiversity framework to be truly transformational and inclusive. We published a photo essay on the importance of women’s rights and traditional knowledge for biodiversity conserving in Kyrgyzstan (also published in The Ecologist) to highlight the need for environmental justice to go hand-in-hand with gender justice, and we contributed to several editions of the CBD Alliance’s ECO that were produced in Rome. These included looking at the great contradictions in the zero draft and the 2020 climate and biodiversity interface, as well as contributions from our members on wildlife conflicts vs interactions and the founding principles and the post-2020 framework.
Earlier this month we campaigned to keep tree plantations out of climate finance by targeting the Arbaro Fund’s proposal to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Arbaro will use 25 million USD from GCF to create 75,000 ha of mostly eucalyptus plantations in seven countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Together with our member groups in Paraguay (HEÑÓI, Iniciativa Amotocodie and Sobrevivencia/Friends of the Earth), Ghana (The Development Institute), and Uganda (NAPE) we sent a strong message to the GCF board, which was also published by Mongabay. Despite our efforts the project was approved, a clear indication that the Green Climate Fund has sold out to the interests of corporate profit.
We are also very pleased to share some of the work of our member groups have been doing, including:
- AfrosRD, Dominican Republic: a video by the “SOS Cotubanamá” campaign, aiming to save Cotubanamá National Park from mass tourism
- Global Justice Ecology Project, USA: a video looking at the link between pipeline infrastructure and violence against indigenous women
- NAPE, Uganda: NAPE’s community Green Radio wins the 2020 Liz Hughes Award
- Save the Forest, Sweden: 70 organizations and 30 scientists call on politicians and authorities to stop the logging of high conservation value forests in Sweden
- Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa: January 2020 Newsletter
Finally, we remember the life and work of our dear friend and colleague Ghanimat Azhdari, who tragically lost her life in the plane crash near Tehran on 8 January. Ghanimat worked for our Iranian member group CENESTA for many years and was a proud member of the Qashqai tribe. Through her inspiring work she passionately advocated for there to be more respect for the rights, knowledge and ICCAs of Indigenous Peoples globally, and in particular for pastoralist peoples such as her own in Iran. She will be dearly missed.
In solidarity,
The GFC team
Publications
Convention on Biological Diversity: The Great Contradictions in the Zero Draft (25 February) and 2020 Climate and Biodiversity Interface (27 February)
From the blog
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If women stop, the world stops: we’re supporting the Women’s Global Strike on International Women’s Day (8 March) |  |
Why the Green Climate Fund must reject Arbaro’s plantations (5 March) |
Events
Extractive Industries, Tourism and Infrastructure campaign regional meeting in Asia (17 & 18 February)
An open dialogue on climate change, traditional knowledge and alternatives to unsustainable livestock production in Asia (15 February)
Members’ News
AfrosRD, Dominican Republic: a video by the “SOS Cotubanamá” campaign, aiming to save Cotubanamá National Park from mass tourism
Global Justice Ecology Project, USA: a video looking at the link between pipeline infrastructure and violence against indigenous women
NAPE, Uganda: NAPE’s community Green Radio wins the 2020 Liz Hughes Award
Save the Forest, Sweden: 70 organizations and 30 scientists call on politicians and authorities to stop the logging of high conservation value forests in Sweden
Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa: January 2020 Newsletter
CENESTA, Iran: Remembering Ghanimat Azhdari
Share your news!
We encourage all of our members to send us your news, whether it be an event, a blog, a testimony, a photo essay or your press releases. We can help to share your campaign materials!
Contact us: gfc@globalforestcoalition.org
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