The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples has issued a hard-hitting report on the hydroelectric dam being built across the Changuinola River in western Panama, which threatens the homelands of the Ngöbe people and which Cultural Survival has been working to stop since 2008.

/Naso villagers plead for help

On March 30, more than a hundred Panamanian police officers in riot gear leveled a Naso village in response to a peaceful protest by Naso and Ngöbe villagers who oppose hydroelectric dams that threaten their homelands. Hundreds of people were left homeless and destitute.

On January 23, members of the Patagonia Defense Council delivered international letters to Eleodoro Matte, urging the head of the Matte Group to withdraw from thel HidroAysen Project that would dam wild rivers in Patagonia. The internacional letters were sent by Global Response members in the US, England, Switzerland, Holland, Canada, Australia, Spain and New Zealand.

It’s been four years since Global Response began campaigning to protect the mangroves and marine ecosystem of Bimini Island in the Bahamas – and now we can celebrate a victory! 

The Bahamian government has officially established a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in North Bimini – as we urged them to do in several rounds of Global Response letters.

We are very happy to learn that the Penan communities of Sarawak's Upper Baram region have won the SUARAM Human Rights Award 2008. The Penan were chosne by the Malaysian human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM - www.suaram.net) among six nominees, together with the now-banned Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF).

For more than two decades, traditional Penan indigenous communities have fought to prevent logging companies from destroying their rainforest world in Sarawak, Malaysia. Neither logging companies nor military nor government officials have been able to persuade or buy off the traditional leaders or headmen, who insist on their people’s “native customary rights” to live in and protect their forest.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo, home to the world's second largest tropical forest, launched a review of all timber contracts on Wednesday in an effort to clean up a business rife with corruption and to recoup millions of dollars in lost taxes.

By Aviva Imhof - Special to The Bee

How to generate electricity without selling out the climate is one of the pressing issues facing humanity today. But don't worry; the international hydropower industry says it has the situation covered. It's using the threat of global warming as a pretext for promoting a new generation of big dams in developing countries.

Tokyo-Environmental organizations today condemned the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and four private banks' June 16 decision to provide approximately 5.3 billion dollars in financing for the problematic Sakhalin II oil and gas project in the Russian Far East.[1] JBIC (the Japan government's official export credit agency), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (Japan), Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd (Japan), Sumitomo Mitsui Bank Corp (Japan) and BNP Paribas (France) have severely violated their environmental policies by financing Sakhalin II, according to the groups.

Pascua, Chile -- Aaron Sanger surveyed the dramatic stretch of Patagonian backcountry that spread beneath him, gazing down at the turbulent Pascua River as it raged through an unsullied landscape of majestic glaciers, snowcapped peaks and temperate rain forests.  

"No more than a handful of people have explored this valley - ever," said Sanger, a Berkeley environmentalist.

RUSSIA- Celebrate this victory with environmentalists and indigenous peoples of Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East: After four years of trying, the Sakhalin Energy company has withdrawn its loan applications from US, UK and European development banks, because it has not met the banks’ environmental requirements.