Derechos de la Madre Tierra

(Rio de Janeiro, 14 June, 2012) About 3000 people from around the world will mobilize to say NO to the commodification of life and nature at the Peoples Summit for Social and Environmental Justice and in Defense of the Commons.
The peoples Summit is a space for discussion, debate and construction of alternative proposals by the global civil society, social movements and peoples collective organizations. La Via Campesina has been actively participating in the construction of this activity in order to denounce the false solutions of the same failed economic model that is now being dressed in green under the name “green economy”. La Via Campesina is instead promoting peasants sustainable agriculture as a true solution to the global climatic and environmental crises.
The delegation of La Via Campesina will participate in various plenaries as well as the global mobilization that will take place on the 20th of June concentrating at the junction of the roads Av. Rio Branco and Av Presidente Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. La Via Campesina has been actively participating in the planning of the Peoples Summit that will take place as a parellel activity to the UN conference on Sustainable Development or Rio + 20. This meeting marks the twentieth aniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio 92 or Eco 92).
The most important political space in the Peoples Summit will be the Peoples Permanant Assembly that will organize around three main themes: The denouncement of the structural causes of global poverty and environmental crisis as well as the new forms of the reproduction of capital; Peoples real solutions and new paradigms; and the agendas, campaigns and mobilizations of anticapitalist struggles after Rio +20.
La Via Campesina is an international movement that brings together about 200 million peasants, small and medium-sized producers, landless, rural workers and indigenous people from around the world. LVC advocates sustainable small scale peasant's agriculture as a means of promoting social justice and dignity. The organization brings together more than 150 organizations in about 70 countries of Africa, Asia, Europe and America.
Link to document - La Via Campesina's position on Rio+20
To facilitate interviews with peasants from different continents we have available a list of spokespersons of La Via Campesina as well as the overall agenda of the Summit.

PRESS CONTACTS:
Luiz Felipe Albuquerque – +55 (21) 6951-0341
Maria Mello – + 55 (61) 8239 5569

AGENDA:
17 - Morning and Afternoon: 5 Plenaries in the run up to the main Peoples Assembly that will discuss: Human Rights and justice; Commons; Food Soverignty; Extractionism; Other Paradigms.
18: Day of Womens Mobilization
18: Day of mobilization against corporations
18 Morning: Self managed activities/discussions and mobilizations
18 Afternoon: 5 Plenaries before the main Peoples Assembly
19 Morning: Self managed activities/discussions and mobilizations
19 Afternoon: Assembly of the people – Structural Causes and False Solutions
20: Global Mobilization – Peoples Summit for Social and Environmental Justice against the mercantilization of Life and in defense of the Commons (concentrating at the junction of the roads Av. Rio Branco and Av Presidente Vargas in Rio de Janeiro)
Visit to the Vila Autodromo
Walk in the downtown area of Rio
21: DAY OF THE MOBILIZATION OF LA VIA CAMPESINA
21 Afternoon: Peoples Assembly – Our Solutions
22 Morning: Peoples Assembly – Agendas of People's Struggles and Campaigns
22 Afternoon: Cultural Closing Act
23: Evaluation