News

While in The Netherlands November 10 was cold and grey, a heated discussion took place in Suape, Brazil. On this day, local residents of the area – which has been claimed by the port of Suape – gathered for a meeting with the chairman of the Bar Association (BA) of Pernambuco, Mr. Pedro Henrique Alves Reynaldo. Though it is likely that the Bar Association will file a complaint against the port authority of Suape, a clear picture of the situation will first have to be constructed. For this reason as many people as possible were invited to share their stories.

On Wednesday November 5^th, Dutch State Secretary for Infrastructure and Environment, Mansveld, and Minister for Agriculture, Dijksma, issued a letter to the Dutch House of Representatives. This letter was their reaction to the ‘Advice Sustainability Food Sector’, which was drafted at the request of the Cabinet by the Commission Sustainability Issues Biomass – or Commission Corbey in short. Paul Wolvekamp of Both ENDS is member of this commission and gave his opinion on the letter.

Finally, some good news from Suape, Brazil! The Fórum Suape, an association of affected local people, has gained support from the official Bar Association in Pernambuco. The human rights commission of the Bar Association has decided that there is enough reason to file a complaint against the Suape Port Authority. On November 10, the first public hearing will be held to give impetus to the case.

The Netherlands does not reach target for responsible soy

The Dutch Soy Coalition (consisting of eight development and environmental organisations*) finds that in 2013 only a quarter of the 2.4 million tons of soy used in the Netherlands is responsibly produced. The social or environmental impacts of the production of the other three quarters of Dutch soy imports are not at all clear or accounted for. The target set by the Netherlands is to purchase 100 percent responsible soy by 2015.  This will be almost impossible to achieve at this point.

The port of Suape in Brazil is currently being expanded and dredged, with damaging implications for the local population and environment. The Dutch dredging company Van Oord executes a large proportion of the dredging-work, supported by export credit insurance from the Dutch export credit insurance agency Atradius DSB. Correspondent Katy Sherriff has made several reports in the area, which will be aired on Dutch radio in ‘Reporter’ on Sunday. Her story will be accompanied by live commentary from the studio, from Dutch political party PvdA-member Jan Vos and Both ENDS’ own Wiert Wiertsema.

Many of our food products contain palm oil and soy in one form or another. To meet the growing demand, they are being cultivated on an increasingly large scale. This has unfortunately been the cause of many problems. Deforestation, environmental pollution and ‘land-grabbing’ are rampant in South-East Asia and South America. Of course, these paractices should stop. But what are the most sustainable, ethical, and – above all – feasible ways to achieve this? And how do you get all parties to cooperate? To explore the answers to these questions, the Ecosystem Alliance (Both ENDS, IUCN NL and Wetlands International) is organising a conference on October 30.

Large-scale plans made by governments or companies can often have profound effects on small communities and their environment. Countless people have to move if a dam is built, forests are cleared for new highways, airports or palm oil plantations. Promised compensation is often incomplete or not given at all. For local communities, objecting to such plans is not easy. Nevertheless a community in Uganda has managed to receive fair compensation from the government. Together with the organisations NAPE and AFIEGO, partners of Both ENDS and IUCN NL, the community has persuaded the government to buy new land for those who are forced to move.

Whenever deforestation is mentioned, most people will automatically think of the Amazon rainforest. In Argentina, however, the disappearance of its forests has also become a pressing problem. In the province of Salta, for example, the deforestation level is the highest. Between 1998 and 2006, the amount of lost hectares of forests has doubled there. The culprit to this problem is the country’s agricultural activities.

There are several reasons why Remi Kempers sees Bangladesh as his second home. There, he has been working on water projects and is a fervent advocate of our ‘Negotiated Approach’. On numerous occasions, he has appeared on Bangladeshi national television in programs about water governance. Remi will soon be collaborating with the Dutch Technical University Delft, the Technical University of Dhaka (BUET), SaciWATERS and local CSOs to start a new, one-of-a-kind project. This project will be financed by the Dutch NWO, a research council that funds scientific research, in light of their program ‘Urbanizing Deltas of the World’. It focuses on the delta of the bold Ganges river in Bangladesh and India.

The successes of Both ENDS’ work are usually the result of prolonged efforts. The same goes for our endeavours in Suape, Brazil. This week, Wiert Wiertsema and a representative from partner-organisation SOMO took off to Brazil to support another milestone. Around thirty parties from different states in the country, including environmental organisations, lawyers and of course, representatives of the Forum Suape as well, gathered in the port. This shows that the social movement that has risen as a reaction to the disastrous expansion of the port and industrialisation is also slowly taking shape elsewhere in Brazil. The saga of Suape seems to have become a stone cast in the pond of Brazilian environmental politics.

The African Development Bank (AfDB), which was founded in 1964 to stimulate economic development in Africa, has had a complaints mechanism since 2006. Individuals who have somehow been affected by projects financed by the AfDB can make an appeal to this mechanism. Yet, according to a large number of African and international organisations, this system has its weaknesses and there is much to improve. How exactly? Well, the organisations have recently presented their recommendations to the AfDB. Anouk Franck of Both ENDS coordinated this process.