Posted by jamie — 17 May 2007 at 3:55pm
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I get a lot of book tokens for Christmas, birthdays and the like - I read a lot so it's an easy option for a hard-to-buy-for kind of guy. But they have a habit of lurking in my wallet for months at a time, as I've got into the habit of buying second hand books. Buy books cheaply from charity shops and return them when I'm done - it's the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) all rolled into one, with a dose of charitable intentions thrown in for good measure.
The only flaw in my cunning plan is that pre-loved books don't just spontaneously appear in branches of Oxfam, they begin life as a tree in a forest somewhere. Large amounts of fresh virgin paper are required to keep the publishing industry running, and if the production of that paper is causing the destruction of large and ancient forests, those book tokens are going to remain where they are indefinitely.
Greenpeace's input into the consultation on the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, which the government intends to use to force fuel companies to increase the amount of biofuels they supply.
But without proper safeguards and protection for forested areas, the production of these biofuels could cause an increase in carbon dioxide emissions instead of reducing them.
A coalition of some of Britain's biggest green groups is launching an advertising campaign on Wednesday 9 May attacking environmentally destructive 'bio-fuels'.
The adverts feature a petrol pump held to the head of an orang-utan. "Tell the Government to choose the right biofuel." it says, "or the orang-utan gets it."
Posted by jamie — 9 May 2007 at 12:00am
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As you may have already seen, along with WWF, the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and enoughsenough.org, we've placed an advert in several of today's papers warning the government about the environmental risks of biofuels as an alternative to petrol and diesel. Hang on, I imagine some of you are saying right now, aren't they supposed to be clean and green with the power to save us from the tyranny of fossil fuels? Well, yes... and no.
Forest officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are woefully under-resourced
It's not a trick question, and the answer is simple: when a moratorium is failing to stop the problem it was originally designed to address, then it's not much of a moratorium at all. There's one in place right now in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that is supposed to help prevent the destruction of the country's rainforest, and yet it has been repeatedly breached until the moratorium itself is practically worthless.
Posted by jamie — 19 April 2007 at 1:43pm
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Our report on the con in the Congo really did catch the attention of the World Bank. They were referenced many, many times in its pages and have taken a keen interest in what we have to say about their role in the destruction of the African rainforest at the hands of the international logging companies.
Such is their interest that a special event was held at the spring meeting in Washington DC last weekend - even though it was in the offing before we released the report, it wasn't on the official agenda and was held as a direct result of the work done by ourselves and other organisations, both globally and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the last few weeks.
Stretching across central Africa, the rainforest of the Congo basin is the second largest on Earth; only the Amazon is larger. Around two-thirds of the region's intact forest is found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but it also covers large areas of Gabon, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.
Millions of people across the region depend on the forest for food, medicine and shelter, and the cultures of many communities are founded on their relationship with the forest. No less than two-thirds of the DRC's 60 million people rely on the forest in one way or another.
This report warns that the tropical hardwood species merbau (or kwila) will be extinct within 35 years or less if action is not taken to stop the destructive logging and trade of the species.
A new Greenpeace report, Merbau's Last Stand (1), launched today warns that the tropical hardwood species merbau (or kwila) will be extinct within 35 years or less if action is not taken to stop the destructive logging and trade of the species.
Greenpeace has uncovered evidence suggesting that:
Since its launch in 2004, the Garden Furniture Guide has been extremely successful. We've seen many retailers working hard to improve their policies and removing furniture that has been made as a result of ancient forest destruction.
