The news from Indonesia
today that Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) has
moved a tiger from one part of South Sumatra
province to another in order to protect
it is supposed to prove
that company has green stripes. But, as
with anything emanating from the APP machine,
scratch beneath the surface and you'll find
an altogether different tale.
We know how much APP
likes to paint itself as nature's friend,
as in its recent adverts. So as part of
attempts to give itself an air of responsibility,
APP has sponsored the capture, relocation
and release of a Sumatran tiger - remember,
only about 400 of these magnificent creatures
remain at large.
The female tiger in
question, named Putri (or Princess in Indonesia),
has been removed from what is described
on APP's Rainforest Realities website as
an area in which humans and tigers come
into conflict, but is also where considerable
tracts of rainforest have been cleared,
supplying APP with timber. Today, the tiger
was released back into the wild further
north from its starting point, in a national
park further away from logging being done
in the name of APP.
There's no doubt that
conflict between humans and tigers can have
terrible consequences for all concerned.
We saw last week how this can end for tigers
with the release of a video of a dying tiger
caught in a trap in an APP group concession
in Riau. And earlier this year, two people
were reportedly killed by a tiger in an
area supplying APP with timber in South
Sumatra, the same region of Sumatra where
the tiger relocation is taking place.
(Incidentally, this
very same supply area has also been classified
by the Programme for the Endorsement of
Forest Certification (PEFC) as 'non-controversial',
just like the spot where recently another
tiger died while caught in a snare.)
But APP's attempted
good news story disguises the real reason
why many of these clashes between people
and wildlife are taking place. Destroying
the forests which provide hunting and breeding
grounds for tigers (as APP is doing) forces
them closer to areas populated by people,
and then its only a matter of time before
someone (or something) gets hurt. In just
one logging area in South Sumatra, APP has
been responsible for the loss of 27,000
hectares of rainforest identified as tiger
habitat since 2007.
Large animals need equally
large areas to roam in search of food, especially
predators. Fragmenting their habitat with
roads and through clearing forests leaves
them with smaller and smaller places to
go. But it's not just about tigers, either.
These same regions of Indonesia's rainforests
support thousands of species, including
many endangered ones, and they can't all
be relocated individually.
Make no mistake, APP
is destroying forests which form vital habitat
for tigers like the one it so generously
rehomed today. So while it’s a nice feelgood
story, APP itself created a large part of
the problem which its now suggesting it
is helping to solve.
Ironic, don't you think?
+ More
Climate Action Needed
Now More Than Ever!
More than a year and
a half after Greenpeace activists walked
up the red carpet at a state banquet where
they opened a banner calling on world leaders
to take urgent action to save the Copenhagen
climate talks, eleven Greenpeace activists
from eight countries appeared today in a
Danish court, where they faced serious charges
for their peaceful protest.
On the night of December
17th 2009, the Copenhagen Climate Summit
was limping towards failure, but a glimmer
of hope existed – there was still a chance
to deliver a global climate deal. World
leaders needed to be reminded of this, so
Juan as 'Head of State of the Natural Kingdom',
his 'wife' Nora, and Christian, as their
‘bodyguard, walked up the red carpet to
a royal dinner for more than 120 heads of
states at the Danish Parliament Building.
Once inside they unfurled banners that read
“Politicians talk, leaders act”.
All three were immediately
arrested and held for 20 days, including
over Christmas and New Year. Joris, who
was outside the Parliament speaking to media
during the protest, was arrested the following
day and also spent the festive season in
the same jail. Twenty months later, the
11 activists have left the court building
in Copenhagen, and now await the Court’s
verdict. During today’s hearing, Joris made
an impassioned and inspired statement on
climate change and the need for ordinary
people to take a stand, which we have published
in full below.
But before you read
on, make sure you shout out our thanks and
admiration to the “Red Carpet 11” – Joris,
Nora, Juan, Christian, Morton, Victor, Dima,
Melanie, Guilhem, Thomas and Anders.
With this year's Durban
climate meeting approaching, world leaders
must not repeat the failure of Copenhagen
but instead take strong and urgent action
for the climate - action that is needed
now, more than ever.
Statement to Copenhagen
City Court by Joris Thijssen, 19th August
2011.
My name is Joris Thijssen
and I am from the Netherlands. In 2009 Denmark
hosted the most important summit on combating
climate change. The Danish Prime Minister
said at the time: ‘…that the world was looking
to the conference to safeguard humanity[1]’,
indicating the gravity and urgency of the
situation. That is why we did what we did.
Not because it was fun, cool to do, or that
we like to dress up as a Head of State.
Climate change impacts
Even though these are
words of a Prime Minister, they are just
words. Your honour, have you ever seen the
impacts of climate change? I have. Almost
20 years ago, when I was an aerospace engineering
student and not involved with Greenpeace
or the environment yet, I worked on a sheep
farm in Australia. Their sheep died because
it hadn’t rained for years. Later I understood
the livelihood of this farmer was threatened
by climate change.
I have also seen the
melting ice in Patagonia, on the Kilimajaro
mountain in Africa, etc, etc. As we speak
Greenpeace is working with other organisations
to collect stories from woman in developing
countries who are trying to deal with climate
impacts. I would have loved to have one
of those women here, so you could hear it
first hand. The day before yesterday we
published a new story where Saraswoti Bhetwal
explains how she has found a way to deal
with erratic rains in Nepal that can be
50% less than normal[2]. Great that she
found a way to adapt, but as impacts get
more severe, that will not always be possible
and billions of lives will be impacted.
