May 2010

Building dams at a Greenpeace camp in Sumatra. International funds and a moratorium would make this a thing of the past

While our campaign to stop HSBC investing in deforestation continues, events have been quickening at the political end. Money and a moratorium have been promised for Indonesia today, both of which are desperately needed to help safeguard the country's forests from further devastation.

We're out here in the middle of the Mediterranean. But at the moment, the bluefin tuna don't seem to be here.

The fishing boats are here. The tugs and support vessels are here. The French navy ships which are monitoring/protecting the fishery are here... but the fish aren't.

Perhaps it's just not warm enough yet. Perhaps they're looking in the wrong places. Perhaps the fish are late.

The worst possible scenario for everyone is that the fish have gone.

Krill and other plankton are being viewed as a potential food source, but at what cost? (c) cbcastro

We humans are an inventive species. We never tire of finding new ways to do things. Just as we are plundering ever-stupider places to feed our dependency on fossil fuels, so we're unerringly heading to the most environmentally-damaging places to feed our hunger for fish.

The Marine Stewardship Council has just decided to certify Antarctic krill. This is utter madness.

We've just released our latest edition of the Guide to Greener Electronics - the 15th since we started producing quarterly reports back in 2006. Find out which electronics producers are doing their bit for a cleaner environment. Just how green are big names such as Samsung, Dell, Apple and HP?

The guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

There are detailed reports on each company's performance, plus an nifty new timeline showing how their ranking has changed over time since the first guide was launched - a helpful indication of how much effort they are making in this crucial area.

Check out the full guide on our international site »

Another tin of tuna, because we know you can't get enough of these pictures

The old saying about a can of worms, is based on the idea that once you open said can, it's impossible to get the worms back in and close it again. Who knew that was true of cans of tuna too?

But fresh from our update on some of the international branded laggards yesterday, comes some news of more developments from some of the UK retailers.

There's a well-known model of how dodgy big business deals with campaigns against them. To summarise, it goes a bit like this:

• Company X gets some bad press for doing something wrong, especially bad press if it kills lots of charismatic megafauna;
• Company X initially retaliates saying, 'It's all lies, honest';
• Company X then admits it isn't all lies, but comes up with some way of kicking the issue into the long grass, usually some commission or foundation (ideally with a word like 'conservation' or 'sustainable' in its title) or some interminable period of gathering research, in the hope it all blows over and people forget what they were upset about.

An ex-bluefin tuna found during the Rainbow Warrior's previous visit to the Mediterranean in 2007 © Greenpeace/Care

Imagine you are an Atlantic bluefin tuna. You've been out at sea most of the year in cooler waters, feeding away and generally getting on with being a big ol' fish at the top of your food chain. You have not a care in the world, save the occasional orca or shark scare.

Then spring is sprung, and the urge takes you. Forces you don't really understand compel you to head back to warmer waters, and a certain key place, sacred to you bluefin. The bluefin equivalent of a romantic dinner and some subdued lighting is a sheltered warm sea, and conditions have to be perfect, or it ain't happening. But even that's not enough. Because of the, er, messy, way most fish reproduce, they congregate together, and only release sperm and eggs when the time and the temperature is right: 23 degrees Celsius. It's the perfect temperature for a bluefin love-in.