friends of the earth international

annual report out now

Debra — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:43:23 +0000

The Friends of the Earth International report is out now. You can read it on-line here.

did you know?

Friends of the Earth Honduras Director and member of the Friends of the Earth International Executive Committee Juan Almendares received Annual Humanitarian Award from InterAction in 2007.

BMW, Daimler and Porsche, along with the German Atomic Forum were shamed in December during in the “Worst EU Lobbying” Award 2007”, co-organized by Friends of the Europe and affiliate Corporate Europe Observatory. Watch the video here.

FoE corporates campaigners in the Netherlands, England and Belgium filed complaints against Shell greenwash.

Following pressure from FoE groups in West African and around the world, the World Bank decided to carry out an inspection of the controversial West African Gas Pipeline.

Find out more in our annual report.

Climate refugees need the help of the Australian government

sophiefoei — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:19:23 +0000

1 billion people are estimated to be displaced due to climate change by 2050. It’s a shocking figure.

Pacific Island nations are one of the first to be displaced and due to their vulnerablity to extreme weather events, collapsing ecosystems and the contamination of their fresh water and crops with salt water.

The Island nation of Tuvalu is expected to become uninhabitable because of rising sea levels over the coming decade, while other islands are likely to be flooded.

People in Kiribati and Vanuatu have had to relocate their homes due to rising seas, while the Carteret Islanders in Papua New Guinea are starting to permanently evacuate their island homes. This is just the beginning of large movements of people within the Pacific region due to the effects of climate change.

Last year, the work of Friends of the Earth Australia resulted in the Australian Labor party (then in opposition) incorporating several policies relating to climate change in the Pacific in its national platform, including:

Assistance with intra-country evacuations when citizens have to be moved from low-lying areas to higher ground;
establishing an international coalition to accept climate change refugees when a country becomes uninhabitable because of rising sea levels;
assistance to preserve the cultural heritage of those who are evacuated.

Now it’s time for the new Australian government to deliver on its policies.

PS. To find out more and take action, visit our website.

The impacts of Bhopal live on

sophiefoei — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:52:20 +0000

Twenty four years ago 40 tonnes of gas leaked from a chemical plant in Bhopal, India, resulting in 20,000 deaths.

Many people don’t realise that more than 120,000 people still suffer because of the toxic wastes, contamination and poisoned groundwater. Ailments include blindness, headaches, extreme difficulty in breathing and gynaecological disorders. Tests have shown that the local drinking water is heavily laced with cancer-causing chemicals.

The Bhopalis continue to ask for a supply of clean safe water, that the factory site be cleared up, that Union Carbide (the owners of the plant) pay for their medical treatment and that families are compensated for their years of ill health and loss of earnings.

Two years ago, the Prime Minister finally met with the survivors after they walked 800km to Delhi, spent 21 days on the streets, and fasted for 6 days. He promised to deliver on their demands. Two years later, these promises have proven hollow. So, the Bhopalis have once again taken the 35 day march to Delhi to confront the Prime Minister.

The fear is that they will have to undergo days on the streets and further hunger strikes just to get the Prime Minister to meet them. Let’s hope this time round, the Prime Minister can find some compassion in his heart and keep his promise to respect their human rights.

Sophie

PS You can ensure Prime Minister meets the Bhopalis immediately and meets their demands by sending him a message through our website. It only takes 30 seconds and could help saves lives.

Arroyo out!

sophiefoei — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:38:05 +0000

Following years of lies and corruption, hundreds of political killings, and leaders benefiting at the expense of the people, Filipino people have taken to the streets again in an attempt to oust President Gloria Arroyo.

The Filipino people will not tolerate Arroyo any longer and are determined to force her out of presidency – Arroyo should be scared – they have successfully ousted two previous presidents!

The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Centre/Friends of the Earth Philippines are asking people to join the call for the resignation of Arroyo. It’s time for everyone to show that the world does not tolerate Arroyo and what she represents – elite rule, patronage politics and greed.

For those who want to take part, a petition is on our website.

greeting cards

debrabroughton — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:49:24 +0000

Make a statement with these winning images. The theme for this boxed set of 10 cards is “food & agriculture”, and they are illustrated with powerful images from our 2007 photo competition.

Order this set of 10 cards with gorgeous colour photos celebrating food and agriculture. Box and envelopes included. The cards are printed on chlorine-free 100% recycled post consumer paper and are priced at €11.95. Remember, each order takes us a bit closer to saving the planet, as profits will go to Friends of the Earth International’s campaigning work!

Who Benefits from GM crops

Friends of the Earth International — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:38:15 +0000

A new report released on February 13^th shows that planting genetically modified (GM) crops is causing an increased use of harmful pesticides in major biotech crop producing countries.

