Environmental Crisis

Letter to world leaders on the occasion of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate

The way to preserve life, for people and the planet, dear ladies and gentlemen, is clearly in another direction.

By International People’s Assembly
From the MST Page

It is common knowledge that we are at a decisive moment for human survival and for the biodiversity of our planet. There is a serious environmental and public health crisis, caused by crimes committed continuously by the greed for profit. The research and scientific data are more and more evident, which you know, and we don’t need to quote them. Meanwhile, all the peoples of the world, in the countryside and in the city, feel the consequences of this crisis every day.

According to scientific studies, if the current patterns of land use, deforestation, predatory mining, the agribusiness model dependent on pesticides that kill biodiversity, the monoculture of transgenic crops, and accelerated urbanization are maintained, 4.5 billion people will face problems with the quality and access to water and food production. Climate change affects people’s lives and agricultural productivity.

The question, therefore, is no longer whether there is an environmental crisis, but how to address it.

Financial capital and its banks and transnational corporations control economies, the exploitation of nature, and governments. They are to blame, and they will never offer real solutions. They just want a green capitalism! And the international institutions of the United Nations system have failed.

The way to preserve life, for people and the planet, dear ladies and gentlemen, is clearly in another direction. It will be necessary to mobilize society as a whole, its organizations, popular movements, scientists, and environmental entities, and form an agreement around urgent and necessary measures:

  1. Putting human life and nature above private property. The private appropriation of common goods essential to the life of all, such as land, water, air, and biodiversity, is not acceptable. Their care must be attributed to the people, as a collective right and responsibility for the well-being of all people.
  1. Promote public policies that confront hunger and promote food sovereignty, supporting peasant and traditional peoples, based on the principles of agroecology. To make a global effort to support, with all the necessary resources, a worldwide campaign to plant native and fruit trees.
  1. To guarantee respect for the traditional knowledge of the people, with its forms of managing nature, which have already lasted for centuries, and scientific knowledge, in the search to guarantee production and human reproduction, cultural and biological diversity, in balance with nature.
  1. Create financial mechanisms to support initiatives and projects of local populations so that they can carry out concrete actions to protect nature, forests, water, and healthy food.
  1. Penalize companies and projects that harm the environment and the indigenous and native populations, expelling them from the market.
  1. Change the energy matrix in all countries to sustainable forms. Make changes in the big cities, with measures to avoid pollution, to improve the lives of all, including public transportation.
  1. Take definitive action to protect the pollution of the oceans, lakes, and rivers, severely penalizing all aggressors such as the chemical industry, the plastic industry, and industrial pollutants.
  1. Ban the use of glyphosate, 2,4-D, and other agrotoxics, which kill biodiversity, contaminate the environment, and people’s health.
  1. Provide financial relief with resources from capital hidden in tax havens, for the protection and maintenance of peasant families, traditional peoples, and those who live in areas of risk in the cities.
  1. Create international mechanisms of policies, control, and inspection with the participation of scientists, governments, social entities, and popular movements from all over the world.

Capitalism, ladies and gentlemen, is heading towards social barbarism. In its search for profit alone it is leading humanity and nature to collapse. We are at a singular moment in world history, where solidarity and ecological values must overcome those of individualism and consumerism, only defended by the insane capitalists and their governments.

We defend a new path, with our agroecological plantations and breeding, in the protection of waters and nature’s goods, in our territorial resistances, in our solidarity reconstructions in the cities.

Against the project of death and destruction implemented by neoliberal capital, by the big corporations, we commit ourselves to life. This is the path we will continue to follow, building a fair, solidary, ecological and internationalist world.

And to you, rulers, assume your public responsibility, even though it is late!

April 22, 2021, Earth Day!

