Weekly Blog: Government back-tracking England’s forests is golden opportunity for better environment

Okay. I’m going to spare you all the ubiquitous yew-turn jokes and get right on with it. After a massive public campaign, the Government has wisely scrapped its plans to privatise and sell off England’s public forests. There were three strands to this and they have backed down on all of them. The consultation on selling the entire 258,000 hectare estate has been scrapped. The plan to quickly sell 15% of the estate (the legal maximum without changes to the law) is on hold, and the clauses in the Public Bodies Bill that would allow the sale of the whole thing have been removed.

It’s a rout.

It’s great news and I congratulate them on seeing sense.

Does this mean that England’s forests are now safe and happy? Not quite. The immediate danger has passed but there are a few things to keep our eyes on. First, there is going to be a Commission set up to look into the whole forestry question. This will include the forestry industry and some big NGOs. Yet despite repeated questioning the Minister responsible refused to confirm that it would be held in public and that grass-roots campaigners would be included.

New style of campaigning

Why does this matter so much? Well, the big NGOs were pretty slow and ambiguous on this whole thing, and many have potential conflicts of interest as large landowners. Also, this was not a victory for established NGOs, but a victory for the new style of campaigning – fluid, fast and decentralised. A campaign made up of local groups, loose affinities and co-ordinated through on-line media. EIA made its views clear and we did a little behind the scenes, but this was run largely by ad-hoc groups. The brilliant 38 Degrees helped start the ball rolling but no one outfit can claim the result. It is a new and exciting world for the campaigner.

So we are going to have an enquiry. We will need to watch closely to make sure it doesn’t come up with something just as bad as the abandoned plans.

UK flora and fauna. Credit Jason Cheng

But we also need to be positive. We have an impoverished environment in this part of the world, beautiful though it is. We need to improve it. England and the rest of the UK, needs wilder, larger and more biodiverse forests. We need some that are worked for timber and some that are simply left alone for nature to decide what happens. This is a golden opportunity to start having those debates and working out how we can build a better future, for people and wildlife.

EIA already attends many of the meetings and grouping where these things are discussed and we will do what we can to influence the outcome!

Beavers in Scotland

On the subject of British wildness, I thought you might be interested to see this Facebook Groups about wild beavers living free in Scotland. They are escapees and are being rounded up, although they do appear to be a native species. EIA does not have an ‘official’ position on this, but you can check it out and make up your own minds!

EIA Campaigner

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Press Officer, Paul Newman’s rebuttal on ‘…why should people in this country care?’

‘So why should people in this country care?’

Spreading word of EIA’s activities and investigations via broadcast, print and electronic media can present all sorts of interesting challenges in the shifting landscape of how information is delivered and consumed in the early 21^st Century.

But with traditional forms such as newspapers under mounting pressure and the rise of the blogosphere and online news outlets, it’s almost reassuring that many journalists still often seize on the hoary staple concerns of their profession: ‘What’s the local angle?’

Before joining EIA, I spent the best part of 25 years in the regional UK press on a variety of daily and weekly titles, so it’s a question with which I’m probably too familiar, having doubtless irked many a press officer and organisation in my time with the same parochial demand.

It’s not necessarily a shortcoming of the news-gatherers, more a pragmatic awareness of the fact that getting their audience to stay with a story past the first two or three paragraphs can be a tricky proposition and anchoring a story in a geographical context with which they’re familiar is one way to respond to that.

My first editor was a twitchy obsessive on the point – if you couldn’t get the name of a community within your circulation patch, and therefore an intimately local angle, into the first paragraph then you’d fail to connect with the readers and it was assumed they’d glance disinterested at the opening words and swiftly move on to the WI meeting reports and photo spreads of fancy dress dog shows (a deranged-looking poodle dolled up as Queen Victoria seemed to win every time). Either you rewrote the story or it was spiked.

‘So why should you care?'

Most EIA investigations are conducted in far-flung countries and address issues of global significance; anchoring its findings in such a localised manner can sometimes seem a little perverse but it’s not impossible – and if it helps readers and viewers to consider their role in the issue, it’s all to the good.