The 2008 edition of the Friends of the Earth International “Who Benefits from GM crops?” report series is titled “The Rise in Pesticide Use” and concludes that GM crops on the market today have on the whole caused an increase rather than a decrease in toxic pesticides use, and have failed to tackle hunger and poverty.

Download the report

Read what the media are saying:

The Press Association

Food Navigator

video on trade

Friends of the Earth International — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:56:58 +0000

Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland video on trade and the environment.

photo competition launched

Friends of the Earth International — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Photographers take note – Friends of the earth International’s 3rd annual photo competition

“dreams, hopes and possibilities for a better world”

was launched on Monday.

Closing date 1 April 2008.

Entries will be judged by a panel including Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and winners will be published in the Friends of the Earth International calendar.

Bali Roadmap: A Road Less Travelled

Friends of the Earth International — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:45:00 +0000

Night had fallen outside the UN climate conference building. It was approaching 11pm and a few people were seen filing in and out of the building. In sparse numbers, some people were seen sitting down at the entrance, some smoking, some chatting while some tried to catch a few winks as negotiations continued into the wee hours of the morning on the eve of the closing of the UN climate talks. As I walked into the building expecting a similar scene minus the smoking, little did I expect an atmosphere that was unlike the ambience outside. Where was the tired crowd that had been up the whole day and could not wait to get back to their hotel rooms to rest and rejuvenate? Where were the small groups of people huddled in quiet but deep conversations? Where were the corner-couch snoozers? Instead, the foyer of Bali International Convention Centre (BICC) was bustling with people chattering noisily and dancing, yes, dancing to Latin music belting out of a computer speaker, with glasses of wine in their hands and broad smiles on their faces. They might as well have been at an evening soiree of a poolside venue sipping cocktails and laughing carelessly. But no, it was the UNFCCC conference centre and an informal party was in order while serious negotiations carried on in the cavernous halls of the venue.

It was evident that the tiredness had got to most and they were just trying to execute irregular activities to stay awake while amusing themselves and others. FOEI international climate coordinator Joe Zacune joked that no one would imagine the `suits’ doing something like this in a conference. “Would you imagine them doing this in conferences? In fact, you missed the earlier part where they were doing the hip hop dance,” he said cheekily. We watched a bit and promptly made our way to a scheduled 11pm meeting with FOEI members to discuss the impending outcome of the negotiations.

It was crunch time in the Bali talks. Biggest carbon emitter US and its unceremonious submission of proposal that called for the scrapping of Kyoto Protocol, and its replacement with a voluntary emissions reduction scheme put a spanner in the talks in the eleventh hour. Most of us waited in a quiet corner of the upper level of the Westin Hotel for the outcome of the negotiations and whether a plenary will take place thereafter. From midnight to almost 2am, we waited for updates that may come through anytime then and 5am. However, a reprieve came through about 2am when we were told that the meeting will reconvene at 8am in the morning. The message was a welcome because we all needed the rest and prepare for what was to unfold the next morning – an event that would be filled with drama, suspense, tears and (partial) triumph.

The following morning, bleary-eyed and tired-looking, the participants made a beeline to the cafeteria for coffee and pastries before the meeting started. In half an hour, COP 13 president Rachmat Witoelar called for the meeting, only to suspend it twice as the G77 delegates were still in meeting with ministers from India and China. This was in reference to a proposal discussed on Friday night between US, EU and developing countries but the text was missing in the draft the next morning. While Witoelar tried to reconvene the meeting, a Chinese delegate called for a stand down as it was not fair to go on without the rest of the delegation there. The group of G77, Indian and Chinese delegates who were meeting in another hotel rushed to complete their discussions and get to the convention centre before the plenary reconvened. The scenario continued with US trying to block the text that had been carefully considered, and accepted by developing countries the night before. The proposed text read: “…implementation of `measurable, reportable and verifiable’ actions relating to mitigation were enabled by technology transfer, finance and capacity building.” Already a heavy compromise on the part of developing countries as per the `measurable, reportable and verifiable’ clause related to mitigation, it was not included in the draft. Hence, not reflecting the G77 proposal. Several impassioned pleas by developing countries including Pakistan and even Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were heard. Yudhoyono said: “The worst thing we can do is for this project to crumble because we can’t find the right wording. The world is watching anxiously and I beg you not to let them down.”

UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, who had left Bali for East Timor, made his way back to the conference hall to say this: “I am disappointed at the lack of progress. Everybody should be able to make compromises.” These statements received rousing support from people in the hall which caused the EU delegation to give in to the developing countries’ demands for transfer of technology. Technology transfer had been a sore issue among developed nations as it bordered on intellectual property rights and they were not willing to share or work around it. However, US continued to stand firm with its decision and was boo-ed loudly by non-governmental organisations with delegates joining in. At this point, Brazil, Uganda and South Africa begged US to reconsider its stand. But Papua New Guinea emerged the hero of the day for turning the situation around. Its delegate Kevin Conrad made the now-historical quote: “We ask for your leadership, we seek your leadership … if you can’t give us what we want, please get out of the way.” Conrad’s statement must have hit a tender nerve because moments later US delegation leader Dr Paula Dobriansky agreed to the proposal and joined the consensus. When that happened the suspense-filled atmosphere transformed instantaneously with people jumping off their feet, applauding and roaring approvingly.

