Both ENDS
Pak Japin is a quiet, slim, and softly-spoken man from the village of Silat Hulu, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. I met him at a recent documentary screening in Bali on the fringe of the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) annual conference, where he spoke about his community's nine year-long…
In the course of centuries, traditions around the serving and drinking of tea have become a permanent feature of different cultures around the world. The production of tea however causes many problems: deforestation, soil and water pollution because of excessive use of pesticides, and tea pickers often working in bad working conditions with very low wages. On the 18th of July, a symposium called "Transforming Sri Lanka's Tea Sector To Meet…
The construction of a dam causing floods and displacing the local population; small farmers unable to compete with large-scale farms; workers forced to work under harsh conditions and for low wages. These are all examples of the impact activities by companies, governments and policy makers can have in the areas where the activities take place. How can companies, investors and governments be persuaded to change their policies? Based on 10…
The farmers in the Sertão do Araripe region in Pernambuco state are smart. The small-scale family farmers know that securing a sustainable livelihood on the rich but vulnerable soils of the Sertão is only possible if they take good care of the environment. That means sound agriculture, making the best of every drop of available water, diligent use of natural fertilisers and pest-control and fighting for laws and policies that stimulate conservation rather…
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is often seen as an institution in crisis, powerless and no longer relevant, and especially after US president Donald Trump decided in 2019 to pull the plug on one of the WTO’s most important bodies (the one dealing with trade disputes). Now, more than 150 civil society organisations, networks and interest groups from around the world have signed an urgent letter to WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo…
In 2001 Tanzania and the Netherlands signed a treaty only known to a few; a so-called Bilateral Investment Treaty aimed "to extend and intensify the economic relations between them and to stimulate the flow of capital and technology and the economic development of the Contracting Parties". But signing the treaty was in fact mainly a symbolic act which since then has had little if any effect in this respect. In fact, a report by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis found that BITs have no positive effect on investment in low and lower middle income countries located in Latin…
With an estimated length of 4350 kilometers, the Mekong River is the seventh longest river in Asia. The Mekong basin also boasts the second highest level of biodiversity of any river system in the world, behind the Amazon. The richness of plants and animals in the basin has not even been fully discovered and described yet. The question, however, is whether this wealth can be sustained. The management of the river is in the hands of the Mekong River Commission (MRC). This commission includes representatives from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Netherlands supports the…
How to get people to collect waste from a river? By granting an award for the person collecting most. A waste-collecting competition organised last Saturday in the district of Bogor on Java, Indonesia, proved this formula tho be effective. No less than a thousand local people collected 8650…
Remember the widespread protests against trade agreements TTIP and CETA? One of the main worries was the Investor-State Dispute Settlement…