Huge Victory in Chicago

I just got word today that the City of Chicago has struck a deal with Midwest Generation and plans to close its two dirty coal-fired power plants: the Fisk plant by December and the Crawford plant by the end of 2014. This is a tremendous victory for the communities that have been fighting for clean [...]

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Land Conflicts Spark Occupy-type Protests In Indonesia

Here at Rainforest Action Network, I’m gearing up for the Occupy Our Food Supply global day of action on February 27th, 2012 and it reminded me of a story from Indonesia last month. On January 12, thousands of Indonesian farmers, workers, Indigenous community members, students, and people representing over 50 local non-profits flooded the streets [...]

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We Brought A Kangaroo To Chevron’s Kangaroo Court

Chevron’s kangaroo court is meeting this weekend in a rented room in Washington, DC. We thought they might need an actual kangaroo for the meeting, so we brought one. It wasn’t a real kangaroo, it was an activist in a kangaroo costume. But that’s okay, this isn’t a real court of justice, either. In fact, [...]

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Strip Mining Appalachia’s History

We’re starting hear rumblings that Arch Coal might be preparing to begin mountaintop removal coal mining operations on historic Blair Mountain. Blair Mountain is the site of the second largest armed insurrection in U.S. history (after the civil war.) In 1921, 10,000 miners fought an army of coal company thugs on Blair Mountain who were [...]

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Chevron Found Guilty In Ecuador… Again. Help The Company Come Up With A New Excuse

A court of appeals in Ecuador has upheld the ruling of a lower court, confirming what 30,000 Ecuadoreans suffering from Chevron’s oil pollution in the Amazon and activists the world over have known for decades: Chevron is guilty. There is no question of Chevron’s responsibility for dumping some 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste [...]

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Chicago’s Week Of Action Against Bank Of America

Last week, RAN teamed up with Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, Occupy Chicago, and Reverend Billy for a week of action against B of A highlighting the bank’s $4.3 billion dollars invested in the coal industry and its impacts on local communities in Chicago. The week started out with a visit to Bank of [...]

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From The Field: Borneo’s Tanjung Puting National Park And The High Stakes Of The Palm Oil Crisis

Since joining RAN’s forest program over two years ago, I have read and written about the many dire consequences of industrial scale palm oil plantations in Indonesia: one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, critical habitat for endangered species like orangutans destroyed, gross human rights abuses and labor conditions, and social conflict between [...]

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RAN Staff Finds Deforestation And Violence For Palm Oil Unchecked By The RSPO

As the 9thAnnual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meeting wrapped up on the island of Borneo, the crisis stemming from the uncontrolled expansion of palm oil plantations into rainforests and communities reached a fever pitch. Consider this: In the few days that RAN’s four staff-member delegation attended the RSPO meeting in SE Asia, the [...]

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A Lonely Voice For Forests, People, And The Climate

In an interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz of HUTAN notes that oil palm plantations cover a staggering 14,000 square kilometers of Sabah, one of the two states in Malaysian Borneo and the number one producer of Malaysian palm oil. This is equal to 20 Singapores planted solely with palm! In the same interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz [...]

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The Human Cost Of Palm Oil Expansion

“Before we had a happy life,” Ms. Gaong said she tells her grandchildren. “Now it’s a difficult life. There’s nothing left for them.” The recent story in the New York Times titled “Clashes Between Tribes and Agribusiness Increase in Malaysia” tells an all-too common story. It’s not a happy story. It’s the story of farming [...]

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