Connexions Other Voices - The Forest and the Trees

March 27, 2016

For countless centuries, forests, and the trees in them, have been seen as sources of life, livelihood, and spiritual meaning. For capitalism, however, forests are sites of extraction and profit-making, or obstacles in the way of ‘development.’

The March 26, 2016 issue of Other Voices, the bi-weekly newsletter published by Connexions, looks at threats to forests worldwide, and at the ways in which people are resisting and defending the forests.

In the Amazon, tribal people are combining traditional skills with direct action and modern technology to fight against illegal logging. In India, villagers are organizing to protect their forests against being flooding by dams. In Palestine, farm families are staying on their land, and planting new trees to replace the ones destroyed by Israeli soldiers and settlers. In Mozambique, farmers and communities are organizing against land takeovers by foreign corporations.

In the Organizing section, Other Voices looks at the organizing work of Bonnie Phillips, a long-time forest defender.

And in the From the Archives section, Other Voices goes all the way back to the year 1217, when an English king yielded to popular pressure and issued the Charter of the Forest, affirming the rights of the common people to use the forests for their livelihoods.

The current issue of Other Voices is online at http://www.connexions.org/Media/CXNL-2016-03-26.htm.
To find back issues, see http://www.connexions.org/Media/CxNewsletter.htm
To subscribe and receive Other Voices by email every two weeks, send an email to mailroom@connexions.org.

For more information contact:
Ulli Diemer
Connexions
Phone: 416-964-5735
Website: www.connexions.org