Demand for biofuels is destroying tribal peoples’ land and lives, according to indigenous representatives at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), meeting currently in New York.
A report presented to the UNPFII refers to ‘increasing human rights violations, displacements and conflicts due to expropriation of ancestral lands and forests for biofuel plantations.’ One of the report’s authors, UNPFII chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, has said that if biofuels expansion continues as planned, 60 million indigenous people worldwide are threatened with losing their land and livelihoods.
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