Photo of Danilo Rueda by PBI-Colombia.

Colombian environmental rights defender Danilo Rueda will be speaking on the PBI ‘COP26 and land defenders’ webinar on November 6.

To register to hear him speak, click here.

Danilo is the national coordinator of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission that works to achieve socio-environmental justice.

PBI-Colombia has noted: “J&P’s field teams and staff at the main headquarters in Bogotá carry out strategies for the defense of the environment and rural lands, agro-ecological work, and accompany communities with legal, educational and communication interventions and actions to influence public policies.”

It adds: “J&P has documented and accompanied various cases of human rights violations, damage to the natural environment and impacts on the food security of communities who were affected by the operations of agro-industrial palm, banana and logging companies, as well as oil and other extractive industries.”

In this context, J&P accompanies the Alto Guayabal indigenous reservation where Indigenous Embera defender Dilio Bailarín was recently murdered.

Contagio Radio has reported: “The Alto Guayabal Biodiverse Humanitarian Reserve is facing the extractive interests of multinationals that are unaware of the rights of the communities of the indigenous peoples.”

Danilo has stated: “A strategy to [protect the environment and food sovereignty is] empowerment and capacity building to address the impacts of land rights violations. In this area we also promote resilience against the problem of climate change.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists has reported, “Unfortunately, because current palm oil production methods often cause the destruction of carbon-rich tropical forests and peatlands, it is a major contributor to global warming.”

Rueda says: “Palm oil means death because of the violence it brings with it and because of the environmental damage it causes. Big business, hand in hand with Colombian and international policy, is destroying water sources and flora and fauna by depleting the forests. This is capitalist logic, which favors the accumulation of capital, and in the long term, the effects are highly negative.”

PBI webinar, November 6

Peace Brigades International will be holding a webinar on COP26 and land defenders that will take place on Saturday November 6 at 1 pm EST (Ontario/Quebec) and 1900 CEST (European time) with simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

It will feature Danilo along with land and environmental rights defenders from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and Kenya.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

    Tags: