PLANT is a catalyst for indigenous communities and smallholder farmers to speak for themselves, their eco-systems and Seed & Food Sovereignty, instead of others speaking for them.
PLANT works with partners in Brazilian Amazonia and in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Human and Earth Rights mirror the faces of the vulnerable;
They are a discomfort to the powerful;
They are continuously translated into policy by the struggles of the excluded;
They bring justice closer to our world, our common home” ... PLANT
PLANT POSTING 30 June 2020
"Ethical & Ecological Standards in Trade Relationships"
Amazonian towns and villages mourn for their dead, victims of COVID-19, gold prospectors and land grabbers. Their cry from the Rio Negro across and beyond the Xingu region unites them in grief for loved ones, polluted lands and waterways, which once breathed the sacred relationships sustaining life. All the while, the present Brazilian administration is spurring on the invasions of the once protected areas of ancient peoples, as well as loosening regulations and encouraging illegal facilitators of deforestation to expand into what they regard as the “Amazonian wilderness.”
Only months before the COVID-19 outbreak, the European Union concluded 20 years of negotiations to finally reach a free trade agreement with the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.) You will find below informed statements and the outcry of hundreds of NGO’s, concerned leaders and scientists from across the globe, about the opportunity of this extraordinary moment to revise/transform the dominant trade paradigm for the sake of the future of the Amazonian cultures and habitats together with the very future of our common home.
We join with them in calling for guiding ethical and ecological standards consistent with the aspirations of decades of hard-won rights of fairness, equality, solidarity, and biodiversity in all our dealings with the fragile web of life that sustains us. Trade and business as usual can no longer continue. The European Commissioner for Trade, Mr. Phil Hogan, has a mandate to incorporate these voices into upcoming negotiations on the shape of the trade deal.
1) An open letter by more than 340 NGO’s call on the European Union to halt trade negotiations with Brazil
2) 600 European scientists and representatives of 300 Brazilian indigenous peoples ask the European Union to act as a global leader in supporting human rights, human dignity and a habitable climate for all
3) "Planned EU trade deal with Mercosur threatens climate, environmental protection and human rights” explain a new study by MISEREOR, Greenpeace and CIDSE
PLANT (Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples)
E-mail: plantpartners@gmail.com
PO Box 276 • Shepherdstown, WV 25443, USA
Tel. 304 876 2288
PLANT is a USA 501(c)(3) non-profit organization