June 2012

The ‘Future We Want’ is nowhere to be found in the agreement which world leaders are currently rubber-stamping in Rio. Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo summed up the feelings of millions of us when he described the outcome as a ‘polluters charter that will cook the planet’. 

Earlier today at the Rio Earth Summit, Greenpeace joined forces with a host of famous names to demand that the uninhabited area of the High Arctic that lies around the North Pole be legally protected and kept off-limits to the companies and governments that are desperate to see it exploited.

As summer begins, sharks are on many people’s minds. People are thinking about them, however, in radically different ways.

Many beachgoers view sharks with trepidation, especially after 30-year old Ian Redmond was killed in a shark strike last year while honeymooning in the Seychelles. But for many of the world’s leaders, this may be the time when they’re preparing to rethink the shark.

We’re so grateful to the following actors, musicians, explorers, environmentalists and leaders from the worlds of business, arts and media for being the first to place their names on the Arctic Scroll, to be planted on the seabed at the North Pole as a statement of Arctic protection. Join them! 

The Arctic is under threat. As you read this, oil companies and politicians are plotting to carve up the icy north, extending their national territories and searching for drill sites. But with your help, we can draw a line in the ice and put the Arctic out of the polluters' reach – forever.

EU Council meetings – the epitome of fun. These are when representatives of each EU member state, usually the relevant government minister, get together to discuss issues of importance.  Last Monday - all day, and into the small hours, it was the turn of  the UK’s minister, Richard Benyon to get together with his 26 counterparts to discuss and agree a way forward on Common Fisheries Policy reform.

Glastonbury may be taking a breather this year but we’ll still be out and about on the festival circuit, meeting and greeting, getting back to nature and letting you know how you can help Greenpeace defend it.

For KFC it’s all "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" as they continue to deny the simple truth that they have been using paper made by Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) for their packaging.  The company still won’t explain how rainforest fibre has been found in its products, nor admit that a UK supplier, St Neots, has been using paper from APP, a company notorious for pulping Indonesian rainforest, including habitat for the endangered Sumatran tiger.