With our Wetlands without Borders program, we work towards environmentally sustainable and socially responsible governance of the wetlands system of the La Plata Basin in South America.
Covering an area of 5.5 million km², the Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world. At least 12% of the forest has been lost in the last decades, and deforestation is still continuing at a rapid pace. Illegal logging, land grabbing and intimidation for agriculture, animal husbandry and mining are daily business, and impunity rules. Recent developments, such as the election of the new Bolsonaro government in Brazil, make the future of the Amazon region and the people living there even more uncertain than it already was.
Large-scale infrastructural projects have detrimental effects on local people and the environment, while their benefits are felt elsewhere. Both ENDS is working to ensure that local people have a greater say in decision-making and is investigating the way these projects are funded.
Two projects insured by Atradius DSB in the Brazilian port of Suape have caused serious social problems and environmental damage. Both ENDS is helping the local people to obtain justice.
Together with civil society organisations from all over the world, the Fair Green and Global (FGG) Alliance aims for socially just, inclusive and environmentally sustainable societies in the Netherlands and the Global South.
We grieve over the decease of Mr. Severino Cassiano da Silva – better known as Biu - last Sunday the 5th of February, 2017. Biu was the last native resident of Tatuoca Island in Pernambuco State, Brazil. His life and fate were blended with this island, where previously more than 50 families lived from traditional fisheries and artisanal agriculture and fruit trees.
Guest blog by Debora Calheiros, Brazil