1 – 10 June 2016

Mexico: Navdanya participated in the 1st Forum for the Rights of Mother Earth, which was held in Mexico City, where civil society leaders, environmental and indigenenous knowledge activists, legal experts and spiritual leaders from all over the world gathered to urge the adoption of legislation to ensure respect for the planet.

Dr Vandana Shiva, in her speech, pointed out how human rights are intimately linked to those of Mother Earth and how both are threatened by the increasing power in the hands of those corporations which started as manufacturers of warfare chemicals, and which are now recycling them for industrial agriculture with the sole aim of profit.

Argentina: On the occasion of the 3rd International Environmental Film Festival (3er Festival Internacional de Cine Ambiental) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dr Vandana Shiva gave several interviews and talks, intervened in panel debates together with French film Director Marie Monique Robin, including an address at the Argentina Senate during the meeting of the Commission for the Environment and sustainable development.

After the Film Festival, both Dr Vandana Shiva and Marie Monique Robin visited Cordoba, and joined the Argentinean activist Sofia Gatica and multiple civil society groups at the Blockade Camp in front of the site where Monsanto has started works to build a production plant and where the boycott has been going on since 2012.

Since mid 2012 the people of Malvinas Argentinas – Córdoba, together with a long list of groups, organizations and individuals, have been protesting outside Monsanto’s planned site for “the largest seed plant in the world”. Their stand against Monsanto is well justified: For years the people living near GM soybeans plantation areas have been subjected to toxic agricultural chemicals sprayed indiscriminately in and around their communities. The result has been a measurable rise in cancer rates, neurological and respiratory diseases, birth defects and infant deaths. Also read: Argentina: The Country That Monsanto Poisoned

Both in Mexico and Argentina the audience was given information about the upcoming Monsanto Tribunal and People’s Assembly in The Hague (14 – 16 October), as well as about this year’s Seed Freedom Call to Action (2 – 16 October), and movements and organizations were invited to organise local People’s Assemblies everywhere, to reclaim our food system.

Update:

Local Residents Force Monsanto to Tear Down GMO Seed Plant in Argentina

Sustainable Pulse, 7 August 2016