21 September 2010 | Interviews | Sustainability School 2010 | Resisting neoliberalism
Paying Attention
Interview with Fernando Campos from NAT – Friends of the Earth Brazil
Download: MP3 (751.9 kb)
Brazilian social organizations are following closely the developments around the presidential elections which will be held on October 3rd, amid polls that foresee the victory of Dilma Roussef, the candidate for the ruling Workers Party (PT).
Brazilian activists involved in the struggle for land remember that the right-wing candidate Jose Serra halted the agrarian reform when he was Governor in Sao Paulo State, and that his administration was characterized by a systematic criminalization of social movements, in complicity with the mass media, which acted as “political parties”.
“Serras victory would be a step back” said Fernando Campos from NAT/Friends of the Earth Brazil, at the Sustainability School of Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean which is taking place in Porto Alegre State. Campos said that the progressive governments of the Southern Cone of Latin America are paying more attention to the purposes and struggles of peoples´ organizations, that are concerned over the expansion of the model of monoculture plantations and work for the defense of natural resources.
This meeting of activists, according to Campos, has allowed a territorialization of the alliance between the environmentalist federation and the most representative organizations of the country, such as the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).
