It's been a good week or so for forest campaigning - following on from last year's success with Nestle over palm oil use and links to the evil Sinar Mas (Indonesia's largest palm oil and pulp and paper supplier - they even have a name that sounds like a Bond villain!), we've been working on the main culprits driving forest destruction, such as Golden Agri Resources' (GAR) - the palm oil arm of Sinar Mas. However, a few days ago, GAR became the first Indonesian palm oil company to make commitments that could end its involvement in forest destruction, something for which the whole industry has become infamous. However, Sinar Mas' pulp and paper division, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) are not yet playing nicely and are clearly still involved in hugely destructive practices. Still, the campaign will continue, and they will change their ways - after all, 2011 is the International Year of Forests...
...Meanwhile, closer to home, a campaign by 38 Degrees to combat Lib-Con plans to sell off all our publicly-owned forests soon spread far and wide, including to the Greenpeace website - and it won, with the plans being quickly scrapped after the petition gathered over half a million signatures, with MPs also receiving over 100,000 emails opposing the move. Thatcher wasn't right about much, but even she knew not to try to sell our forests...
So, a good week or so:
GAR = win (probably - we'll be watching)
UK forests = win!
APP = more to be done, but with GAR shifting in the right direction, and more campaigning, it can only be a matter of time...
Comments