Rainforest Foundation UK News
RFUK ANNOUNCED AS SEMI-FINALIST IN THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER CHALLENGE
The Rainforest Foundation UK is proud to announce our submission Participatory Mapping As A Means Of Protecting Forests In The Congo Basin has been named a 2011 Semi-Finalist in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, the prestigious annual design science competition named "Socially-Responsible Design's Highest Award" by Metropolis Magazine. The Challenge awards USD$100,000 to support the development and implementation of a whole systems-based solution that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.
FLOODING OUR FUTURE SPEAKERS EVENT - A GREAT SUCCESS!
On March 1st, Rainforest Foundation UK held an event at Amnesty International's London offices highlighting the threats of the construction of a series of mega-dams in the Amazon, currently inhabited by many indigenous communities. Key speakers at the event were three indigenous leaders who had travelled to London as part of a European-wide campaigning and awareness-raising tour, and who took to the stage to speak about how theses mega-dams will impact their livelihoods. The panel, chaired by Rainforest Foundation UK Executive Direct Simon Counsell, was also joined by Sue Branford from the South-America Bureau, Paul Horton of the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, and Brent Millikan from International Rivers, creating an inspiring evening of debate and discussion about how despite the lessons learned from old development models that have had significant negative impacts on the environment and local communities, huge projects that are likely to have such negative impacts are still being pushed on indigenous and other local communities without adequate consultation or adequate environmental safeguards. The event was covered live via Twitter and the live feed can be found by searching #rfukdam or through the Rainforest Foundation twitter address @RFUK.
INDIGENOUS LEADERS IN LONDON TO CALL FOR HELP AGAINST THREATENED AMAZON DESTRUCTION BY MEGA-DAMS. STING & BIANCA JAGGER SPEAK OUT IN SOLIDARITY.
Three Amazon indigenous leaders have travelled to London to rally public, press and government support of their communities' fight against socially and environmentally destructive mega-dams planned for the Amazon basin. Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui, leader of the Suruí tribe of the Madeira River Basin, Brazil; Ruth Buendia Mestoquiari, President of Central Asháninka of the Ene River, Peru; and Sheyla Yakarepi Juruna, representative of the Juruna tribe of the Xingu River Basin, Brazil, (pictured L-R from today's press conference with Bianca Jagger) have travelled to Olso, Geneva, Paris and now finally London to highlight the violation of indigenous peoples' rights their peoples are facing with the planned construction of these Amazon mega-dams that will destroy enormous areas of rainforest and displace thousands of forest-dwelling peoples.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW IMAGES FROM THE EVENT ON FLICKR
FLOODING OUR FUTURE SPEAKERS EVENT, TUESDAY MARCH 1, LONDON
As the construction of Latin America's hydroelectric dam networks loom closer, threatening communities and the billions of hectares of rainforest in which they dwell, three impassioned indigenous leaders are travelling from across the Amazon basin to London on the evening of Tuesday March 1 to speak about their first-hand struggle to protect their rights, lands and environment from the threat of mega-dams. We have a limited number of general audience passes we are making available to the general public and welcome requests for these via email on info@rainforestuk.org or by phoning the office on +44 207 485 0193. Click below for more information about the event and speakers.
SUBMISSION TO THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER CHALLENGE ANNOUNCED
The Rainforest Foundation UK is proud to announce our submission Participatory Mapping As A Means Of Protecting Forests In The Congo Basin to the Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Named "Socially-Responsible Design's Highest Award" by Metropolis Magazine, the Challenge is an annual international prize program that awards USD$100,000 to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.
NEW 4 EVENT RACE SERIES CONNECTS LONDON’S 4 CORNERS & 4 SEASONS FOR THE RAINFOREST
The Rainforest Foundation UK presents the launch of the 2011 inaugural 4 SEASONS CHALLENGE: Four 10K races in four parks across North, South, East and West London. A new race event joins London's popular running calendar with the launch of the 4 Seasons Challenge, a series of 10K races in four parks across North, South, East and West London, each one taking place in a different season of the year, and all to benefit one of the UK's most important human rights and environmental charities, the Rainforest Foundation UK.
Forests agreement at Cancun climate summit includes provisions for social and environmental ‘safeguards’ - but bigger questions remain.
A global deal designed to protect forests was agreed in the early hours of Saturday morning at the climate summit in Cancún, Mexico but threats to indigenous peoples and natural forests remain. Negotiators finalised a text at the end of a three year negotiating process, which includes social and environmental ‘safeguards', although major decisions on how the scheme will be funded and how both ‘safeguards' and deforestation will be monitored remain unresolved.
Civil Society supports growing rejection of carbon trading to finance REDD
COP16, CANCUN, MEXICO: Governments locked in negotiations are keen to finalise a deal on REDD (Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation) this week. However, several key outstanding questions remain before a new UN mechanism to address deforestation can be finalized, including the lack of safeguards needed to guarantee rights for indigenous peoples and protection of natural forests, and how money for REDD will be mobilised. Environmental organizations, social movements and indigenous peoples organisations stand firmly with Bolivia and other governments on the need to secure genuine protection for the world's forests by guaranteeing the rights of forest dependant peoples and insisting that any agreement on ‘REDD' (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) does not allow developed countries to continue burning fossil fuels in exchange for forest protection.
Read Our New RFUK Programmes Newsletter Volume 1!
RFUK has just released our new quarterly Programmes Newsletter which is currently being circulated through various sectors. We hope that this newsletter will become a way for us to establish something of a new multi-sector network, allowing us to share information about our work with organisations and individuals working in similar fields across different sectors, to highlight some of the key issues and invite others to engage in our work. In this edition, we have included general information about the issues we work on, on our approach to working with national partner organisations and others, and some information about the team at RFUK, upcoming events, projects and publications of interest.
You can view or download the Programmes Newsletter by clicking here!
A red light for REDD - UNFCCC decision on REDD poised to undermine rights and increase conflict in forested areas
International NGOs call for a halt to REDD+[i] until guarantees can be made that indigenous rights can be respected, it will not be funded by carbon trading and funds will not be diverted to logging and agribusiness. Through the negative atmosphere at United Nations climate talks in Cancun, many countries hope that a decision will be made on REDD+, paying developing countries to protect their forests. Today, NGOs held up a red light with the distribution of four reports showing that REDD is already failing on the ground. Reports from FERN, Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Rainforest Foundations UK and Norway outline how REDD initiatives are ignoring the rights of indigenous peoples, undermining existing gains in forest governance and being distorted by flawed economic advice.
