Toronto Bolivia Solidarity

Resolution from 1st International Conference on Agro-Ecology and Food Sovereignty

Below is a resolution from the First International Conference on Ago-Ecology and Food Sovereignty that took place in Cochabamaba, Bolivia, in April 2012. It focuses on the central role of women in farming and food distribution. The resolution accuses the capitalist/imperialist systems of creating endless conflicts and threatening nature and the survival of humanity with climate change and a global food crisis.

The resolution acknowledges the role of women as central to the solution of these issues and points to the achievement of women in the development of Bolivia’s revolution.  The resolution states that capitalism is the main enemy of food sovereignty. Indigenous peoples lead to creating a new type of production which has “as its central objective the recovery of ancestral knowledge,” and “the concept of working in partnership with nature.”

Harper pushing extractive industry in Latin America but communities are pushing back 
Raul Burbano  Common Frontiers - April 19^th 2012 – Cartagena, Colombia

At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, Harper spoke to CEOs from across the Americas and unveiled Canada’s plans to expand into Latin America with vigor. Trade and investment, especially in the resource extraction sector, will be the engines driving this expansion. Canadian mining companies already have a significant presence in the region, with two-thirds of all mining projects in the Americas.

In four short sentences, from John Bellamy Foster’s book The Vulnerable Planet published byMonthly Review Press, restates the principles of ecology that must be observed to assure human survival. The following excerpt, reprinted from Climate and Capitalism (http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/04/02/four-laws/), also describes how these principles are violated under capitalism. Climate and Capitalism, the leading English-language climate justice website, has reported consistently on major activities of Toronto Bolivia Solidarity.
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The four laws of ecology and
the four anti-ecological laws of capitalism

by John Bellamy Foster

Four laws of ecology

The Morales government: neoliberalism in disguise?
By Federico Fuentes

For more than a decade Bolivia has been rocked by mass upsurges and mobilisations that have posed the necessity and possibility of fundamental political and social transformation.¹ In 2005 the social movements that led the country’s water and gas wars managed to elect a government that since then has presided over a process of change that has brought major advances.

Joint Statement on Minister Jason Kenney’s condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week
March 9, 2012
As organizations and groups committed to protecting freedom of expression and public debate on Palestine/Israel, we demand that Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney immediately retract his March 7th statement “condemning Israel Apartheid Week”.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/statements/2012/2012-03-07.asp
This statement is the Conservative government’s latest attempt to silence activist groups and organizations in Canada that act or speak in support of the basic human rights of the Palestinian people. While Kenney’s statement claims to value “free exchanges of ideas” and “academic dialogue,” his targeted condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week events on Canadian universities this week (and in previous years) is a blatant attempt to shut down free expression for Palestine solidarity on campus.

(de)Occupy Talks: Big Oil, Tar Sands and how the 1% defines 'Ethics'

When: March 20th, 7 pm
Where: Bloor Street United Church, 300 Bloor St. W. 

Tar sands extraction is one of the largest civil and environmental rights issues of this generation. The Harper regime, in alliance with the Alberta government and the largest oil companies in the world, have ignored First Nations rights, broken global agreements and decimated hundreds of kilometers of land in Northern Alberta. Pipelines are expanding the impact to Southern Ontario, where tar sands refining is already happening in Sarnia, aka Chemical Valley. As well, Canada has supported companies and governments employing brutal military regimes to facilitate mining and oil & gas projects abroad. We ask the question, how is this ‘ethical’?
 
Please join us to discuss the frontlines of struggle with esteemed community organizers and intellectuals Eriel Deranger, Ron Plain, Isaac Asume Osuoka and Syed Hussan. Moderated by Anna Zalik.

Toronto Bolivia Solidarity endorses event: 

* No Mining on Sacred Lands: Solidarity with KI aboriginal community

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), a Ontario Aboriginal communitySpeaks Out Against God's Lake Resources and McGuinty government.

KI LEADERS SPEAK, NEW VIDEO LAUNCHED
Featuring: KI Elder Mary Jane Crowe, KI Councilor Cecilia Begg, KI Councilor Randy Nanokeesic, Steven Chapman - KI Lands and Environment Unit, Ramsay Hart - Mining Watch, officers from the Ontario Federation of Labour and a new video by Allan Lissner.

Monday March 5, 2012, 6:30pm
Steelworkers' Hall, 25 Cecil Street, Toronto
http://www.facebook.com/events/356845724350130/

Damage From Canada’s Oilsands Sector May Be Irreversible

by Mike De Souza
Calgary Herald, February 21, 2012

Collateral damage from Canada’s booming oilsands sector may be irreversible, posing a “significant environmental and financial risk to the province of Alberta,” says a secret memorandum prepared for the federal government’s top bureaucrat.

The memorandum, released by the Privy Council Office through access to information legislation, also raises doubts about recent industry and government claims that oilsands companies are reducing heat-trapping gases produced by each barrel of oil.

GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!! GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!

On 20-22 June 2012, governments from around the world will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to commemorate 20 years of the “Earth Summit”, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that first established a global agenda for “sustainable development.”

During the 1992 summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Convention to Combat Desertification, were all adopted. The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was also established to ensure effective follow-up of the UNCED “Earth Summit.”

Twenty years later, governments should have reconvened to review their commitments and progress, but in reality the issue to debate will be the “green economy” led development, propagating the same capitalist model that caused climate chaos and other deep social and environmental crises.

TorontoEvent Targets Tar Sands Criminals
By John Riddell
February 16, 2012

The historic confrontation now shaping up over plans by Enbridge Corp. to build a new pipeline across the Canadian Rockies to export dirty tar-sands oil was discussed at a protest meeting in Toronto, February 16.

The meeting, attended by almost 100 activists, was organized by Toronto Bolivia Solidarity and Common Frontiers around the theme, “Stop Canada’s Environmental Injustice: Building for the Future.”

The lands of eighty First Nations block Enbridge’s pipeline plans, said Ben Powless, an activist in the Indigenous Environmental Network. “As far as we’re concerned, this project is not going anywhere. And with thousands of activists involved, we won against the Keystone project,” which was to ship tar sands oil to Texas.