AGROFUELS, OIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN COLOMBIA

This week's blog moves to a bigger picture, the effect of our lifestyle in the UK on the lives of communities in Colombia.

My daughter travelled to Colombia on a banana boat last year, where she worked (volunteered) for several months. Now back in the UK she has helped to produce a leaflet about the social-impact-of-agrofuels in Colombia, and about the impact of oil & human rights.

She writes:
"Agrofuels or 'biofuels' are fuels made primarily from crops grown in large-scale monocultures. Since April 2008, all fuel at UK petrol stations is required by law to be mixed with 2.5% 'biofuels'.

Agrofuels, far from being climate friendly, accelerate climate change because of deforestation and other ecosystem destruction and because they rely on agrichemicals linked to high greenhouse gas emissions. They also lead to hunger, and to farmers being forced off their land.

Colombia is one of the countries increasing its production of oil palm and sugar cane to meet agrofuel demand. As part of this expansion, trade unionists have been murdered and communities forced off their land at gunpoint by paramilitaries (illegal groups linked to the state)."

You can read the text of the leaflet (and ask for copies - and read about her experiences in Colombia) on her blog, and can see the leaflet on "flickr".

The leaflet suggests what you can do, as an activist, to prevent the damage to the environment and to communities in Colombia. You can also help quietly, by gradually changing your lifestyle to one that reduces your dependence on a motor car.