Uruguay | WRM | SOCIETY

Ricardo Carrere
In memory of a dear friend

One of the downsides of living as long as I have is that you reach that age in which you have to say goodbye to friends more and more often.

This morning I received a telephone call from the IUF Latin American Regional Office informing me of the death of Ricardo Carrere. I am still shaken by these sad news as I try to write these brief farewell lines for a dear friend and fellow activist, on behalf of myself and everyone at the IUF Regional Office.

Ricardo graduated in 1966 from the Escuela de Silvicultura de Maldonado (Uruguay) with a degree in forestry engineering, and continued his studies in France at the École Nationale des Ingénieurs de Travaux des Eaux et des Forêts. Years later, like so many Uruguayans, he would be forced by the dictatorship into prison and exile, but neither punishment would be enough to make him abandon his unwavering optimism and the joy of life that characterized him.

In 1996 he was appointed International Coordinator for the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), a position that took him around the world and which he held until just a few months ago. He was also a member of “Guayubira,” a Uruguayan NGO that groups individuals and organizations working for the conservation of native forests and against the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the current forestry development model. In the course of his work, he wrote dozens of books and hundreds of articles and participated in countless forums, seminars and debates.

IUF Latin America’s contact with him began many years ago, when we first had the privilege of working with him, and in November 2000, the 12^th Latin American Regional Conference of the IUF decided to further ties and coordination efforts with WRM in an agreement that would later be renewed and expanded at the 13^th Regional Conference in October 2006. At the 25^th Congress of the IUF, held in Geneva in 2007, Ricardo, on behalf of WRM, and Ron Oswald, on behalf of the IUF, signed a cooperation agreement between the two institutions.

As many of our affiliates will remember, Ricardo participated in many of the same struggles we are involved in, including single-crop production of African palm, UNILEVER’s practices, GMOs, single-crop plantation of eucalyptus trees and paper pulp plants, the use of agrotoxic substances in agriculture, water defense actions, and many, many etceteras.

The last activity we participated in together was in June of last year, when the Uruguayan Committee in Solidarity with the People of Honduras.

Our deepest condolences and solidarity go out to his partner, María Isabel Cárcamo, with whom he shared his life and his dreams, and to the rest of his family.