22
April 2009 - International — The EU parliament
is proving that all naughty boys and girls
just need a good (non-violent of course)
spanking once in a while. Last year, more
than half a million of you watched the "Forest
Love" video and more than 130,000 of
you treehuggers wrote to European Commission
President José Manuel Barroso, demanding
a little Forest Love and an end to the EU’s
massive contribution to deforestation and
illegal logging. Call it a spanking, a love
tap or just some tough love but you gave
it to them good last year and they seem
to like it.
In today’s vote, the
European Parliament supported the recommendations
of its environment committee to strictly
control timber products sold on the EU market.
They are taking a page from your book and
are looking to place a firm but loving grip
on naughty wood sold on the EU market. Now
we just need the European agriculture ministers
to get in on the game and take this law
forward by the end of this year. It’s time
to make sure that illegal wood products
stay out of the EU.
The Parliament took
the Commission’s draft timber law and made
it better by making companies guarantee
the legality of wood products sold in their
shops and by creating an EU-wide framework
for punishments for nasty offenders. It
is also recommending a move towards fully
sustainable sourcing.
Right now, the EU is
one of the world’s largest markets for timber.
About 19 percent of EU wood imports come
from illegal logging. That means without
even knowing it, your new bed frame could
be contributing to deforestation, forest
destruction, climate change and biodiversity
loss, poverty and social tensions in developing
countries. Not really what you had in mind
when you were thinking about the unmentionables
that come along with a new addition in the
bedroom is it?
Almost there, don’t
stop!
As it stands, the current proposal needs
to be a little firmer to really fight illegal
logging and give you peace of mind about
that new bed frame.
We need EU agriculture
ministers to support the European Parliament’s
recommendations and adopt a strong common
position before the end of June.
The Czech EU Presidency needs to show leadership
if we are going to achieve this. A final
adoption should then take place by the end
of the year.
You know you want it
You know what you want when it comes to
good wood. A survey carried out by “You
Gov Plc” for WWF and Friends of the Earth
in 14 European countries showed:
56 percent of European citizens polled have
their doubts about the legality of timber
products sold in Europe (83 percent in Bulgaria,
64 percent in Sweden and Germany)
92 percent want the EU to legislate on this
matter.
92 percent want companies, which break forestry
laws to be prosecuted.
In 2006, Almost 90 companies, including
Habitat (UK), Castorama (France), IKEA and
Skanska International (Sweden), UNITAL (Association
of Italian furniture manufacturers) all
signed a joint declaration calling on European
authorities to adopt legislation laying
down clear rules for Europe which allow
fair competition and responsible markets.
+ More
This Earth Day, become
a climate activist
21 April 2009 - When
we take action against environmental crimes,
we also take action against despair. And
there are times when inspiring other people
to take action is by far the most powerful
outcome that we could hope for.
When we took our first
action in 1971, we were a rag-tag group
of hippies sailing against a US nuclear
weapons test. We were sailing into impossible
odds, with an impossible demand. But the
individuals who set off on that voyage inspired
an impossible number of people to achieve
impossible things.
We've had three decades
of experience in making the impossible happen
-- an end to nuclear testing, protection
of Antarctica from oil and gas exploration,
a moratorium on commercial whaling, a ban
on ocean dumping and a ban on trade in toxic
waste, to name only a few.
We've not only made
those changes happen, we made them look
inevitable.
Earth Day? Every day
from now to December is Earth Day.
This Earth Day, we're
using our new video to drive a worldwide
mobilisation. We're looking to turn 3 million
people into climate activists. Starting
with you.
Scientists are sounding
more and more alarms about the fate of the
ice caps, the acidification of our oceans,
the loss of our equatorial rainforests and
the consequences all these things will have
on low-lying countries, on our health, on
our ways of raising food, and the foundations
of our civilization.
There are ample reasons
for despair.
But many years ago,
one of our activists bagged a quote from
another famous activist, and summed up the
Greenpeace ethos: "The optimism of
the action is better than the the pessimism
of the thought."
If you agree, we want
you, and 2,999,999 people like you to sign
up as climate activists.
Our best chance to make
a difference
When the UN Climate
summit convenes in Copenhagen this December,
delegates there will be deciding the fate
of the Earth. It's looking more and more
likely they will bring us a lot of hot air,
not a cooler planet.
YOU need to tell them
that's not good enough.
YOU need to raise the
bar on the world's expectations.
It's time to get involved.
It's time to get your friends involved.
It's time to get your parents or your kids
involved.
Our first mission is
to get the message out that we want our
leaders to take personal responsibility
for stopping climate change.
The first step to ensuring
that the climate summit makes real decision
is to make sure that real decision makers
are there.
Demand key leaders go
to the climate summit: sign our petition
Our leaders can't delegate
the fate of the Earth. Tell Obama of the
US, Hu of China, Brown of the UK, Merkel
of Germany, Sarkozy of France, and Lula
of Brazil that they simply have to clear
their calendars, show up at the meeting
which will secure the future of humanity,
and take individual action to get us out
of this mess.
Please send this video
to your friends. Post a link in Facebook.
Post it to your blog.
This Earth Day,
please join us in this conspiracy of hope
called Greenpeace, and inspire others to
action.
