Blog
EU plans to cancel environmental policies
By Nick Meynen Translated from the Dutch version. The announcement of the team of president-elect of the European commission Jean-Claude Juncker’s is like a corporate coup and destruction of 25 years of …
Behind the veil of the Islamic State is a war for water
By Nick Meynen and Leah Temper. A little known fact of the war in Syria is that it started at the end of the worst drought in Syrian history, a biblical …
The growing debate on degrowth
By Nick Meynen. Why are a record 3000 thinkers gathering from 2 to 6 September in the German city Leipzig to discuss how we can get our economy to degrow? One …
Ecosystem services as if humans mattered
Power, labour and environmental justice conflicts in the ecosystem service provision. By Joachim Spangenberg. The concept of ecosystem services (ESS) has become almost mainstream in academic and political statements (although …
Analyzing environmental conflicts in Colombia
An analysis of 72 cases of environmental conflict in Colombia in the EJOLT database has been published by Prof. Mario A. Pérez Rincón of CINARA and Universidad del Valle, Cali. …
Criminal case against “industrial ecocide” in Sonora, Mexico?
By Joan Martinez Alier. When the controversial 1.3 billion dollar Tia Maria copper mining project in Arequipa, Peru seemed to go ahead despite a local referendum and resistance from several villages, …
Playing with fire in Iceland
By Joan Martinez-Alier and Nick Meynen. When Norwegian farmers sailed to and colonized Iceland 1,100 years ago, they organized politically without kings for several centuries. They founded the oldest parliament in …
Economic Valuation of Nature: the Price to Pay for Conservation?
By Jutta Kill. ‘Nature is destroyed because it’s invisible to politicians and business’, advocates of economic valuation say. The implicit assumption: Create a ‘nature that capital can see’ and the loss …
Power play at a Thermal Power Plant in Mirzapur
By Debadityo Sinha, Vindhya Bachao. Another 1320 MW thermal power plant is coming up in Mirzapur, in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. The Indian company Welspun’s investment of approx. …
West Africa: allocating land for food sovereignty or for exports?
By Sonia Goicoechea. While in the West African region about 35 million people remind undernourished (FAO), dangerous investments in the agricultural sector are threating the environment and further undermining the right …
