Artificial demand for biofuels is undermining the right to food, causing significant increases in food insecurity, malnutrition, and land-grabbing. European and North American governments must end policies that undermine food by promoting biofuels
Archive | Biofuel
Biofuels and hunger, two sides of the same coin
Europe’s pro-biofuel policies are taking food from the mouths of millions of people in central America, causing severe malnutrition and increasing child mortality
The only thing green in biodiesel is money
It will take 200 years of continuous biodiesel production to pay off the carbon debt of the Indonesian palm plantations produce it … (more…)
Big land grabs accelerate dispossession of poor farmers
The poorest people in the global South are losing access to essential land and resources as a result of giant land deals, most of which are for biofuel production, not food. (more…)
How biofuels are destroying Indigenous communities in Malaysia
Logging and then palm oil plantations have cost the Batek and the Penan much of their rainforest homelands. (more…)
It's not easy flying green
Researchers at MIT challenge claims that agrofuels can make reduce emissions caused by air travel (more…)
The CDM and Africa: Marketing a New Land Grab
Excerpts from a briefing by the African Biodiversity Network, Biofuelwatch, Carbon Trade Watch, the Gaia Foundation and the Timberwatch Coalition. (more…)
Guatemala: Blood in the Biofuel
Internationally-funded Guatemalan bio-fuel interests are evicting Mayan Qeqchi families from their historic lands, destroying homes and crops, killing one and injuring more. Thousands are without food or shelter. (more…)
Jatropha Biofuel Project: Emissions Up to Six Times Greater Than Fossil Fuels
A new study from Kenya shows that jatropha, which has been promoted as a “wonder fuel,” is a disaster for the environment and for the people the plantations displace (more…)
Europe's biofuel plans driving social and environmental destruction
Plans to increase the use of biofuels in Europe over the next ten years will require up to 69 000 square kilometres of new land worldwide and make climate change worse, a new study has revealed.[1]. The report finds that an area over twice the size of Belgium will need to be converted into fields […]
Africa up for grabs: The scale and impact of land land grabbing for agrofuels
Food is a natural right and agricultural products should not be treated as commodities whose ultimate purpose is the generation of business profits rather than meeting needs of the people
From Copenhagen to Cochabamba, via the Amazon, Part 2
Continuing Ben Powless’s report of revisiting the scenes of struggle to defend indigenous communities and rights in the Peruvian Amazon, on his way to Othe World Peoples’ Conference in Bolivia. (more…)
Tell the EU: Palm Plantations Aren't Forests!
A leaked document reveals that the European Union wants to require member states to use biofuel from destructive palm plantations — and to do that it wants to define plantations as “forests” (more…)
Palm Oil Monocultures Will Never Be Sustainable
Pale green NGO supports destructive palm oil plantations in Asia, Africa and South America (more…)
'Next Generation' Biofuels: Bursting the New 'Green' Bubble
The massive new demand for agrofuels is escalating deforestation and resulting in conversion of biodiverse and carbon-rich native forests and grasslands into biologically barren and carbon-poor industrial tree plantations and other crop monocultures. (more…)
Argentina: Indigenous Guaraní Resist Eviction by Soya Growers
Government-supported agribusinesses assault indigenous farmers (more…)
Agrofuel Company Violently Represses Indigenous Communities In Guatemala
Rights Action calls for protests against Inter-American Development Bank policies that fund agrofuel monoculture (more…)
Proving the Link Between Biofuel and Food Prices
Many politicians deny or minimize the link between ethanol production and global food prices. The evidence proves them wrong. (more…)
Agrofuel Expansion on Stolen Lands Threatens Colombian Peasant Communities
Production of biofuels is expanding on land stolen from local Afro-Colombian communities, endangering Colombia’s rainforests, food security, water resources and regional climate (more…)
The True Cost of Biofuels
A major study published by The Nature Conservancy and University of Minnesota concludes that land clearing releases 17 to 420 times as much carbon dioxide as is replaced by using the biofuel produced from that cleared land. (more…)