And some campaigns are certainly easier to track back to a journalist’s local patch, whether it’s Little Bimblington-on-Sea or the country as a whole.

The Forestry Campaign’s work on illegal logging is a good example; if a UK reporter is at a loss to think how their audience can connect to protected trees being plundered from Indonesia’s national parks by a powerful criminal timber mafia, there’s a wealth of localised access points and issues with which to engage them, from climate change and carbon emissions to the introduction of EU legislation banning stolen timber (a prohibition which owes an enormous debt to EIA’s work).

It’s possible to get even closer in to Joe Normal’s life; in fact, to right outside his back door when you can tell him that the timber thieved from many thousands of miles away has found its way into the outdoor furniture and decking in his garden.

Similarly, the Global Environment Campaign is an easier sell because it involves issues on which our domestic taxes are being spent every day.

While recently pitching a story concerning e-waste, the journalist candidly asked me: ‘So, you’ve got a mountain of discarded technology from this country that’s supposed to properly disposed of but is instead winding up in huge piles in Africa, where children are being poisoned because they’re stripping out toxic raw materials in primitive circumstances? Why should people in this country be concerned about that?’

Because we in the developed world are morally obliged to deal with our own waste and not offload it on poor, developing countries? Because we’re paying our taxes in this country to have it properly and safely disposed of? Because the chain of personal responsibility can start with the very television set or computer monitor through which the individual is learning about the issue? It doesn’t come much closer to home than that.

Other issues and campaigns can be a harder sell, and are sometimes dependant on the personal concerns of the journalist to whom one is pitching.

Images from EIA investigation, March 2010.

Last year, one reporter succinctly summed up for me her difficulties in convincing her editors to run a story about the annual slaughter of Dall’s porpoises in Japan, which EIA was again attempting to highlight: ‘So, Japanese people are killing unprotected porpoises and then selling the toxic, mercury-polluted meat to Japanese people who might be getting sick from it? That’s not a story, that’s more like poetic justice.’

Despite raising considerations such as the unsustainability of the hunts and the fact that Japanese consumers are by and large deliberately kept ignorant of the health risks, it remained a no-sale. Fortunately, the good people at Al Jazeera felt that not all stories need to be happening on their audience’s collective doorstep to be of interest and value, and put together an excellent report.

It seems to me that the more interconnected we all become, whether it’s via the internet or international trade and political agreements, the more the world becomes one big ‘local patch’ in which everyone has a vested interest, where thinking globally and acting locally is becoming more than a cute slogan. It’s becoming a necessity.

Paul Newman

Press Officer

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Weekly blog; From tigers to rabbits… Debbie Banks reports

And so, as we slink silently from Year of the Tiger and bound into the Year of the Rabbit, we pause to reflect on whether the last twelve months have been truly auspicious for the great cat, have we turned a corner, can we look to 2022 and the next Year of the Tiger with hope?

The Global Tiger Recovery Program, adopted in St Petersburg last year by the governments of countries where tigers live, sets out the broad brush stroke actions they are committed to, in order to double the wild tiger population by 2022. Last year, we reported on how many of these promises have been made before, and already we are starting to see cracks in this road to recovery.

The beleaguered Minister of Environment & Forests for India, Jairam Ramesh, constantly has to defend forests from industrial encroachment. Having boldly declared no-go, hands-off forest areas to stop the coal miners from ripping them up, today he was forced by louder voices in the cabinet to concede a significant amount. Where was the Prime Minister during these cabinet decisions? What of his government’s commitment in the St Petersburg Declaration to tiger and biodiversity-compatible management of forest corridors and landscapes?

Meanwhile in Burma, the authorities are hunting down the activist who blew the whistle on the colonisation of forest by a private corporation in the Hukawng Valley, which was only recently declared the world’s largest tiger reserve. Villagers have been turfed out to make way for sugar cane plantations. How does this fulfil the commitment in the St Petersburg Declaration to engage local communities, let alone ensure the security of tiger habitat?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so at EIA we’re baking a cake. The ingredients are all the positive and negative decisions governments make following the St Petersburg meeting, all the incidents of forest rescue or forest destruction, poaching and trade, convictions, intelligence sharing or lack thereof. If you want to help us, feel free to email us with verified reports of the good and the bad, and lets see what we can turn out.

