This wednesday, people throghout the world came together at Peru’s consulates and embassies demanding an end to the systematic genocide of Peru’s indigenous populations.  This tragedy was brought about by the disastrous “Peru Trade Promotion Agreement” which stripped land rights from indigenous communities and opened them up for foreign investment resulting in widespread oil and gas drilling and logging. 

Iternational trade treaties should be targets of groups working on international climate mitigation. As we have seen when Mexico signed on to NAFTA, free trade agreements export our unsustainable lifestyle, drive (mostly indigenous) coummunities into poverty, and deepen the destruction of previously protected ecosystems. All of these problems contribute to the rise in greenhouse gas emissions and destroy precious cultural know-how that has the potential to guide us to implement more sustainable versions of development. 

Many groups and journalists showed up at the Washington D.C. protest (organized by Amazon Watch) including the Energy Action Coalition, Friends of the Earth and the Quixote Center. 

Check out this video about the protest in Washington D.C. and make sure to leave comments with links to media from protests you attended!

Posted in Act Locally, Americas, Climate and Forestry, Climate Justice, Deforestation, Extraction, Impacted Communities, Indigenous, International Affairs