SIGNATURES:

International Networks

  1. IPA – International Peoples’ Assembly
  2. ALBA Movimientos
  3. La Via Campesina
  4. World March of Women

Europe

  1. Italy, Associazione Amig@s MST
  2. Italy, Associazione Costituzione e beni Comuni
  3. Italy, Associazione internazionale “Agorà degli Abitanti della Terra”
  4. Italy, Associazione Laudato Sì, Alleanza per il Clima, la Cura della Terra e la Giustizia Sociale
  5. Italy, Associazione YAKU
  6. Italy, CISS – Cooperazione Internazionale Sud Sud
  7. Italy, Comitato Acqua Pubblica della provincia di Cremona
  8. Italy, Comitato Acqua Pubblica Lago di Bracciano
  9. Italy, Comitato Italiano per il Contratto Mondiale dell’Acqua
  10. Italy, Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua
  11. Italy, Forum siciliano dei movimenti per l’acqua e i beni comuni
  12. Italy, Fuorimercato, autogestione in movimento
  13. Italy, MovimentoBlu
  14. Italy, Potere al Popolo
  15. Italy, Rede da Rione Sanità-Naples.     
  16. Italy, Rifondazione Comunista
  17. Italy, Segreteria Nazionale Rete Radiè Resch

North America

  1. United States, ANSWER Coalition 
  2. United States, Border Agricultural Workers Project
  3. United States, CodePink: Women for Peace
  4. United States, PEP – Popular Education Project
  5. United States, PSL – Party for Socialism and Liberation
  6. United States, TPF – The People’s Forum

Latin America

  1. Argentina, Jóvenes por el Clima
  2. Argentina, Patria Grande
  3. Brazil, ABONG – Associação Brasileira de ONGs
  4. Brazil, ADERE/MG – Articulação dos Empregados Rurais do Estado de Minas Gerais
  5. Brazil, Amigos da Terra Brasil
  6. Brazil, APIB – Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil – APIB
  7. Brazil, APREMAVI – Associação de Preservação do Meio Ambiente e da Vida
  8. Brazil, ASA – Articulação de entidades do Semi-Árido
  9. Brazil, ASCEMA Nacional – Associação Nacional dos Servidores Especialistas em Meio Ambiente
  10. Brazil, Asibama/Acre – Associação dos Servidores Ibama e ICMBio Acre
  11. Brazil, Associação Alternativa Terrazul
  12. Brazil, Campanha Antipetroleira Nem um poço a mais!
  13. Brazil, CEDECA Sapopemba
  14. Brazil, Centro de Promoção da Cidadania e Defesa dos Direitos Humanos Pe Josimo
  15. Brazil, CNS – Conselho Nacional das Populações Extrativistas
  16. Brazil, CONAQ – Coordenação Nacional de Articulação das Comunidades Negras Rurais Quilombolas
  17. Brazil, Congregação da Paixão de Jesus Cristo
  18. Brazil, CONTAG – Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores Rurais Agricultores e Agricultoras Familiares
  19. Brazil, CONTRAF – Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras na Agricultura Familiar
  20. Brazil, CPP – Conselho Pastoral dos Pescadores
  21. Brazil, CPT – Comissão Pastoral da Terra
  22. Brazil, CUT – Central única dos Trabalhadores
  23. Brazil, ECO4.Santarritense
  24. Brazil, Ecossocialistas do Brasil
  25. Brazil, Engajamundo
  26. Brazil, FAOR – Fórum da Amazônia Oriental
  27. Brazil, FASE – Solidariedade e Educação
  28. Brazil, FMAP – Fórum de Mulheres da Amazônia Paraense
  29. Brazil, FNPE – Fórum Nacional Popular de Educação
  30. Brazil, FNU – Federação Nacional dos Urbanitários
  31. Brazil, Fórum Popular da Natureza
  32. Brazil, Frente Parlamentar Ambientalista
  33. Brazil, Frente Parlamentar Mista em Defesa dos Direitos dos Povos Indígenas
  34. Brazil, Fridays for Future Brasil
  35. Brazil, Fundação Avina
  36. Brazil, FVA – Fundação Vitória Amazônica
  37. Brazil, Gambá – Grupo Ambientalista da Bahia
  38. Brazil, GRAIN
  39. Brazil, Greenpeace Brasil
  40. Brazil, IDESAM – Instituto de Conservação e Desenvolvimento Sustentável da Amazônia
  41. Brazil, IEA – Instituto de Estudos Amazônicos
  42. Brazil, Imaflora
  43. Brazil, INESC – Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos – INESC
  44. Brazil, Instituo 5 Elementos – Educação para Sustentabilidade
  45. Brazil, Instituto Climainfo
  46. Brazil, Instituto de Pesquisa e Formação Indígena – Iepé
  47. Brazil, Instituto PACS
  48. Brazil, IQ/UFPA – Projeto Saúde, Cidadania e Direitos Humanos
  49. Brazil, ISA – Instituto Socioambiental
  50. Brazil, ISPN – Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza
  51. Brazil, MAB – Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens
  52. Brazil, Marcha Mundial das Mulheres
  53. Brazil, Marcha Mundial por Justiça Climática/Marcha Mundial do Clima
  54. Brazil, Mater Natura – Instituto de Estudos Ambientais
  55. Brazil, MCP – Movimento Camponês Popular
  56. Brazil, MNCCD – Movimento Nacional Contra Corrupção e pela Democracia
  57. Brazil, Movimento Nacional ODS/Sergipe
  58. Brazil, Movimento Saúde Mental
  59. Brazil, MPA – Movimentos dos Pequenos Agricultores
  60. Brazil, MST – Movimentos dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra
  61. Brazil, Observatório de Direitos Humanos dos Povos Indígenas Isolados e de Recente Contato – Opi
  62. Brazil, OC – Observatório do Clima
  63. Brazil, ONDAS – Observatório Nacional dos Direitos à Água e ao Saneamento
  64. Brazil, Projeto Saúde e Alegria
  65. Brazil, Província dos Missionários Combonianos do Brasil
  66. Brazil, RCA – Rede de Cooperação Amazônica
  67. Brazil, Rede Igrejas e Mineração
  68. Brazil, Semana Social Brasileira
  69. Brazil, SERRSMG – Sindicato dos Empregados Rurais da Região Sul de Minas Gerais
  70. Brazil, Sinfrajupe – Serviço Interfranciscano de Justiça, Paz e Ecologia
  71. Venezuela, Geografia Viva