My own tiger guru, Valmik Thapar, recently gave a talk at Asia House in London about the tiger in Indian art. Really, he was talking about the Cult of the Tiger; of the value and role of the tiger in hearts and minds, expressed through rituals, dance, paintings and sculptures dating back centuries.

Perhaps the Year of the Tiger, symbolic of bravery and competitiveness helped the tiger jostle for position on the political agenda. Maybe the Year of the Rabbit, symbolic of creativity, compassion and sensitivity will help us touch the values of those who live with tigers and reignite a cult that can save the cat from extinction?

A combination of the two might be good, and thanks go to my colleague Debby Ng, for sharing reference to such a symbolic creature, the Sumatran Striped Rabbit.

And finally, we have teamed up with Born Free and WildAid, for the fundraising event of the year, all in aid of the wild tiger. You can find out more about it here. Within the last hours Jimmy Choo has confirmed. Be in with the chance of winning two tickets in our raffle draw.

Debbie Banks

Senior Campaigner

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Weekly Blog: EIA helping activism at a grassroots level

Rewind to August 2010; Pallavi Shah reported back from a capacity building workshop in Mbeya, Tanzania. Participating in that workshop was a young activist, Tumaini James, fighting for the rights of women and gender equality in Tanzania. Fast forward five months; Tumaini James has been busy using the skills he gained in the workshop to bring about historic change in the Tanzanian Parliament.  Below is Tumaini’s story, reporting from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Tumaini James took part in EIA skills training last year

I am young activist working at Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (www.tgnp.org). I participated in 10 days Visual documentation for advocacy training  in Mbeya- a joint programme organized by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) with her Tanzania partners WCST, JET and LEAT. That was wonderful and revolutionary training I have ever attended. From there I acquired practical skills in using GPS, capturing pictures and shooting videos for advocacy. Also I learn campaign strategies including press releases & conferences, demonstration, publications, ICTs and mainstream media.

Five months since the Visual training for advocacy, I have been able to apply skills acquired from the training to document Gender and development. In October 2010, the Presidential Elections were won by the CCM party. After one month later Parliamentary Election followed. Never before, has a woman been chosen to be a Parliamentary Speaker. For the Parliamentary elections, I produced a short video and photo stories advocating for a woman to be selected as the Parliamentary Speaker of the 10th National Assembly during the Parliamentary Election for a Speaker.

I captured pictures and speech, and produce picture story with a speech in background using a windows movie maker. Then I shared through different media including social media. Two days after press release the ruling CCM political party decided that the position of Parliamentary Speaker within their party should go to a woman. It was truly a historical moment, the first time the TZ National assembly to have a woman a Speaker of Parliament.

Find our video series at TGNP website (www.tgnp.org)  At the bottom right of our website there are photo stories on Election Press release (TAMKO la uchaguzi mkuu).

Tumaini Macha

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Weekly Blog: Paul Redman on January Sales

January is an exciting time of year for me as it is a chance to invest in the latest technology that gives EIA its cutting edge. Now don’t presume I am advocating needless spending, I hate waste and excess as much as any environmentally conscious activist but when it comes to investment it is people I have in mind when spending our hard earned funds.

Our campaigners go to great risk, as one did last year when he strolled into a logging port unaccompanied in Asia, clutching our latest technological wonder. He had in his hand a compact stills camera that records fantastic quality stills and broadcast quality footage in a device that is small enough to fit into his pocket, quickly, if trouble occurs. Our need for people to want to see our message means investing in visuals that attract your attention. The world is moving into High Definition and now we can too, albeit a beat behind, when the prices become affordable. Our evidence and information has always been of such high quality that broadcasters know that when we say we have new information it will not only be ground breaking but it will also be visually engaging. These new campaign tools will ensure we stay at the forefront of media based campaigning.

