What an unbelievably mad rush of Greenpeace successes towards the end of 2012.
2012 was already a pretty special year for the Worcester and Malvern groups and me personally. Raising £700 after walking non-stop for 24 hours was quite something, but that was nothing compared to campaign resultsat the end of December. At the start of the month, I went to Greenpeace HQ in London, to be told that they had just had word that KFC would be cancelling their contract with Asia Pulp and Paper thus protecting further areas of the Indonesian Rainforest.
They also told us about the new angle on the SHELL CAMPAIGN, to get Waitrose to pull out of their contract with Shell. Waitrose were planning going into partnership over stores on Shell Garage Forecourts, a huge expansion for them. Greenpeace members up and down the country began targetting the Waitrose website and Facebook page and that of Delia Smith who was their Celebrity Xmas Icon. Ten days later, Waitrose announced that they were pulling out of the contract.
Then two days later we heard that after a campaign targetting EU Members of Parliament (including letters we wrote at our Xmas Do), We heard this.........
Brussels – The European Parliament’s fisheries committee has endorsed today sweeping reforms of the EU fisheries policy that could help bring back fish stocks from the brink and reverse decades of overfishing by a bloated European fishing fleet. The plan approved by European MPs on the fisheries committee aims to tackle all three issues. It sets an objective to bring fish stocks back to sustainable levels by 2020, with an intermediate goal to reduce exploitation by 2015. It also recognises the excessive fishing capacity of the European fleet in relation to the state of stocks, and puts forward measures to cut it down. Finally, MEPs backed a timetable for the reduction of discards with different deadlines for each species.
Thank you to everyone out there who joined a campaign online, campaigned in the streets, attended the Shell Garage, wrote a letter, paid your membership and all the other myriad ways of supporting Greenpeace. I will conclude this year with this quote, which seems more apt this year than any other.
There has never been a more important time to get involved with Greenpeace and it would appear never a more effective time either. I hope you can find the time to get involved with Greenpeace next year or continue to do what you do.
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