In Uruguay, the group Guayubira submitted a document to several government representatives and to the five candidates who aspire to the presidency in October’s elections.

“Everywhere in the world, millions of hectares of productive land are turned into green deserts under the disguise of ’forests’”, the declaration reads.

“Cultivable land, which is key for the food sovereignty of the local communities, is turned into tree monocultures that produce raw materials for export.

The water resources are polluted and exhausted and the soil is deteriorated”.

Real World Radio interviewed Ricardo Carrere, member and co-founder of Guayubira Group.

The Uruguayan environmentalists submitted an international document on September 18th to the then Minister of Cattle, Agriculture and Fisheries, Ernesto Agazzi (who resigned on Monday), to the head of forestry, Carlos Montero and to the Minister of Environment, Carlos Colacce, and to the national director of Environment, Alicia Torres.

They also delivered the declaration to the presidential candidates prior to the October national elections, as well as to the Environment and the Cattle and Agriculture Committees of Parliament.

Carrere told Real World Radio that the effects of tree monoculures in countries so distant like Chile and Thailand, Brazil and Swaziland, Ecuador and India, Colombia and Papua New Guinea, the US and Cameroon, are exactly the same.

He mainly focused on the situation in Uruguay and urged the candidates to focus the debate on the concentration and foreignization of land, the displacement of rural communities and the depletion of water sources by big transnational corporations.