italy

Remember the photoshoot we staged outside a fashion industry event in Italy? The one reminding companies that make and use leather that the Amazon is not for walking over? Here's a great little video which I neglected to post last week, showing our models strutting their stuff for the rainforest.

Italian fashion: stylish and sophisticated, but unfortunately may be linked to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. As cattle ranching is responsible for about 80 per cent of deforestation in Brazil, it is likely that Brazilian shoe leather comes from areas of cleared rainforest. So a team of Greenpeace activists have set up an alternative photoshoot today outside a major industry event in Italy to remind the world's shoe and leather companies that we can't walk all over the Amazon.

At last, France has officially announced support for an international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin. This is great news. It means that 23 out of the 27 EU countries now support the species being protected by CITES (the organisation which regulates trade in endangered species). It also means there is no longer any effective block to stop the EU reaching a common position (at a previous vote, it had been blocked by the Mediterranean countries).

Two of the main fishing nations, Italy and France are supporting the trade ban, and Italy has already declared it is suspending its own fishery. That is pretty momentous. It's as if the proverbial turkeys have just voted for Christmas by a landslide.

Day two on the coal occupation in Italy. In Marghera, near Venice, the occupation continues, with activists on the coal conveyor and the chimney painting 'G8: LEAD OR LOSE'. More activists are also occupying the cranes on the wharf, stopping a coal ship – the Bulk Brasil – from unloading its cargo from South Africa.

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