Reframing Rio

Indigenous Chileans Still Fighting Pinochet-Era Highway Project

By Marianela Jarroud
For more than two decades, Mapuche indigenous people in the Chilean region of Araucanía have been fighting the construction of the Ruta Costera (Coastal Highway), a megaproject initially conceived during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) which has already caused significant archeological and cultural losses and damages.

Guyana Hits Paydirt on Low Carbon Development Path

By Desmond Brown
Imagine Guyana and Dominica without forests and rivers, or Antigua, Barbados and St. Lucia without beaches.

Q&A: Fighting to Save Africa’s Richest Rainforest

By Monde Kingsley Nfor

Protests against a controversial palm oil plantation in the Korup National Park, Africa’s oldest and richest rainforest in terms of floral and faunal diversity, in Mundemba, southwest Cameroon will continue despite the arrests and intimidation of local environmental campaigners.

Farmers Need to Grow Climate Smart

By Busani Bafana
Farmers cannot wait much longer for negotiators to reach an agreement on including a work programme on agriculture in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And until one is approved, “it will continue to be difficult for farmers to produce the food needed, and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
Bicycling in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Courtesy of ITDP

Bicycling to Work in Rio de Janeiro

By Fabiana Frayssinet
The cyclists riding in the bicycle lanes along the beachfront avenue of this Brazilian city pass the car drivers stuck in rush hour traffic.

Native Communities in Peru Take Charge of Environmental Monitoring

By Milagros Salazar
At the end of every month, with the skill of an environmental engineer, Wilson Sandi prepares a work plan that will be used by Achuar indigenous people, like him, to document the scars left by 40 years of oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon region of Loreto.
Family farms produce most of the food consumed in Brazil. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

Small Rural Businesses in Brazil Set Sights on Domestic Market

By Fabiana Frayssinet
"Canjinjin has special powers," said Deize Coelho de Barros. The recipe for this local liquor, made from a mixture of herbs, was handed down from her African ancestors, and is seen as a sort of traditional "Viagra" in her homeland, the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

Cottoning on to Outsourcing Farming

By Nebert Mulenga
Five years ago, Forbes Gwilize, 52, a cotton grower from Musena village, 80 kilometres north of the Zambian capital Lusaka, was hardly able to earn a living from farming maize.

Deaf Ear Turned to Local Opposition to Mines in Guatemala

By Danilo Valladares
As the mining industry booms in Guatemala, local communities are increasingly opposed to the operations of the mainly foreign companies because of the potential negative effects on the environment and on their villages.

Brazilian Communities Revitalise the São Francisco River

By Mario Osava
José Geraldo Matos fondly recalls the massive traíras (Hoplias sp), carnivorous freshwater fish found in the lagoons and rivers of Brazil, that he used to catch in the Dos Cochos River just a few metres from his house.

From Doha to Dakar, Food Insecurity is the Norm

By Mantoe Phakathi

Qatar may be one of the richest countries in the world, but it has something in common with its African counterparts – food insecurity.

Tiny Barbuda Fears Increasingly Hostile Climate

By Desmond Brown
Local scientists are warning the tiny 62-square-mile island of Barbuda is becoming one of the most vulnerable spots on earth to the consequences of climate change.

Striving to Increase African Food Productivity

By William Lloyd-George
For decades food security and self-sufficiency in Africa have been seen as a distant dream. The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, however, hopes to make it a reality, and while it may have begun with a slow start, its coordinators are confident it will produce more positive results in the coming years.

OP-ED: Loss and Damage from Climate Change Must Not Become the “New Normal”

By Sam Bickersteth
As United Nations climate talks get underway this week in Doha, Qatar, they show a subtle, unsettling shift in the global climate change debate.

/UPDATE*/ Africa – Calling for a GMO-Free Continent

By Busani Bafana
South African smallholder farmer Motlasi Musi is not happy with the African Centre for Biosafety’s call for his country and Africa to ban the cultivation, import and export of all genetically modified maize. "I eat genetically modified maize, which I have been growing on my farm for more than seven years, and I am still alive," he declared.

Taking the Knowledge of Doha Back to Kenya’s Rural Communities

By Mantoe Phakathi
The skyscraper Qatari capital city of Doha is a far cry from Cecilia Kibe’s home in Turkana district, a remote area in Kenya inhabited by mostly nomadic communities and pastoralists hit hard by the effects of climate change.

African Negotiators Saving Kyoto from the Grave

By Wambi Michael
African negotiators attending the United Nations climate change talks in Doha, Qatar say they are determined to ensure that developed countries do not let the Kyoto Protocol die as its commitment period comes to an end.

Q&A: COP18, Another ‘Conference of Polluters’

By Busani Bafana

There is no political will among rich nations to find funding for developing countries experiencing the brunt of changes in global weather patterns, and the current climate change conference will fail to do so, according to Professor Patrick Bond, a leading thinker and analyst on climate change issues.

The Sun Rescues Rural Cameroonians from “Incessant Darkness”

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
In the small farming village of Sabongari, in Cameroon’s North West Region, the need for kerosene to light bush lamps and petrol to run electric generators has been replaced by the need for something much cheaper and cleaner: sunshine.

Indigenous Seek Profits From Forests

By Peter Wahwai
Kenya’s Ogiek community, the indigenous group of hunter-gatherers who were evicted from the Mau Forest three years ago, say they will no longer sit by and watch logging companies profit from the resources of their traditional home while they live in poverty in tented camps around the forest without even the most basic of services, like sanitation.
Mary Njenga has worked to make clean, simple technologies available to poor rural communities. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

The Face of Food Security Is Female

By Busani Bafana
In a major endorsement for investment in women - the bulk of food growers in the developing world - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food security could not be achieved without women, and that the world's hungry also needed leaders to prioritise actions.
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