A few dead sheep don’t
make climate change. So one of the biggest
scientific accorded processes was set up
under the authority of the United Nations,
to review the thousands of researches on
this topic. The thousands of scientist on
this climate panel reached the consensus
that the climate is changing, mankind is
causing it, society as we know it is threatened
and YES we can solve it!
Former vice president
of the USA Al Gore made a movie about it
and together with the UN climate panel,
he got an Oscar and a Nobel Peace price
for his work. He said: ‘We, the human species,
are confronting a planetary emergency -
a threat to the survival of our civilization
that is gathering ominous and destructive
potential even as we gather here. But there
is hopeful news as well: we have the ability
to solve this crisis and avoid the worst
- though not all - of its consequences,
if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.
However, despite a growing
number of honourable exceptions, too many
of the world's leaders are still best described
in the words Winston Churchill applied to
those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat:
"They go on in strange paradox, decided
only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute,
adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all
powerful to be impotent.[3]"
Your Honour, as I said
before, we did not do this because we like
to dress up as Heads of State. Knowing these
facts for Greenpeace and for all the individual
defendants, this is the issue of our time
that we need to solve or our societies as
we know it are under threat. So during this
crucial year 2009, we had hundreds of people
working around the globe pushing Heads of
State to go to Copenhagen and solve this
issue.
And it worked. The researches
we did, the reports we produced, the press
conferences we gave, and the lobbying conversations
we had - it worked. Heads of States were
committing to go to Copenhagen. Heads of
States from Brazil, the EU, China, and India
were making statements that moved the negotiations
a bit ahead. We threw our full force behind
this campaign. I could show you a video
with hundreds of peaceful activities we
undertook around the Copenhagen process.
During the Copenhagen conference, we participated
in the big demonstration, we put advertisements
at the airport as delegates arrived, we
had a big banner on one of our ships visible
as delegates’ planes arrived at the airport,
etc, etc. Now it came down to the 24 hours
these Heads of State were in Copenhagen
to seal a deal!
During the first 10
days of the conference we had a strong team
present at the Bella Center to follow the
talks and to lobby the delegates. It was
not going well. There was not enough movement,
ambitions were not high enough to solve
the problem, it really came down to the
leaders of this world, the Heads of State
to use the power they have and crack the
issue. In the run up to the conference,
Ban Ki Moon said:
'Science tells us that
the stakes at Copenhagen could not be higher.
But the benefits of taking urgent, united
action are similarly powerful. We must not
squander this unique opportunity to chart
a new path to low-carbon prosperity for
all. It is essential that we achieve an
ambitious climate deal in Copenhagen. The
moment is now.
Ultimately, however,
it is up to governments to decide on the
content and form of an agreement. Responsibility
for the outcome at Copenhagen -- as with
any major international agreement -- rests
on their shoulders[4].’
Than we heard that we,
and the rest of civil society, were kicked
out of the Bella Center, with no access
to the people who would decide about the
faith of our societies. So that’s when we
decided to take action and we did what we
did. Peacefully, when the world was watching,
we urged the Heads of State once more to
act and not to talk, because all other means
were unavailable.
We had to act
We believe there is
room in the law for us to do this. But it’s
even stronger. We feel we had the obligation
to do it. As concerned citizens we saw our
politicians fail to be leaders. We saw how
this biggest problem of our time was not
going to be solved. So we had to act. We
had to use the democratic space given to
us to urge our politicians to be leaders.
To act!
In this respect Gandhi
once said: ‘Civil disobedience becomes a
sacred duty when the state has become corrupt
enough.[5]’ We can discuss the definition
of ‘corrupt’, but I feel that when our governments
don’t act in the interest of humanity, there
is a reason to stand up.
Al Gore called for civil
disobedience with respect to climate change
when he said: ‘If you're a young person
looking at the future of this planet and
looking at what is being done right now,
and not done, I believe we have reached
the stage where it is time for civil disobedience
to prevent the construction of new coal
plants’[6]
Individual choice
Your Honour, I am almost
through, but I want to say a few more things
about the ‘no comment’ answers I gave at
the first day of the trial. I felt that
with these questions the public prosecutor
was looking for the leader, the coordinator
who was the mastermind behind all this.
I got nervous, because I can then imagine
that this mastermind could face a more serious
verdict.
So I want to tell you
how this works with Greenpeace. Obviously
we have a system in place to ensure everybody
knows what others are doing, so in that
sense there is coordination. Regarding this
action, the organisation Greenpeace as well
as all the individuals you see here, made
their own decision to participate in one
way or another in this action. Because we
all feel the issues are so serious, because
we feel we have the right to act, even the
obligation to contribute to the solution.
There is no one who tells someone else what
to do or what not to do. It is on a voluntary
basis and everybody make up his / her own
mind.
To give you an example
to illustrate our principled approach to
peaceful protest: four of us were arrested
during the action or the day after the action.
But five other people were not arrested,
and the police had no idea who they were.
When the police finally requested (after
three weeks) to come forward with the five
names of the other people directly involved,
these five individuals stepped forward voluntarily
and gave their name. They are here today
and it shows our vision on civil disobedience:
we don’t hide; we are open and honest about
what we do.
Your Honour, I hope
I was able to express urgency of the issue,
of all those people facing the consequences
of climate change and of the attitude of
the defendants towards the issue and towards
civil disobedience. I trust you will think
about our motivations to take action when
you make your deliberations to reach a verdict.
