Thread by @PLAASuwc

It's Day 3 of the Climate Change and Agrarian Justice Conference. We hope the discussions have been enlightening and engaging. Today we'll be focusing on Agrarian Struggles and Resistance. Make sure to follow us to keep up with today's sessions. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

This is an international conference with interpretations in English, Spanish, French and Burmese. Follow this thread for live-tweeting and engage with us on #ClimateAgrarianJustice. @TNInstitute @Peasant_Journal

Chairing our plenary session today is Tania Martinez Cruz from CASAS & Université Libre de Bruxelles. The speakers are: Beyza Üstün, Diana Aguiar & @boamonjane. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Tania asks Kirtana Chandrasekaran - the fourth speaker of the session - what is meant by agrarian struggles when it comes to climate change. Kirtana says most governments and corporates are planning for more fossil fuel emission growth plans. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

It is hidden behind a net zero smoke screen or through carbon offsets. Finances jumped in to create financial assests as a new form of accumulation, Kirtana says. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Tania asks Diana Aguiar what the response has been to agrarian struggles from the grassroots level.
Diana says the climate crisis has been used by elites to foster false solutions which amplify dispossession.

"Conservation ideas have systematically erased people from nature. Conservation NGOs have entered continuous conflict with forest people, both recognized indigenous groups and the peasantry, putting past victories under threat." - Diana Aguiar #ClimateAgrarianJustice

@boamonjane tells a story of a "soft land grabbing" taking place in N'hambita, Mozambique through the REDD+ carbon project.

Although the project was celebrated by some, the farmers who were meant to benefit from the project struggled to grow food. The company (EnviroTrade) that headed the project abandoned it, leaving behind unfulfilled contractional obligations, even the monitoring costs.

Beyza Üstün, shares a presentation on how solidarities are shaping responses in Turkey. "We are living in an ecological crisis. We cannot access free water. There are a lot of political attacks on our lives," she says.

"Two or three months ago the EU declared nuclear energy, sustainable energy. Institutions can fit the dominant discourse very easily." - Beyza Üstün

Q: What is the role of the State and how do these vary according to the various levels of the state?
@boamonjane: It is often said that the state is the facilitator in these projects but the state is also a contributor in these. (1)

(2) Adaptation and mitigation policies are copied directly from other contexts without analyzing the local contexts. - @boamonjane #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Q: Is conservation without people the dominant approach? What are other alternatives to people-centred approaches?
Kirtana: For many mainstream climate movements, they erase the history of agrarian struggles. It’s as though there was no one on the land.

Q: Are there any good examples of REDD projects?
Kirtana: REDD projects have failed due to contestation on the ground by agrarian movements. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

The parallel sessions start now. Session 9 is on frontiers of corporate capitalism, chaired by Jackson Wachira from the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists of the Global South. Speakers: Daniela Calmon, @MadsBarbesgaard, Andy Whitmore @more_whit, José Sobreiro & @GuusGeurts.

Daniela Calmon, based at the International Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands is presenting on frictions in the corporateenvironmental regime:
rearranging land and climate politics in Brazil and the United States since 2016.

"We need to be careful not to underestimate climate denialism as a 'fringe' position that will be cast away with voting out the populists." - Daniela Calmon.

"We need to be careful not to overestimate the value of green policies or discourse for capital either as an accumulation strategy on legitimation tool. For some sectors this incurs more benefits (and liabilities) than others & embracing the climate agenda." - Daniela

@MadsBarbesgaard shares his presentation titled ‘Revenge of the miners’: Interrogating mining company strategies in the green transition. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

@MadsBarbesgaard challenges everyone to think through these questions. What do you think? #ClimateAgrarianJustice @Peasant_Journal @TNInstitute

Session 10 discusses the past and future of extractivism and is chaired by Duygu Avcı from CASAS & Sabancı University. Speakers: May Aye Thiri, @OctasianoV, Amod Shah, Daniela Soto Hernandez, @PeterJNewell_, Connor Joseph Cavanagh & @jevgeniy_b.

Amod Shah spoke about Climate Crisis and the ‘End of Coal’: Unpacking the Dynamics of Land and Labour in Anti-coal Struggles.
There is an ongoing struggle against mining expansion. The action on an ongoing basis is a manifestation of the anticapitalism process. (1)

(2) These are the different frames of anticapitalism that we need to think about. But the challenge is to link the local struggles of environmental crisis and the much broader processes of climate justice.

@PeterJNewell_ & Daniel Soto share on Oro blanco: assembling extractivism in the lithium triangle.

@PeterJNewell_: This notion of assemblage is important because it helps to understand the work that needs to happen for mining to take place in different regions. We use political ecology and political economy that shows the materiality of …lithium and the role of the state...

...for this particular commodity which involves national and international commodities.
Daniela: This commodity is not new but it has emerged recently in the context of the energy transition drive in Chile.
#ClimateAgrarianJustice

Session 11 looks into the contentious politics of labour displacement and migration, chaired by Hibist Kassa from CASAS & the Institute for African Alternatives. Speakers: @CameliaDewan, Diksha Shriyan (@diksha_21), Ajmal Khan and @EkeSurulola. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

@EkeSurulola shares his research on climate change, soft capital, and agrarian struggles in northern Ghana. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

There are semi-nomadic and pastoralists who move across lands to feed animals. People exchange labour for a piece of land to feed their animals from landowners and cattle raisers. - @EkeSurulola

@CameliaDewan spoke on Climate Refugees or Labour Migrants? Climate Reductive Translations of Women's Migration from Coastal Bangladesh.

@CameliaDewan says she is not undermining the importance of CC in Bangladesh but identifying false solutions. Multicausal drivers of migration are overlooked in narratives of 'climate-induced migration' and contribute to critical literature on migration from coastal Bangladesh

Session 12 focused on Resisting Green Extractivism, chaired by Sergio Coronado. Speakers: Isis Táboas, Tamara Rusansky, Natacha Bruna, @boamonjane and Ryan Stock. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Ísis Táboas and Tamara Rusansky discussed 3 battles against the mining capitalist model in the Global South: political strategies in the case of Brumadinho, Brazil. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

They said that the challenge is not only to claim reparation for a non-natural disaster but also a wider struggle for environmental justice. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Natacha Bruna and @boamonjane spoke on Mitigation from above, adaptation from below: the struggle against green extractivism in central Mozambique.

What is being extracted isn’t coal, natural gas, or timber, but the emission rights of peasants. Expropriated extracted and transferred to industrialised regions where based on carbon credits, can legally keep polluting elsewhere. This is climate injustice.” Natacha Bruna

That brings us to the end of Day 3 of the Climate Change and Agrarian Justice Conference. We hope today's discussions have been thought-provoking and eye-opening.

Join us tomorrow as we conclude the conference. Our theme is - Towards Agrarian Climate Justice: Strengthening Alliances for an Anti-Capitalist Approach to Climate Change. Make sure you register: plaas.org.za/climateconfere…

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