Happy New Year everyone...peace and love to all..remember you have the power to change the world.....let's keep in mind John Lennon's song 'Imagine' and keep moving towards those goals..... http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44435963632
I just wanted to start this New Year with a special message to thank you for your support and to celebrate our Campaign success in the last year.
We started with a new and exciting Tuna campaign, linked to TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittington (of River Cottage) Fish fight (www.fishfight.net) including all the top chefs, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and their films on fish, (see Channel4 On Demand) Most of the research for these films was provided by our campaigners at Canonbury in Islington.
We were asked to sticker supermarket cans of Tuna to highlight where companies were using fishing methods which damaged or killed other fish. The UK is the second-largest market in the world for tinned Tuna, so putting pressure on companies here meant we could affect fishing methods world-wide. By July, every Tuna supplier in the UK, including the biggest, John West, had agreed to pole-and-line methods of catching them....a great success. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/oceans/and-then-there-were-none-john-west-changes-its-tuna-20110726
In a bid to persuade BP and others to go ‘Beyond Oil’, stop exploration of the Arctic and stop further exploitation of the Alberta Tar Sands, we took to the streets asking people to sign cards.....later sent to local MP’s – and a group of people ‘attended’ their AGM to protest. We sent letters to MPs on EDM 799: Corporate Emissions standards, http://bit.ly/eV8E4x to help keep the Climate stable and Greenpeace issued a report on sustainable electricity supply: New Smart Grid Report here: http://bit.ly/egNMGF
By May, we were deep in the campaign to raise money and awareness for our new Rainbow Warrior ship, and held a stall in the High Street on a Thursday for late-night shoppers. Our fund-raising lunch at the award-winning Croft Tearooms in St Mary Cray saw friends and supporters enjoy an organic lunch and raise £60 towards Rainbow Warrior III. We have a certificate...great thanks to all who came...we will be booking the Tearooms for lunch on Sunday April 1st 2012, please put that date in your diary and come along.
By June our Forest Campaigners had come up with a fiendish plan to expose that packaging for Barbie dolls had come from threatened Indonesian Rainforest....so our intrepid team set up a ‘Treasure Hunt’ with Barbie dolls hiding in trees and parks, chainsaws at the ready. More than 60,000 letters were sent to Mattel urging them to adopt policies to protect forests. However the Greenpeace report Toying With Extinction showed that Hasbro, Disney and Lego were also involved. By the end of the year, Lego, Barbie’s Matell, and Hasbro had changed their policies, though Disney was clinging on.
(The worst thing about this is that Indonesia has already signed up for help to preserve its rainforest, under the REDD negotiations, although sadly this is not stopping exploitation or the destruction of Orang Utan habitats.)
In June, we were transfixed by the actions of Activists who had invaded Cairn’s exploratory Oil rig in Arctic waters – and the arrest of our International Director Kumi Naidoo. Polar Bears and ‘Office workers’ also visited Cairn’s offices in Scotland, to ask for their ‘Oil Spill safety plan’...which Cairn did not hand over.
We were warned when Cairn Energy obtained an extraordinary, wide-ranging legal interdict (injunction) against Greenpeace. This meant that we had to be careful about blogs and information we were allowed to put on the net and on our pages. However, Greenpeace appealed and scored two victories. The first was that we finally got the Oil Spill plan, the second that we challenged the ruling and protected an internet freedom.
June means the Glastonbury festival.....as volunteers we get free access – though you have to work! This year I was ‘on the gate’ of our private camping site...a difficult place for someone with ‘face-blindness’ as I don’t remember faces very well. So much music, so much to see and do....so many friends, so much fun.....and never mind the mud!!
Having met one of our Chinese activists at Canonbury Villas, we were concerned to find out that almost half the toxic emissions from China are caused by our consumer-greed....for clothes, batteries, plastic ‘stuff’ and all the other imports we use. In July, Nike and Adidas were targeted in our ‘Clean up’ campaign though it was Puma who broke first and declared they would work towards ‘the elimination of all releases of hazardous chemicals from its entire product life cycle, and across its global supply chain, by the year 2020.’ Good news for the Chinese people whose water was being badly contaminated.....
Hugh’s fish fight had showed that the EU quota methods meant that sometimes as much as 60% of caught-fish were sent back to the Ocean – dead. So in July too, we launched the CFP Common Fisheries Policy campaign (or Change the F**** Policy) where letters were sent to David Cameron asking for his support to change European fishing quota scheme. We met up with Croydon network for a High Street stall in Beckenham.
Hugh’s fish fight went to Europe, where we campaigned for quotas based on scientific research figures and a change to how fishermen were allowed to catch and keep what they had. Now fishing times have been reduced, yet quotas are still based on financial gain, not fish-stock preservation.....still work to be done!
In July too, we launched our VW & the Darkside campaign to try to persuade the company to stop their opposition to European Union emissions targets – and to increase engine efficiencies so they use less fuel. Suddenly, Stormtroopers seemed to appear all over the country!! Our video went viral and topped the charts for attracting viewers globally and many of us joined to become Jedi Knights and gain points and attributes...
We also launched a call-out for Net-savvy supporters, to add video and pictures to our actions, to set up Twitter accounts, and to boost our online activities. We were also preparing for an annual London skillshare in October, with workshops on all aspects of our campaigning – and a great time to meet and get to know lots of other people who care for the Planet.
I got to go to another festival too – Latitude – where our Greenpeace action centre featured a series of nets, plus a zip wire, where ‘in betweeners’ could work off some excess energy – even the adults got envious. I got to meet a new team of people and some new-to-me bands and performers.....
By September we had visited our local VW dealership and delivered our campaign message to staff, as well as phoning VW – although we only got the standard replies and no guarantee they would change their position. We’d also had a great film competition and voted online for the winners – best of all was a ‘special mention’ made by some friends....and the launch of the Greenpeace London You Tube channel, here: http://www.youtube. com/user/ GreenpeaceUKLondon
Some members attended the October skillshare, and we were soon looking forward to visiting our new ship the Rainbow Warrior III which docked in London in November. I hope that some of you took the opportunity to have a look around – I had a great couple of days looking after visitors and learning new skills, including how to dismantle a small marquee.... I was also lucky enough to see International Director Kumi Naidoo give a short speech and take advantage of my role as a steward by getting on and off - as my duties allowed- as often as possible.
Duplicity was uncovered at the Ministry of Transport – so Greenpeace went into action and renamed it the Ministry of Tar Sands, when it was discovered that although Energy Secretary Chris Huhne’s office was proclaiming the lowest emissions targets ever at the Durban Climate Conference, from inside the Ministry of Transport, negotiations were underway with Canada to persuade the EU to accept Tar Sands oils. President Obama’s decision to cancel the XL pipeline from Canada to the Mexican Gulf, and the EU’s refusal to allow Tar Sands fuel from being sold in member states, all send a message to the Oil Industry that there has to be an alternative future.
We kept up pressure on VW in November and kept on in December, with a London-wide Greenpeace action with Stormtroopers appearing in Trafalgar Square after catching buses, the tube and taxis from their starting points. Yet more cards signed for delivery to the obdurate car manufacturers....and great fun for lots of people new to our campaign delivery....debrief in a local hostel, naturally!
A year of hard work and success....at the end we had persuaded toy manufacturers to package their goods more responsibly, John West and other Tuna canners to fish more responsibly, the EU to change their fishing quota regime, and won an internet victory too......not bad for volunteers... do come and join in.....
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