EIA Workshops in Tanzania 2010.

It is not just EIA I will invest in this month but also in many talented individuals in Tanzania thanks to our funding from the UK Governments Department for International Development (DFID). Buying cheap, small and high quality video cameras, stills cameras and global positioning systems (GPS) means that the voice of rural communities can reach decision makers in the time it takes to send an email. In Tanzania it is not EIA that is doing the telling. It is people like: Elisha Thompson, known as ‘big brother’ he has used the latest gadgets we provided to tell the story of impoverished children in his ‘DREAM’ film now showing at the ‘Un-inhibited Muse Festival‘, or Erica Rugabandana with her film on Loliondo pastoralists that made the Tanzanian government formally recognize the pastoralists’ rights to look after their forest land; or Mwalimi a villager in Southern Tanzania who recorded, with one of our gadgets, the illegal loggers stealing from his ancestral forests resulting in government enforcement. We live in an exciting time when technology for high quality recording becomes affordable to many and the term ‘citizen journalism’ has become a reality.

So if you are heading out into the January sales to stock up on your clothes cupboard or buy that flat screen TV you missed out on at Christmas, stop and think. Perhaps this is the year to carefully invest in a small camera or laptop so you can become a campaigner too and expose the issues that you feel passionately about.

Paul Redman

Video Production and Training Co-ordinator

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Tensions rise ahead of Friday’s critical HFC-23 vote, Fionnuala Walravens reports.

This year has certainly got off to a flying start, with all of last year’s campaigning on the HFC-23 issue about to come to a head. This Friday, European Countries will vote on a proposed regulation to ban the use of HFC and other industrial gas credits in Europe’s carbon markets from January 2013. If successful this regulation will change the face of the world’s largest carbon market and end the scandalous subsidising of Chinese and Indian chemical companies by European consumers.

Fin at the open hearing at European Parliament last Wednesday

In a final attempt to ensure the vote goes well Clare Perry and myself took a day trip to Brussels last Wednesday to speak at an open hearing in the European Parliament. The event brought together high level speakers, politicians and policy makers in order to give a rounded view on the future of these credits, with a presentation from Connie Hedegaard, the European Commission’s Climate Commissioner.

EIA together with UK NGO Sandbag was invited to speak on behalf of civil society and we took the opportunity to remind the audience that removing HFC-23 credits from carbon markets would help clean development in poorer countries. Despite a general acceptance of the need to restrict these credits some companies with vested financial interests in the projects would like to see the timing of the ban delayed to allow many million more fake credits onto Europe’s carbon markets. We warned how this will undermine Europe’s international climate negotiating position.

After quite a heated debate there were a few moments to discuss issues with the audience and catch up with other colleagues, then a mad dash back to Gare to Midi, a quick stop to stock up on cheese and chocolate, then onto the train home.

Despite the success of the day the outcome of the vote is far from decided. We urgently need to let European Ministers know that their citizens are watching.

Bob explains the carbon credit scam.

In an attempt to make this quite complex issue a little bit more digestible one of our hugely talented supporters Yasmeen Ismail (www.rhumbaba.co.uk) has created a short cartoon, with Ronni Ancona very kindly doing the voice over.  Please help us gain another victory for the environment by watching the clip and going to the ‘what can I do’ section of our website.

Fionnuala Walravens

Global Environment Campaign Team Leader

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Weekly Blog: Mary Rice welcomes in 2011

New Year Greetings one and all.  Here we go again. But before we do, I want to say a big ‘Thank You’ to all of you – members, supporters, Facebook followers and Twitter fans – for taking an interest in EIA’s work and for lending your support wherever and whenever you can as EIA could not do this without you.

I can’t believe we’ve already said goodbye to another year.  Where do they go?  I have to admit that it’s been a struggle to drag my brain kicking and screaming back to the fray; the seasonal interlude seems like a distant memory already.  Business as usual and certainly our inimitable brand of investigation and campaigning will once again be in big demand. Operating as independent eyes and ears, prepared to say what needs to be said, constantly raising the bar and setting new benchmarks and expectations for key governments and decision makers, we have a number of key targets for the coming year.

