It might surprise you, but most of the UK’s CO2 emissions don’t come from electricity generation, or from transport. They come from domestic and industrial heating.

Nuclear power contributes almost nothing to our enormous heating needs; the bulk of the heat comes from burning gas, with a little help from coal and oil. In fact, nuclear power contributes less than four per cent to our overall energy needs. And building new nuclear power stations (as the government wants to do) at a cost of up to £40 billion won’t increase that contribution; the new power stations will just replace some of the old ones that are too old to operate safely.

It’s clear that if we want to stop climate change and ensure energy security, we need a solution that can contribute to heating and electricity generation.

See the campaign video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfzVQwW_8Jk

See the full story: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk

Dear Ape Allies in UK and Europe

Animal Defenders International is running a lobbying campaign to end the use of primates in research in Europe.

ADI drafted a Written Declaration which has been tabled by MEPs John Bowis (UK – European People’s Party), Martine Roure (France – Party of European Socialists), Jens Holm (Sweden – European United Left), Rebecca Harms (Germany – Greens) and Mojca Drcar Murko (Slovenia – Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) and others.

The Declaration now has the support of all the main parties in Europe, and someone from every country has signed. It has cross-party and international support.

This is Written Declaration 40/2007, which calls for:

* An end to the use of Great Apes
* An end to the use of wild-caught primates
* A phase-out of primate testing in favour of replacement techniques

Today, 11 July 2007 – 250 Members of the European Parliament have now signed ADI’s Written Declaration calling for an end to primate research in Europe.

We are in Strasbourg with the MEPs this week. We are knocking on doors, handing out literature, and we have produced a scientific briefing for MEPs which challenges all of the assumptions made in the policy statement supporting primate research, of the EU’s Scientific Steering Committee. Every MEP has been given a copy.

NOW WE NEED YOU – YOU CAN HELP THIS CAMPAIGN

Whether there are 2 people, or 10 people in your office, you can call your MEP and ask them to sign WRITTEN DECLARATION 40/2007 on primate rese arch.

We have detailed how to replace the use of primates in research in our report, as mentioned above. The laboratory animal trade is one of the four great threats to primates – but we do not need to drive our closest relatives to extinction – there are other ways to conduct scientific and medical research.

You can help this campaign by calling your MEP this week. Don’t email as it might get automatically blocked – call or send a fax (you’ll need to call for fax number) but if you are not sure who represents you in Brussels, type your post-code into http://www.writetothem.com/

The European Parliament is in Plenary Session in Strasbourg this week, and the Declaration is on a table outside the Hemicycle (the main debating chamber).

You can call them in Strasbourg until Thursday of this week, and then in Brussels on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday next week.

Strasbourg – main number: + 33 3 881 74001 (call and ask for MEPs by name)

Brussels – main number: + 32 2 284 21 11 (call and ask for MEPs by name)

Click here first to see whether your MEP has signed:

http://www.ad-international.org/mmap/go.php?id=827&ssi=60

Please help TODAY!

——
Animal Defenders International
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London SW1P 4QP, UK.
Tel. +44 (0)20 7630 3340
Fax. +44 (0)20 7828 2179
www.ad-international.org
**********

The Body Shop call for urgent action from global retailers

The Body Shop International today became the first cosmetics and toiletries retailer to introduce sustainable palm oil into the global beauty industry. The company has made this pioneering move as a response to the continued and rapid destruction of the world’s ancient rainforests caused by irresponsible palm oil production. It will source the sustainable palm oil from a plantation in Colombia.

This move represents a major practical step by a global retailer and equates to 14.5 million bars of soap sold per annum in more than 2,200 stores across 57 countries across the world.

The Body Shop are now calling on other manufacturers and retailers to follow their lead to help slow the drastic environmental and social effects of unsustainable production and ensure that within the next two to three years, the majority of palm oil is produced sustainably.

• Palm oil is one of the world’s most popular vegetable oils. It is used in countless everyday items including cosmetics, household products and foods and is regularly consumed by over a billion people worldwide.
• A huge growth in demand - a six-fold increase since the mid 1980s and still rising - has led to the clearance of vast areas of primary rainforests for plantations, particularly in South East Asia.
• At current rates of destruction, around 1.3m hectares of forest - equating to around six football pitches per minute - will be cleared this year in Borneo alone to allow for new plantations.
• Production impacts on the rights of indigenous populations, often creates poor labour conditions and has severe health implications for women working on the plantations.
• Deforestation’s most drastic effect is on endangered animal species such as orang-utans in Borneo and Sumatra, Sumatran rhinoceros and Asian elephant and tigers, all of which are heading towards extinction due to the loss of natural habitat.

The Body Shop has focused on tackling the palm oil issue for some years and is a leading figure on the global Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). When The Body Shop joined the organising committee of the RSPO in 2004, membership numbered just 10 organisations. Three years later, over 250 organisations have committed themselves to finding solutions to the grave issues posed by palm oil production, including a number of major retailers who now make up a 20 strong group within the RSPO. The Body Shop now calls for more retailers to join the RSPO, and for those who have already made this commitment to begin sourcing RSPO certified sustainable palm oil as soon as it becomes available later this year.

