August 2012

The local fishing community in Thiaroye, Dakar, is celebrating. Since the new Senegalese government took action to stop overfishing, fisheries in the region are slowly regenerating, and fishermen are returning home with healthier catches.

In the Greenpeace office, staff have developed a bad habit. We take our seats, switch our computers on and click on the bookmark to the National Snow and Ice Data Center website. Yesterday was like any other day, except that today the extent of sea ice melt surpassed that of 2007, the lowest year on record.

This month we are expecting to see a record ice melt in the Arctic. But this is not a world record we can celebrate. This is a wake-up call from planet Earth. 

Prirazlomnaya.

It’s certainly a mouthful, but it’s also the new name – and face – of Arctic destruction today. This giant Russian platform is set to be the first to try and commercially produce offshore Arctic oil anywhere on the planet.

Don’t you just hate it when someone has the power to make a real difference, but won’t use it? Take Volkswagen for instance. It’s Europe’s biggest car maker, eager to display itself as a friend of the environment and known worldwide for its high standards of engineering.

Yet for years VW has failed to put its money where its mouth is and commercially produce cars that are both cheap to run and emit far less CO2 than the rest of the market.

We've been busy this week. We uncovered a startling secret that Gazprom has been keeping from the world: its oil spill response plan is out of date! But they're still going to drill for oil in the Arctic. Heres the rub...

This summer we have been busy taking the ‘Save The Arctic’ campaign around the summer festival circuit. So far we have been to Nova, Latitude and WOMAD. Next up is the Wilderness Festival.

This year, as we've been working closely with UK small scale fishermen, one thing has become abundantly clear: the EU Common Fisheries Policy, or CFP, is not working. Full stop.