Astonishingly, the so-called ‘human’ species appropriates about twenty percent of its planet’s net productive capacity. If the voices in this captured transmission are to be believed, humanity’s insatiable consumptive thirst will have profound impact on the future development of life on Earth.
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One night, Mariana had a dream. She dreamed that she was happy to go to work. Full of energy, she imagined herself arriving at the textile factory in a Honduran industrial park. Her supervisor greeted her and Mariana was delighted to find a comfortable ergonomic chair waiting for her in front of the machine that she operates. Then she woke up.
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Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley has produced wine for over four thousand years. That winemaking tradition continues today, with Lebanon boasting some world-class reds. But wine making isn’t easy in Lebanon. Vintners have had to deal with fundamentalists, civil war, and invading armies. The struggle has been worth it. Reese Erlich reports from the Bekaa Valley.
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Here’s another dispatch from Victoria Fenner, who spent an action and learning-filled three weeks in Central America earlier in the year. It’s hard to visit Central America and not explore the world of coffee, so here we go.
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If everyone on Earth earned what their labour was actually worth, global poverty would be a lot less rampant. Paying people what their labour is worth is what the so-called Fair Trade movement is all about. Victoria Fenner sends us philosophical musings on the subject from Guatemala about the personal ramifications of free trading.
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The slow-food movement has reached dizzying heights on the sun-baked altiplano of Bolivia, in the Andean highlands. Here, small-scale producers are making the most of scarce water supplies, ample sun, a few inexpensive materials and local expertise to eke out a living in some of the highest elevation farmland in the world.
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Stuart Franklin is turning air miles into trees. Franklin — the founder of a grassroots carbon offsetting project in Ecuador — calculates how many seedlings he has to put in the ground in order to generate a carbon bank big enough to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by tourists jetting to the popular Galapagos Islands each year.
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The next time you buy roses for your honey, consider this: The cut flowers in your Valentine’s bouquet were fumigated for insects and mildew, then drenched with preservatives for the long flight north. They may only make your lover sneeze – or perhaps break out in a rash – but the farmers who grow the flowers may suffer chronic poisoning. GPM producer Jen Moore sends us this report from Ecuador, a major exporter of cut flowers.
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Isabel La Torre knew they’d finally hit upon the right idea when women’s participation in the Central Coffee Organization of Northwestern Peru (CECANOR) more than doubled in less than three years. For more than three decades, this vibrant Peruvian coffee marketer has been interested in addressing gender inequity on the farm. But after various attempts, putting a dollar value on women’s work is what has made a difference.
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An Interview with 1989 Right Livelihood Award winner Melaku Worede.
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