Over the past six months The Body Shop has worked in partnership with Daabon, a certified organic producer in Colombia, which works extensively with local cooperatives, to implement sustainable production of palm oil. Daabon has been audited against the RSPO Principles & Criteria for the Production of Sustainable Palm Oil.

Peter Saunders, Chief Executive Officer of The Body Shop said today:

“The switch to sustainable palm oil is a landmark step forward for The Body Shop and a potentially groundbreaking development for the whole cosmetics industry. Many people who use soap everyday will be unaware that they are contributing to a major environmental catastrophe: the destruction of ancient rainforests and the extinction of endangered species. Our ambition is for the majority of the world’s palm oil production to be sustainable within the next two to three years but this will not be achieved by The Body Shop in isolation - our decision must inspire other businesses to join us and tackle the problem head on.”

Matthias Diemer, palm oil expert, WWF Switzerland, commented:

“The Body Shop is the first global cosmetics company to introduce sustainable palm oil into its product lines. This is the start of the growth of sustainable palm oil in the cosmetics sector and we hope that many more companies will follow suit. We also applaud the pioneering role The Body Shop has taken in helping to formulate strong standards for sustainable palm oil production through the RSPO.”

Background:

• Palm oil is an important and versatile raw ingredient, accounting for more than 29 million tonnes of the world’s annual 95 million tonnes of vegetable oil.
• Palm oil used by The Body Shop will now be sourced from Daabon, in Colombia, South America. Daabon has been at the forefront of both environmental and social responsibility for many years. For almost 20 years, Daabon has focused on certified organic production, and has since started focusing on social standards, such as SA8000, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance. Daabon works extensively with local cooperatives, providing training and market access.
• Sustainable palm oil production means the use of far less destructive planting methods, and therefore helps protect rainforest biodiversity. Through The Body Shop Foundation, the retailer has provided practical advice to plantations and small-scale farmers, funding projects which will help make this happen in other parts of the world.
• The Body Shop has commissioned an audit of the Daabon operation to ensure that neither environment, people nor wildlife are under threat from the cultivation of palm oil. The audit used the Principles & Criteria developed by the stakeholders of the RSPO, which will form the basis of a certification scheme for sustainable palm oil by the end of 2007.
• The Body Shop will continue to positively engage with the major players in the palm oil supply chain to encourage the switch to an effective sustainable option. The RSPO has developed a set of Principles & Criteria for the Production of Sustainable Palm Oil and a full certification scheme is expected to be finalised in November 2007.
• In the meantime, move to sustainable palm oil by The Body Shop means that the business can ensure that its use of palm oil does not contribute to deforestation and that conditions can begin to improve within the industry.

Enquiries: The Body Shop via Brunswick: Benjamin Ward / Anna Jones / Sarah West +44 (0) 207 404 5959, bodyshop@brunswickgroup.com

###

Source: http://www.thebodyshopinternational.com/

JAKARTA, July 3 (Reuters) - Palm oil producer Wilmar International has been accused by an environmental group of illegally logging Indonesian forests, setting them on fire and violating the rights of local communities in the country.

Singapore-listed Wilmar , expected to be the world’s largest palm biodiesel manufacturer after approval of a $4.3 billion acquisition, denied the allegations by Friends of the Earth Netherlands.

Wilmar said in a statement on Tuesday it strictly adhered to a “zero burning policy” and did not engage in any logging activities.

“We will only develop plantations on land, which is approved by the government for the cultivation of oil palms,” it said.

Wilmar owns extensive palm plantations and refineries in Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s leading palm oil producers, where environmentalists say swathes of forest land are being stripped down to feed growing demand for bio-fuels.

The Friends of the Earth report accused the company of violating an Indonesian law requiring approval of an Environmental Impact Assessment before palm oil development starts, and said it was clearing forest beyond its allocated borders.

“Forests are being cut and burnt down illegally, Indonesian laws are being broken and local people are suffering,” Paul de Clerck, corporates campaigner at Friends of the Earth International, said in a statement.

The report highlighted the danger of the European Union’s recent commitment to replace 10 percent of its transport fuel market with biofuels by 2020.

“If the European Union continues to promote palm oil imports in order to meet its recently-adopted 10 percent biofuels target, this will simply aggravate the severe environmental and social impacts in countries like Indonesia.”

Indonesia has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres (91 million hectares), or about 10 percent of the world’s remaining tropical forest, according to Rainforestweb.org, a portal on rainforests (www.rainforestweb.org).

But the tropical Southeast Asian country — whose forests are a treasure trove of plant and animal species including the endangered orangutans — has already lost an estimated 72 percent of its original frontier forest.

Indonesia, the world’s second largest palm oil producer, already has around 5 million hectares of land planted with oil palm and the government aims to develop between 2-3 million hectares more of oil plantations nationwide by 2010.

(Additional reporting by Ovais Subhani in Singapore)

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Originally posted 9 May, 2007 — video link added 7 June, 2007
By Clemmie Gleeson

A COALITION of some of UK’s most powerful environmental groups has launched an advertising campaign attacking the Government’s biofuels policy.