As the Year of the Tiger draws to a close in February, it remains to be seen whether the adoption of the St Petersburg Declaration and the Global Tiger Recovery Program in November 2010 will set tigers in the wild on the road to recovery, doubling the tiger population by 2022 which is the ambitious goal. EIA will continue to monitor and assess whether the political promises made have been turned into action or whether they are just lip service.

Will forests be smiling in 2011?

Whilst 2011  has been earmarked as international Year of Forests, we have our work cut out for us in pushing through EU legislation to ensure that the wood products that reach our markets are indeed legal and not laundered as is so often the case. 2011 should also see the publication of our extensive investigation into Britain’s illegal e-waste trade with the aim of campaigning for change in the way we handle our e-waste and for improved enforcement of existing regulations. And of course our work combating illegal trade in ozone depleting substances continues, as do our efforts to protect Whales and Dolphins… Elephants continue to be under threat from poaching and illegal trade… EIA will be releasing the findings of a recent on-site investigation in China

Ivory products.

which will demonstrate that large amounts of illegal ivory continue to flood into China – despite the fact that the Chinese authorities secured 60+tonnes in the official one-off stockpile sale back in 2009. Initial analysis indicates that rather than curb the market, the demand has actually increased. I’m tempted to say “told you so”, but that would be churlish. The list goes on…and whilst it may sometimes seem that we are simply plugging a hole in the dam, it’s important to remember that all efforts, no matter how small, do make a difference.

Save the Wild Tiger Forum - Dec 2010.

Keep an eye out for forthcoming events; following on from the RGS evening in there will be a Gala dinner on the 3rd March at the Mandarin oriental in Knightsbridge.  And following on from the success of the National Geographic film on EIA’s work on the Tiger Campaign, there are three more films in the pipeline.  Watch this space.

So, in signing off and in the words of Mark Twain, “New Year’s Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

Here’s to the year of the Bunnies.

Mary Rice

Executive Director

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Weekly Blog; And so this is Christmas and what have We done?

Things are starting to slow down here at HQ, we’re down to just 6 people in the office! Looking back, 2010 has been a very eventful year. I have split this blog in two, firstly, I will review the year and highlight EIA’s achievements. Secondly, and you can find the second part here, we share the fantastic things you have been doing too.

Thank you to everybody who has supported us over the last 12 months, here are just some of our successes this year.

• EIA played a crucial role in ensuring proposals by Tanzania and Zambia to sell 112 tonnes of stockpiled ivory through CITES failed.Despite limited resources we were able to carry out investigations in both countries, gathering irrefutable evidence that levels of poaching are much higher than reported. We published a report and video ‘Open Season’ and presented this evidence at CITES. EIA was the only voice to speak out against the real situation in Zambia and thanks to us both proposals were rejected. Read what Mary had to say.

• We provided evidence to ensure nine leading UK supermarkets reduced their use of climate changing HFCs following our second ‘Chilling Facts’ survey in February.

• Once again EIA was at the forefront of protecting whales at the IWC. In June, proposals by Japan, Iceland and Norway to be allowed new commercial catch quotas threatened to seriously undermine the 24-year moratorium on whaling. Thankfully, our strenuous lobbying helped to stop them.

• Our forest team had a major success as the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of banning imports of illegally logged timber and wood products. This follows the success of EIA’s efforts in the US to introduce a ban in 2008. It is a testament to EIA’s tenacity and commitment that after 10 years of campaigning, the world’s two largest markets for wood products, have now shut the door on imports of stolen timber. Read on.

• Working with our Indonesian partners we highlighted the illegal exploits of timber barons Ricky Gunawan and Hengky Gosal in a damning report: ‘Rogue Traders: The Murky Business of Merbau Timber Smuggling in Indonesia’. The report received huge coverage, putting Gosal uncomfortably in the spotlight. Read Julian’s reaction.