At some point, UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer tried to call again for the meeting to start but was chided by a Chinese delegate who questioned which secretariat he worked for as the G77 delegation had not arrived yet. Yvo buried his face in tears before walking out of the hall. Though US joined the consensus, the near success of the entire two weeks left a rather bitter taste in the mouths of most climate campaigners. While Witoelar announced a consensus on a deal to launch two years of talks on a new global treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, most people could only manage meek smiles.

As FOEI, we know that more could have been achieved but the watered down version of the Bali roadmap will be something that has to be worked on. And although the EU, Australia and developing countries stood their ground on the need to include an agreement in a united front that emission cuts should be in the range of 25 to 40 percent, a lot of work still had to be done.

To quote a paragraph from the FOEI press release – Delegations from the United States and Japan, supported by Canada, earlier in the talks shot down strong developing country proposals on financing the transfer of technology. The rest of the industrialised countries failed to reign in the destructive behaviour of these three countries, which led to compromised deal.

And Steph’s comment: “Ministers from some industrialised countries meeting in Bali have let down the people of the world. They reached agreement on a way forward, but with little to guide them along the way. Future talks will now face a serious uphill battle to reach a strong agreement by the end of 2009. Around the world millions of people are already suffering the effects of climate change. People outside the talks have sent a strong message demanding climate justice. This message must no longer fall on deaf ears. We only have two years to build on this weak outcome and develop a just deal which ensures tough action from industrialised countries and assistance for people in the developing world.”

Two nights before the UN talks ended, some 200 people had gathered at the civil society forum (CSF) village to celebrate the closing of the activities. Local food and alcohol, with Indonesian music `dangdut’ featured prominently in the party. Civil society group members and local communities mingled together and danced the night away with the hope that the climate talks would achieve desired results in favour of everybody. Little did they know then that the results would be partially successful and that the Bali Roadmap is going to be a journey that is bumpy, windy and long. Nevertheless, one can hope, and I hope it will make the destination all worth the effort.

- geetha

World Bank: Forest Disasters Revisited

Friends of the Earth International — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:41:39 +0000

Question: Would you believe if you were told that the World Bank is being held to ransom by developing countries to help preserve their forests?

Answer: Probably not, because it sounds ludicrous, right?

But, the truth is they are, metaphorically speaking by two countries that have large tracts of forests, and equally large issues of destructive logging. They demanded that the bank gave money to keep their forests or they would chop them in a scheme developed by the bank itself for the protection of forests in developing countries. Indeed, the idea behind protecting forests with the rights of indigenous people intact can be seen as noble but not when it is coming from the World Bank that has a bad track record of funding such schemes. And it does not score any points for continuing to fund oil, gas and mining projects that continue to pollute the environment. In the recent past, funding programmes with these countries have backfired on their supposedly noble intent. The World Bank on its part had violated all the safeguards of ensuring that forest logging stopped and the rights of indigenous people upheld through this scheme. Instead, money was `entrusted’ to the governments who passed it over to logging companies that were supposed to practice a sustainable forest management system. They surreptitiously (or not) continued to chop down trees. And because they were under the guise of `managing the forest in a sustainable manner’ logging ensued while indigenous people continued to suffer as they do in many Southeast Asian countries. It should not come as a surprise because in many developing countries it is an open secret that governments and logging concessionaires work together. The World Bank having `entrusted’ the money to governments failed in its part to ensure that the governments would keep to its part of the deal. Among others, it failed to put into practice the prior informed consultation (PIC) policy, which by the way, is only three months of consultation. However, please note that they do not practice the free prior informed consent (FPIC) policy that enables indigenous people to consider development on their lands, as what is done in the Philippines.

One of the two countries, which is in the African continent, received funds from the World Bank to carry out sustainable forest management but as it was not well supervised, deforestation continued. However, the government of the country continued to demand money from World Bank and threatened to cut its forests if they did not pay US$1.5 billion to keep the forests. As it would seem the money demanded was to serve as compensation for ceased logging practices. It was a disastrous venture under World Bank’s forest preservation funding scheme.

In the other country, which lies east to Indonesia, its government having failed to ensure a sustainable forest management practice received a renewed loan. So although they failed to comply with the conditions, funds were handed out again and this time it was to replant trees in areas that were logged.

The fact is, the government of this largely indigenous land does not `desperately’ need money from the World Bank because it allegedly earns a good sum from logging companies, some of which goes to the financing of general elections.

