So in the past couple of days three pieces of news have come into the Greenpeace office. So let's start with the bad news and get it over and done with. The Arctic Council was formed in 1996 as a result of the Ottowa Declaration to provide a platform for cooperation between Arctic states and the indigenous people to promote sustainable development (I always worry when I hear those words) and environmental protection. One would have thought these were laudable aims, especially as the Arctic Council have produced a document about climate change and its effect on the Arctic but unfortunately words and deeds are sadly mismatched. A leaked document shows that rather than saying 'no oil drilling' they are saying 'get the sandbags out just in case there's a spill' and 'lets work out who pays for the clean up'. Oh, and 'perhaps we ought to have a practice run on clearing up the mess'. Hardly the responsible attitude we would expect but, sadly, not entirely unexpected.
However we have two lots of good news and one is unexpected! For what seems like years we have been campaigning against Asia Pulp and Paper in Indonesia. Greenpeace showed how large multinationals like KFC, Mattel, Disney, Tesco and many others had been purchasing pulp from APP to make packaging for their products. Well, APP have launched a forest conservation policy, aiming to end its involvement in deforestation. Obviously the pressure we put on these big multinationals has caused them to put commercial pressure on APP by suspending contracts with them. What we need to do again is make sure that words and deeds are matched and Greenpeace will continue to monitor APP's actions but it is obvious that the pressure worked.
The pressure worked on the EU as well. Today I got a press release from Greenpeace. It will probably be on the news as well and we might even get to see our oceans campaigner Willie McKenzie talking about it. MEP's have agreed to support measures to reduce fishing pressure by 2015, allowing stocks to recover to sustainable levels; to bring the size of fishing fleets in line with the availability of fish; to promote small scale and low impact fishing methods and to end discards. And finally the EU is going to bring in legislation to prohibit EU vessels from overfishing seas outside EU waters. Willie said what we in the UK now need is fast action by the Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon to ensure the UK rewards sustainable fishermen.
As Meatloaf said two out of three ain't bad.
A lot of this was due to the work of local activists out on the streets informing the public about what was happening and asking them to support our campaigns. We can make a difference and we will continue to make a difference.
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