May 2010

The good news just keeps on coming. Our Canadian colleagues (including several working here in London) are thrilled about a new, far-reaching agreement between campaign groups and logging companies which should see vast areas of the country's Boreal forest protected. As detailed on our international site:

"Today the biggest, most ambitious forest conservation deal ever has been announced: the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. After more than seven years of hard-fought campaigning to end the on-going destruction of Canada's Boreal Forest, Greenpeace and eight other non-governmental organisations have agreed to a truce with the logging industry: we will suspend the battle for the Boreal.

Given we've turned our sights away from Nestle towards HSBC, a few more details might be in order about why we've gone from chocolatey giant to banking colossus as the next stage in our campaign to stop Indonesia's rainforests being replaced with palm oil and paper plantations. It's a lateral step but then our intent has always been to tackle the palm oil industry at every level, from production to consumption and all points in between.

When good things go bad: a purse-seine in action

Greenpeace is not against purse-seining, which may surprise some people. Sure it's a big industrial-looking fishing operation, involving huge nets and catching lots of fish. But that's not always a bad thing.

If we are to assume we're still going to catch and eat fish, then purse-seining as a method is probably going to be something that continues. Purse-seining involves setting a large circular wall of net around fish, then 'pursing' the bottom together to capture them. Where purse-seining is best used is with large single-species schools of fish, that shoal tightly together. Examples like herring or mackerel spring to mind. These can be caught relatively 'cleanly' by purse-seining.

You'll never guess what. Nestlé has only gone and agreed to our campaign demands! And you've made this possible. We really, seriously could not have done it without you. Now we need to move straight on to the next big player in the palm oil industry - banking giant HSBC.

Now is not a good time to be an Atlantic bluefin tuna.

I mean, it's bad enough that rampant overfishing has already decimated the species to a mere sliver of its former abundance. And it's even worse that the international community couldn't be bothered to ban the international trade that drives the overfishing. The brink of extinction is never a good place to be. The obvious solution for species like tuna the way out of that is to produce lots of healthy baby tuna, that then grow up to be healthy adult tuna, and so on.

Ever wondered what this ocean acidification thing is? Wonder no longer, as this new animation from our international office explains everything you need to know in just over a minute. 

The basic upshot is that climate change is not just making the oceans warmer, it's also making them more acidic. It's only by a relatively small amount so you won't lose your toes if you go paddling, but the effects on the ocean's chemistry is dramatic. Most widely reported is the threat this poses to coral reefs - as the water becomes more acidic, the polyps aren't able to create the calcium carbonate skeletons which form the reefs.

The consequences travel up the food chain - watch the video to find out more.

Handing in the Airplot deed at No 10 this morning

Fantastic news - climate-wrecking plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport have been axed.

The Cameron/Clegg government confirmed yesterday evening that it will not only scrap the third runway at Heathrow, but also refuse additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted. So all our Airplot campaigning has finally won out - and a huge thank you is due to all you Airplotters, and everyone who's written to their MP or taken part in one of the many protests demanding that the plan be shelved.