This portrait of environmental politics chronicles the devastating destruction of the Philippine countryside and reveals how ordinary men and women are fighting back. It is an inspiring account of how peasants, fishermen and labourers have united to halt the plunder of their resources.
The book explores the contentious debate surrounding development strategies for poorer nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It critically examines the historical context of the one-size-fits-all development model imposed by wealthier countries, detailing its rise and subsequent decline. Through this analysis, readers gain insight into the complexities and challenges faced by developing nations in their pursuit of sustainable growth and autonomy.
At a time when countless communities are resisting powerful corporations - from Flint, Michigan, to the Standing Rock Reservation, to Didipio in the Philippines, to the Gualcarque River in Honduras - The Water Defenders tells the inspirational story of a community that took on an international mining corporation at seemingly insurmountable odds and won not one but two historic victories. In the early 2000s, many people in El Salvador were at first excited by the prospect of jobs, progress, and prosperity that the Pacific Rim mining company promised. However, farmer Vidalina Morales, brothers Marcelo and Miguel Rivera, and others soon discovered that the river system supplying water to the majority of Salvadorans was in danger of catastrophic contamination. With a group of unlikely allies, local and global, they committed to stop the corporation and the destruction of their home