Blogposts tagged 'Cargill'

John Sauven, campaign special projects director for Greenpeace UK, explains how Greenpeace worked with McDonald's to change the food industry's attitude towards Amazon soya.

"Huge chickens invaded fast food stores in London and started to ask customers if they knew they were eating soya from deforested areas of the Amazon. That was in April. The chickens were noisy Greenpeace activists... It took McDonald's only six hours between the first 'homo chickenacius' invasion of its restaurants and the phone call to Greenpeace to discuss the issue. Why? Because fast-food consumers started to be choked with McNuggets and McChickens. Ethical consumption's appeal is increasing."

If there has been one day out here that has reflected the spirit and passion of all the diverse groups fighting to get soya out of the Amazon, it was today. We joined a march of nearly 1000 people from indigenous and local communities throughout Santarem who are trying to stop Cargill destroying their livelihoods and way of life.

It's been a long day and its not yet 4pm. Worse still its been violent and the fear is things could get much worse.

Today, shortly after dawn, we launched three inflatables from the Arctic Sunrise, raised the anchor and steamed over to Cargill's illegal export facility. Our intention, to peacefully shut down the complex for as long as possible and prevent the unloading of rainforest soya from farms complicit in illegal land grabbing and slavery.

On Saturday we finally made it into Santarém port, having persuaded the authorities that they had no legal grounds on which they could legitimately keep the Arctic Sunrise out.

Despite rumours that the soy farmers were planning a march, the atmosphere in the port was quiet - except, that is, for the loading of a cargo ship, ironically preparing to transport Amazonian timber to France. It seemed criminal to stand by and watch it load but on this occasion it was not our remit to intervene.