Women Raise Their Voices Against Tree Plantations

Abstract

"There are a large number of well documented examples of the destruction that has been directly or indirectly caused (and continues to be caused) by European companies. These impacts are not gender neutral, and while impacting communities as a whole, they have specific and differentiated impacts on men and women. In this document we present three case studies that show how consumption levels, EU policies and corporations are impacting on the lives of women in the South. These studies are the result of three workshops held in late 2008 in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Brazil, as part of a joint project between Friends of the Earth International and the World Rainforest Movement, with women from local communities who have seen their lives impacted by the transformation of their ecosystems. The first case is that of Nigeria –organized in collaboration with Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria- which is about rubber plantations established on the lands of a local community by the France-based Michelin company. In the case of Papua New Guinea the workshop was carried out in collaboration with the local organization CELCOR/Friends of the Earth-PNG. It refers to oil palm plantations that are being mainly promoted to feed the European market with palm oil (used in products such as cosmetics, soap, vegetable oil and foodstuffs) as well as for the production of agrofuels. And finally the Brazilian case –in collaboration with Núcleo Amigos da Terra/Friends of the Earth Brazil- is about eucalyptus plantations set up by three companies -the Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso, Aracruz Celulose and Votorantim- for producing pulp for export to Europe for converting it there into paper." (p. 2)