• The Year of the Tiger made history as the highest level political meeting ever held for a single species in St Petersburg, at the International Tiger Forum. Debbie Banks and Alasdair Cameron were invited to the Forum, as experts in the field of illegal trade and enforcement in consumer countries. $330 million was pledged and Leonardo di Caprio donated $1 million, all the press were there. Read Debbie’s comments following the forum.

• Our award-winning documentary Inside: The Tiger Trade continues to be broadcast internationally and is raising our profile telling the rest of the world how we work. Watch out for more documentaries next year. See the trailer here.

None of this would have been possible without your support – Thank you.

Our blog is in its 5^th month and I am sure you will agree, it has gone from strength to strength. We have had nearly 5000 visits in that time and by far our most popular post has been this one. Thank you to all the campaigners to have contributed and all of you who have made comments.

I’ll leave you with the words of Louie Psihoyos, director of Oscar-winning documentary, The Cove

“EIA is an amazing example of a small group of individuals using great science and passion to help save the environment … in the environmental movement, EIA is the equivalent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

From everyone at EIA, Seasons Greetings and thank you once again.

Signing out for 2010,

Sophia Cheng

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Weekly Blog: Could this really be the Year of the Tiger? Debbie Banks on the International Tiger Forum

World Leaders at the International Tiger Forum

On return from the International Tiger Forum, away from the celebrities, the press and the hype,  Debbie Banks reflects on where the tiger is left after St Petersburg.

“No matter how pragmatic your strategy, how robust your evidence or how loud you shout; at the end of the day when it comes to saving wild tigers, it’s down to the political will of the leaders of the countries that tigers live in. They’re the ones that can direct resources towards policies, projects and operations that will lead to more effective enforcement, community engagement and prevent habitat destruction.

That’s why, after 14 years in tiger conservation and the wild tiger population at a mere 3200 animals, I can’t help but feel just a teensy bit positive after hearing five Prime Ministers speak at the International Tiger Forum in St Petersburg, Russia. They have indeed committed to doubling the wild tiger population by 2022; the next Year of the Tiger.

There’s never been a high level summit for the tiger before and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin really set the tone of the summit by talking about the value of the wild tiger, the forests it lives in and what that means for humanity.

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao

He and his counterparts, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Nepal’s Prime Minister Madhav Kumar and Laos PDR Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh all talked about the need to work together to save the tiger and end the tiger trade, with Wen committing China to “vigorously combat poaching, trade and smuggling of tiger products”. Music to our cynical conservationists’ ears.

Naomi Campbell & Ilya Lagutenko at the Tiger Forum

The summit closed with a star-studded event hosted by Russia’s no.1 rock star Ilya Lagutenko and Naomi Campbell, with musicians from Malaysia and China. Putin spoke again about the tiger, from the heart and with humour, praising Leonardo DiCaprio for being a “real man” to persist in his efforts to get the concert despite two aircraft-related near-disasters. And one of the tiger’s real heroes, forest inspector, Anatoly Belov was honoured for his tiger protection efforts.

Earlier in the week the technical nitty gritty arising from 12 months of discussions was concluded with the formal adoption of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP), and the formal launch of the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC).

With a shortfall of $350m to implement the GTRP and ICCWC, tiger range countries had arrived in St Petersburg expecting the international community to put the money on the table; apart from India, which is investing well over a $1bn in tiger conservation over the next five years.

In the same week that an $80bn bailout was announced for the Celtic tiger, the donor community squirted out a measly $332m to save Asia’s tigers. It’s a paltry sum and much of it tied to climate and forest-related activities, some of it is in the form of loans, and only a little of it available for emergency enforcement responses. Nonetheless, it’s a start. It’s what happens now that the summit is over that is really important.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

Of course, there are immediate actions governments can take that are low cost and will go a long way to reversing the tigers fortunes. We believe that if the leaders take the following steps it will instil confidence in the public and donors that this Year of the Tiger marks that much-needed gear change in political will; which in turn could generate more financial support.

1) As a matter of priority, the leaders of tiger countries must broadcast a message to the nation, declaring their commitment to double the tiger populations and engage their public, the entire government and industry in the task. This would be a sign that the promises made in St Petersburg were real, and it won’t cost them a penny.