This then leads to the next question, why would World Bank still be interested in throwing money into such schemes when they have seemingly failed in such forest saving ventures?

Because there is a lot of money at stake in carbon trade and there was no way World Bank was about to miss the opportunity of luxuriating in the business of churning billions all in the name of climate change. On Dec 11, the bank’s president Robert Zoellick launched its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to provide incentives to developing countries to protect their forests. Already it has raised US$160 million through pledges from wealthy countries including Germany, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. The FCPF will have two mechanisms – `readiness mechanism’ and `carbon finance mechanism’. The readiness mechanism was to assist about 20 countries as a preparation to participate in a future, large-scale, system of positive incentives for REDD[i]. The carbon finance mechanism will enable an initial group of these countries that will have successfully participated in the readiness mechanism to pilot incentive payments for REDD[ii].

While this event took place in the plush Karengasam ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, our coalition of about 50 environmental, indigenous, and women groups, and social movements staged a demonstration outside to oppose the venture. Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project had this to say: “FCPF is merely the World Bank up to their old tricks. They’ve packaged up their carbon trading agenda under the guise of forest protection, when in fact this will result in more forest destruction, more displacement of indigenous peoples and more carbon emissions. It’s a lose-lose-lose proposition for everyone but big business,” she added.

Researcher Janet Redman of Sustainable Energy and Economy Network said while World Bank was pretending to be concerned about climate change and poverty, it has continued to fund fossil fuel exploitation to `the tune of $8 billion since 2000’.

“At the same time, they’ve done virtually nothing to bring clean energy to the 1.6 billion people without electricity,” she added. Anna Pinto of Center for Organizations, Research and Education said: “The World Bank is channeling over $2 billion from the most polluting industries in the industrialised north to the most polluting companies in the global south, while profiting handsomely from so-called ‘overhead’.
“The FCPF is merely more of the same. It is also violating the rights of indigenous peoples to prior and informed consent as laid out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Our 35-minute action, participated by about 100 people, included us staging a dying scene where all of us collapsed onto the floor after Titi Soentoro of the Indonesian Civil Society Forum and the Gender Caucus finished reading a statement demanding the rejection of the FCPF. The statement was signed by dozens of groups.

We continued our protest with chants of slogans such as `World Bank, Hands Off’, `World Bank: Hands Off!’, `Robert Zoellick You Can’t Hide: Carbon Trading is a Crime’, `More Forest: Less Banks!’ and `Land Rights Now!’

Anne and a few others, who attended the launch, managed to voice out the issue of indigenous people’s rights which was apparently echoed by ministers from Germany and Denmark. And though World Bank highlighted this too, some skeptics say this could just be another hogwash to spin money all in the name of environment that purportedly upheld the rights of people.

The next day, in conjunction with the launch of FCPF, our Walhi friends staged a demonstration to oppose the FCPF in view of Indonesia’s main dilemma of destructive logging. They claim FCPF would naturally contribute towards the coffers of the pulp and paper industry that simply need to sit and earn credits through the REDD initiative now. Walhi’s forest programme manager Rully Syumanda said: “Plantation industries are always the winner in any situation. They take benefits not only through government promotions and privileged treatments but go further by profiting from their so-called efforts of combating destructive practices … which was theirs to begin with.”

He said the companies will be encouraged voluntarily to take part in REDD, which has a better outcome if done on a large scale rather than individual concessions.[iii] The pulp and paper industries are prevalent in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. In Indonesia, three million hectares out of 60 million hectares of concessions granted to forest-based industries belong to the pulp and paper industry.

Our demonstration took place strategically on the day when Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono opened the High-Level segment in the UN climate conference building. Security was fairly tight at the conference centre, thus our action had to be executed carefully as we milled around the entrance of the conference centre, waiting. It did not help that the day before the UN office in Algeria was bombed by two youths killing 50 civilians. We anticipated trouble from the UN police who probably anticipated the same from us. But all was good including the bit we got shooed out by several UN police as pressmen swamped our demonstration. This worked to our advantage. As we walked out with our banners and placards, and mouths covered with surgical masks (symbolising the danger of greenhouse gas emissions from industries that were allowed to continue, thanks to FCPF), the walkie-talkie of a hefty UN police was abuzz with strict orders from his superior to hasten our removal from the compound as ministerial delegates were arriving. He scrunched up our banner so that the wordings are not visible and walked us to gate. It was easy to surmise that we were like a speck of dust in the eye of the leaders and we simply needed to be removed, lest we ruin their beautiful vision of the Bali blue-sky day while everything stays pleasant in UN-ville.

—————

[i] Jakarta Post

[ii] Jakarta Post

[iii] REDD methodology and strategies, summary for policymakers, IFCA-Ministry of Forestry, 2007, p.44