15
May 2008 - International — Unilever has
shown that beauty isn’t just skin deep.
Following our campaign and thanks to your
support, the company has taken the bold
step to support our call for a moratorium
on cutting down trees in Indonesia for palm
oil plantations.
With our gallant activists
barely out of their orang-utan suits, and
with our Dove parody running on YouTube
for a mere two weeks, we were somewhat taken
aback by the sheer speed with which our
campaign has met with success! Sometimes
it takes a lot longer to make a company,
corporation or government see the error
of its ways.
But our work is not
yet done! Palm oil is used for a wide range
of products – from toothpaste to margarine,
and from washing powders to soaps. Following
our meeting with Unilever last week, agreements
on what needs to happen next are now taking
shape. Even though Unilever is the biggest
buyer of palm oil, it represents only three
percent of palm oil purchasers. The moratorium
will need support from other companies if
we want to see real change in Indonesia.
Unilever has agreed
to rise to the challenge and lead the way,
building a coalition of allies to put pressure
on palm oil suppliers in Indonesia to agree
to the moratorium. This includes lobbying
all the major players in the industry, including
Kraft, Nestlé, Cadburys, Cargill
and Proctor & Gamble.
Over the coming months,
we’ll be meeting with companies and urging
them to join Unilever in supporting the
moratorium and stopping deforestation and
the release of greenhouse gases that fuel
climate change. This coalition of influential
players in the palm oil industry – together
with the support of palm oil suppliers and
the Indonesian government - is key to getting
the moratorium in place as soon as possible.
There's still a long way to go to ensure
that the climate is protected from further
deforestation, that the bulldozers leave
the rainforest and that orang-utans are
saved from extinction in the wild. We'll
be keeping you updated - and we'll be letting
you know if we need your help again to put
pressure on any company that may need a
bit of an incentive to support the moratorium!
+ More
Pirate of the Pacific
busted by Greenpeace
12 May 2008 - Pacific
Ocean — We caught an illegal tuna purse
seiner (Queen Evelyn 168) in the Pacific
Commons on Friday. This Philippines-flagged
vessel was close to the transfer of tuna
between her sister vessel and a refrigerated
mothership. It was likely that transfer
of fish at sea, involving this illegal vessel,
was about to occur. But upon our arrival
the vessels immediately separated and fled.
These motherships, known
as 'reefers' are a gateway for laundering
tuna out of the region. Fish transfer is
known to happen in the Pacific Commons but
it has never been documented before. This
area is especially prone to pirate activities
and tuna have disappeared unreported on
motherships like this for years.
Activists from our ship,
Esperanza, managed to catch up with the
reefer and were given permission to board
it by the Captain. They documented the contents
of the hold that consisted predominantly
of juvenile yellowfin and skipjack tuna.
The Captain admitted
to at least six other transfers of tuna
he had done over the last month in the same
pocket of international waters between Papua
New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia.
These transfers alone added up to 675 tonnes
of skipjack and yellowfin tuna onboard and
were mainly from boats flagged to the Philippines
belonging to the same company, TPS Marine
Industries.
Globally US $9 billion
a year is lost to pirate fishing and estimates
in the Pacific range from US$134 million
to US$400 million. These pirates earns four
times more than Pacific Island states earn
in access fees and licenses.
We can do two things
to reduce piracy: ban the transfer of fishing
catches at sea and create marine reserves
in the Pacific Commons, off limits to all
fishing. This would close off a safe escape
route currently open to pirates illegally
fishing adjacent national waters.
Greenpeace has reported
the illegal purse seiner to the Western
and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission
and our ship, Esperanza, continues to defend
the Pacific Commons.
