A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
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resource management, raising public awareness of biodiversity and its great contribution towards food
security and poverty alleviation in Cameroon. Many projects are planned particularly in the field of
Permaculture. The Gambia Community Empowerment Project (GCEP) inspired by local families, addresses
widespread poverty and unemployment in The Gambia. Its community centre provides workspace to trades
people and artisans, in exchange for training to empower self-sufficiency in the youth.
At Nyéléni à Sélingué village in Mali, over five hundred women, men and youth activists from 80 countries met
to share their knowledge, experiences, and hopes for a world free of hunger, injustice, and corporate greed.
The Bámbara legend of Nyeleni, the peasant woman who resisted oppression and taught her people how to
feed themselves, provided the deep cultural symbolism that led the way to dialogue, learning, and political
alliances between sectors and across industrial divides.
Declaration of Nyeleni - World Forum on Food Sovereignty When they had done their work they made a
declaration available in full at the Land Research and Action Network website. Here is a summary:
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through
ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture
systems.
It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather
than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next
generation.
It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions
for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers.
Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and
family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal - fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production,
distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability
Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights
of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands,
territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food.
Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and
women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.
Food sovereignty is of the very essence of Human Freedom. For Olaseinde’s key statements go to My World
Family Ning: Video - Discussions with Olaseinde.
The following account is adapted from Practical Action’s website.
Practical Action was founded in 1966, under a different name, by the radical economist Dr EF Schumacher in
the belief that his philosophy of ‘Small is Beautiful’ could bring real and sustainable improvements to
people’s lives. Their aim is to contribute to bringing about a world free of poverty, through poverty
reduction, environmental conservation and technology choice. Practical Action believes the simplest ideas
can have the most profound, life-changing effect on poor people across the world. For over 40 years, they
have been working closely with some of the world’s poorest people using simple technology to fight poverty
and transform lives for the better.
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