Tweeting from the Forum, Debbie Banks & Will Travers

2) The leaders can demonstrate their commitment to ending the tiger trade by:

• Immediately instructing all law enforcement agencies to provide intelligence on criminals engaged in the tiger trade to their INTERPOL National Central Bureau;
• Assigning a senior police investigator in the INTERPOL National Central Bureau to work on tiger / wildlife crime on a fulltime basis;
• Calling a round-table of the highest level decision-makers in police and Customs to ensure the right people attend a forthcoming tiger trade seminar and that wildlife crime is placed on the curricula of their training academies.

3) The leaders can send a clear signal to consumers of tiger parts that there will be zero tolerance on trade and they can remove any reason for speculation on the part of tiger farmers by:

• Destroying stockpiles of tiger parts and derivatives;
• Taking enforcement action to close down operations that leak parts and derivatives of captive bred tigers on to the market place.

Simples!“

Come and hear more about the summit from EIA, Born Free and WildAid, and how together we can turn words into action at the Saving Wild Tigers Forum on 7^th December, 8.30pm at the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR.

For more information click here and for tickets click here

For a copy of EIA’s latest report Enforcement not Extinction: Zero Tolerance on Tiger Trade, please click here.

Debbie Banks

Senior Campaigner

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Weekly Blog: Fin Walravens reports back on trials and triumphs at the annual Montreal Protocol meeting

This chilly weather is certainly a shock to the system and doubly so given last week I was in balmy Bangkok attending the Montreal Protocol annual Meeting of the Parties. But it’s definitely not as glamorous as it might sound, arriving in on Sunday barely gave us time to get over the seven hour time difference before the conference kicked off on Monday morning. And, although the weather outside was glorious, temperatures inside the conference centre required scarves and jackets- thanks to heavy use of air-conditioning! The ironies of such enormous reliance on ozone depleting refrigerants at a conference aimed at protecting the ozone layer certainly wasn’t lost on us!

On the Agenda were several very important issues which give the Montreal Protocol the chance to really secure its position as the world’s most effective environmental treaty. Notably: two proposals to phase-down global HFC use; a decision to address HFC-23 emissions not currently covered under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); action to maximize direct transitions from HCFCs, a powerful ozone-depleting substance (ODS), to climate-friendly refrigerants rather than HFCs; as well as a program for recovery and destruction of ODS “Banks”-this refers to the ODS that remains in equipment at the end of its life. These cost-effective actions have the potential to avoid emissions of hundred of billions of tonnes of CO2 equivalent over the next four decades.

However, despite the momentous climate saving opportunities facing country delegates at the meeting, there was significant opposition to them from three advanced developing countries; India, China and Brazil. Together they managed to quash meaningful discussions on HFC phase-downs and HFC-23. Sadly, there wasn’t much progress on ODS banks either. However, despite a lack of agreement on these issues there was clearly growing support from action on HFCs.

Right at the end of the meeting a Declaration signed by 91 countries was submitted. Signatories stated their commitment to ensuring that the phase-out of ODS by the Montreal Protocol doesn’t result in the widespread adoption of HFCs. Clearly this is a big step forward and a clear signal to the UN climate talks that the Montreal Protocol is ready to assist in meeting the climate change challenge.

We were also able to inform countries about the increased risk of illegal trade in ODS, presenting our findings from a project we have been working with the United Nations Environment Programme to assess the risk of illegal trade in HCFCs. Our work has revealed widespread and growing smuggling of HCFCs and evidence that this problem is only likely to get worse.

Our colleagues from EIA’s Washington DC office also joined us so we seized on this rare opportunity to take time out to discuss ideas and strategise about how we can move forward. It’s not often that we get the chance to meet up, as most of the year we chat over the phone or via email, so it was great to be able to sit down and brainstorm.

So, all in all despite some missed opportunities by countries at this meeting, we at EIA made the most of it ensuring our message went out far and wide and I think there were some definite glimmers of hope for the future.

Fionnuala Walravens

Global Environment Campaigner

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