In Paraguay, Paracel SA is building a new pulp mill, including a biomass power station and accompanying monoculture plantations. The project is well underway to severely violate indigenous rights and local communities’ rights and to inflict serious harm on biodiversity and the climate. Paracel has failed to provide complete, understandable and accessible information to the […]
Read MoreLandscape in the Gran Chaco, Paraguay, May 2004. Photo by Ilosuna. Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 (Generic). After taking over vast tracts of land in all South America, the pulp & paper industry is now expanding in Paraguay. Paracel, a joint venture between a Paraguayan oil trader and foreign entities, is constructing a pulp mill and […]
Read MoreSeveral Indigenous communities, who had reclaimed their ancestral lands taken away by companies, have recently been targeted by armed fazendeiros (agrarian latifundists) mobs in different regions of Brazil. The official recognition of these areas as Indigenous land can be an arduous process. It’s often hampered by legal actions carried out by the fazendeiros, and the […]
Read MoreA new report from the Environmental Paper Network reveals another case of “Conflict Plantations,” this time in Chile. Since May 7th the military police have been sent again to garrison Araucania, Southern-central Chile, where the pulp & paper industry is embroiled in a longstanding conflict with the Mapuche indigenous people. This is not a good […]
Read MoreAntonio Treuquil was a werkén, the traditional Mapuche spokesperson, in the We Newén community. Mapuche indigenous people are in a longstanding conflict with the forest industry that grabbed most of their land during the dictatorship. Also the We Newén community is involved in a land dispute over traditional territories, with the pulp and paper company […]
Read MoreBerlin, 24 March 2020 – A discussion document released by the Environmental Paper Network (EPN) unveils the social and environmental risks associated with the Finnish company UPM-Kymmene and its operations in Uruguay, and highlights the importance of strong social and environmental risk management policies and close scrutiny of individual investments. UPM is one of […]
Read MoreSocial organizations from Uruguay, Finland and other countries, have published a letter which questions UPM’s greenwashing campaign. The company presents itself as a leading global corporation in the fight against climate change, but the letter provides the results of 15 years of scientific research which show the impacts of monoculture tree plantations on grasslands: QUESTIONING […]
Read MoreThe biomass industry, fueled by public subsidies, is a growing threat to forests and to effectively addressing the climate crisis. During a workshop organized by EPN and the Global Forest Coalition at the People’s Summit, in Santiago de Chile, testimonies were shared by voices from around the world on the on-the-ground impacts from the rapidly […]
Read MoreYesterday, at an event organized by EPN and its partners at the People’s Summit, in Santiago de Chile, people from different regions and countries denounced the impacts caused by plantations for the pulp and paper industry, and discussed their similarities. In Chile, the plantation industry made its great boom during the dictatorship of Pinochet, when […]
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