See the campaign video on YouTube

---

Go directly to Friends of the Earth’s Campaign site

---

The adverts, which have been placed in national newspapers feature a petrol pump being held to the head of an orang-utan. The slogan says: “Tell the Government to choose the right biofuel. Or the orang-utan gets it.”The groups including Friends of the Earth, RSPB, Greenpeace and WWF-UK believe that the UK Government’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (ReTFO) could, in its present form, lead to biofuel production causing the destruction of rainforests and wetlands.They are demanding that the ReTFO is tightened up to ensure that biofuel producers meet minimum greenhouse gas and sustainability standards. They also want to see environmental audits introduced for the whole life-cycle of the fuels, from growing the crops to burning the fuel in the car.The adverts ask members of the public to write to Government and demand tough, compulsory standards.

It comes after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last week stating that protecting the world’s forests is one of the single biggest steps the international community can take to lessen the effects of climate change.

John Alker, senior public affairs officer at WWF-UK said that biofuels could offer part of the solution to climate change: “But Government needs to get this policy right in order to do so.”

Dr Douglas Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace described the ReTFO as ‘complacent’. “It could see biofuel production wrecking the climate rather than helping it. The Government must sort out this botched plan or risk losing the value that biofuels could offer.”

Ed Matthew from Friends of the Earth said that the Government has got its priorities wrong. “Its biofuels proposals are so weak that they are in real danger of increasing global warming emissions, not reducing them.”

Meanwhile, Dr Mark Avery, conservation director at the RSPB, said that without environmental standards, biofuels are ‘a green con’.

Read the original post here:
http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=9542

Go directly to Friends of the Earth’s Campaign site

June 5, 2007

The palm oil industry is bad news for these apes, writes Julian Lee.

Twenty years ago the words “dolphin safe” changed the way we thought about tuna. Now environmentalists are hoping one of man’s closest relatives in the animal kingdom, the orang-utan, will do the same for a widely used but hidden commodity - palm oil.

Rising demand for the highly versatile oil in products such as biscuits, potato chips and soap, and now as a biofuel, has led to a rush to establish oil palm plantations.

The forests that are home to the orang-utan are disappearing at the equivalent of 300 football fields an hour, pushing the already endangered species to the brink and into conflict with the people whose livelihood depends on the oil-bearing fruit.

The burning fires from the land cleared for plantations is responsible for roughly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations says.

The irony that palm oil is regarded as an eco-friendly alternative to crude oil is not lost on the coalition of environmental groups that is running a campaign to raise awareness of the problems of palm oil production.

Ange Palmer, of the Palm Oil Action Group, says the campaign is not calling for a boycott but wants oil to be produced by plantations that do not encroach further into forests that are home to orang-utans and other endangered species, such as the Sumatran tiger and Asian elephant.

“We want to send the message to Australian companies that it is unacceptable for them to import palm oil unless it’s from a sustainable source,” she says.

“We would like companies to acknowledge this as an issue, outline publicly their position [and] say what they are going to do about it,” says Palmer, whose organisation represents the Australian Orang-utan Project, the Rainforest Information Centre, Friends of the Earth and the Borneo Orang-utan Society.

Companies such as Goodman Fielder account for 70 per cent of all palm oil imported from Malaysia. The company refines it and sells it to companies such as Arnott’s and Smith’s to use in their products. About 200 million litres will be used in biodiesels in Australia this year.

But the clock is ticking. A United Nations report, The Last Stand of the Orang-utan, estimates that 98 per cent of forests in Malaysia and Indonesia could be gone by 2020. Indonesia plans to double the 6.5 million hectares under plantation in the next five years, and Europe’s goal to cut greenhouse emissions by 20 per cent partly by relying on cars using biofuels, could deliver the final blow.

Leif Cocks, a conservation biologist and the president of the Australian Orang-utan Project, is pessimistic about the orang-utan’s future. There are about 7300 apes left in Sumatra, putting the species on the World Conservation Union’s list of critically endangered animals. About 50,000 orang-utans survive on Borneo.

Once the land - and their habitat - is cleared, the apes are left with little food, forcing them to eat the oil palm shoots and putting them in direct conflict with the plantation owners. Five thousand orang-utans are killed a year, most often by plantation workers eager for a $20 bounty placed on them by the plantation owners.

“The apes and the plantation owners are competing for the same bit of land, the flat fertile plains,” Cocks says. “Most national parks are of little value economically as they are in highland areas. The areas that are of most value to man are also the greatest value to the apes.”

Environmentalists and about half the palm oil industry are pinning their hopes on a scheme that will see their oil, or the products made from it, labelled as having come from a sustainable source. More than 140 plantation owners, producers, manufacturers - among them Goodman Fielder, retailers and non-government organisations have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. Members promise to not clear valuable forests for new plantations, to respect the rights of indigenous land owners and to put in place measures such as nature strips or corridors which wildlife can use to pass through their plantations.

Yet the verification process is still being finalised, which is delaying the availability of certified ethical palm oil products and fuels.

Julian Lee is a Herald journalist. His book about ethical living will be published by Random House in February next year.

Source:
http://www.smh.com.au/