Sub Saharan Africa

  1. Pan Africa Today
  2. Ghana, SFG – Socialist Forum of Ghana
  3. Kenya, Revolution Socialist League
  4. Kenya, World March of Women
  5. South Africa, ABM – Abahlali Basemjondolo
  6. South Africa, NUMSA – National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa
  7. South Africa, SRWP – Socialist Revolutionary Workers’ Party
  8. Tanzania, MVIWATA – MTANDAO WA VIKUNDI VYA WAKULIMA TANZANIA
  9. Zambia, SP – Socialist Party Zambia

Arab Maghreb

  1. Bharain, Bahrain Women Association
  2. Egypt, Socialist Popular Alliance Party
  3. Iraq, General Students Union in the Republic of Iraq
  4. Iraq, Iraqi Democratic Youth Federation
  5. Iraq, Iraqi Women Forum
  6. Iraq, Iraqi Womens League
  7. Jordan, Arab Women Organization of Jordan
  8. Jordan, Jordanian Communist Party
  9. Jordan, Jordanian Democratic Popular Unity Party “Wihda”
  10. Jordan, Jordanian Peoples’ Democratic Party
  11. Jordan, Jordanian Women Federation “RMA”
  12. Jordan, League of Democratic Youth
  13. Lebanon, Equality of Boutros Rose for Women’s Work
  14. Mauritania, We Can
  15. Morocco, Democratic Way
  16. Morocco, Moroccan Association for Human Rights
  17. Morocco, Moroccan Association of Progressive Women
  18. Morocco, Moroccan League for the Defense of Human Rights
  19. Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
  20. Palestine, Palestinian Democratic Women “NADA”
  21. Palestine, Palestinian Democratic Youth Union “PDYU”
  22. Palestine, Palestinian Peoples Party
  23. Palestine, Palestinian People’s Party Youth
  24. Palestine, Palestinian Working Women Committees Union
  25. Palestine, UAWC – Union of Agricultural Work Committees
  26. Palestine, UPWC – Union of Palestinain Women Committes
  27. Syria, Syrian Women League
  28. Western Sahara, CODESA