Blog: Forests

Volunteers are hard at work preparing the Greenpeace field for the 40th Glastonbury festival, now just two days away. Forest campaigner Ian explains why rainforest destruction is the central theme this year, and gives a personal demonstration of our very popular solar/biomass on-site showers...

You'll find a full listing of all the goodies available to festival goers in the Greenpeace field this time around on the official festival site.

Making the best of the festival: our top 10 tips »

Come to the Greenpeace field and test out our FSC skateboard ramp

2009 was an epic year at Worthy Farm. Many festival-goers declared it the "best ever" Glastonbury. But with 2010 being the festival's 40th anniversary, we're doing all we can to make the next one even more special...

So this year the Greenpeace field goes ape with a distinctive rainforest theme, complete with hanging vines, authentic forest sounds and smells, plus more than a few of our famous orangutans, of course.

It's easy to forget that, even though we moan about discredited political systems and infringement of civil liberties, in the UK we don't actually have it that bad. It's rare that anyone in the UK would feel in danger for speaking out against the government but of course that's not the case in other parts of the world. A shocking reminder of this came with the news last week that a prominent human rights activist was murdered in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Floribert Chebeya Bahizire was the executive director of La Voix des Sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless), an organisation he set up in 1983 to expose human rights abuses and injustice in the DRC. But last Wednesday in Kinshasa he was found dead in his car, and his driver is still missing. According to the news wires, there'll be an investigation into Bahizire's death but there are questions over how revealing it will be. So much so that an open letter has been sent to the president Joseph Kabila from over 50 human rights groups, advocating an open, impartial inquiry.

Of course, Greenpeace has a team in Kinshasa and the challenges of campaigning there are markedly different than from a comfortable office in London. Intimidation and murder against those working to improve the lives of those who are disenfranchised and disregarded is unacceptable wherever it happens, and with the 50th anniversary of independence for the DRC approaching at the end of the month, Bahizire's murder will cast a long shadow over the celebrations.

If this man's tree-top home was in the way of profit, do you think HSBC would really stop the bulldozers? 

Update: Thanks to the thousands of emails sent and the videos you made, HSBC have since sold their shares in Sinar Mas.

HSBC's advertising creates a world where this monolithic financial institution truly empathises with the cultural, environmental and deeply symbolic relationships people have with trees and rainforests. It's a make-believe world, of course. The bank's actions speak far louder than the syrupy voiceovers and twee sentiments in their adverts, so just like BP's logo, they're ripe for a makeover. So why not make one of your own?