NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL GROUP
Although most of our work is aimed at the local Crediton area, we are very interested in wider national and global issues. These include:
- Campaigning and influencing national and international policies on climate change, peak oil and other environmental issues (along with other groups)
- More awareness of our connections to people living in other countries
- Bigger take up of fairly traded products
- Awareness of how our choices as consumers impact on people in the third world
CAMPAIGN OF THE MONTH : January 2012
Campaign of the Month
1. Uprising against Gold
This month's campaign is from Rainforest Rescue and is entitled Peru: Uprising Against Gold. More than 8,000 farmers have been guarding dozens of mountain lakes at an altitude of 4,000 meters in the Peruvian Andes. The natural water reservoirs are acutely threatened by gold mining. The lakes are vital as water sources for livestock and agriculture in the valley. The farmers are calling on the new Peruvian president to fulfill his campaign promise and speak out against the Conga gold and copper mining project. Please sign the petition and help the people of Cajamarca defend their fundamental rights and water sources.
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
1. Save our Marine Conservation Zones
After years of pressure from The Wildlife Trusts and other groups such as the RSPB and a huge amount of public support, the Marine and Coastal Access Act of 2009 promised us an ecologically coherent network of 127 Marine Protected Areas around the coast by 2012. So are we any closer to achieving this? It is our understanding that perhaps only 30 - 40 sites will be designated next year. 2012 provides this Government with the opportunity to make real progress with protecting our seas and restoring them to health. And we have to remember that healthy seas are good for wildlife, good for fisherman and good for those of us who visit the seaside and essential if we are going to tackle climate change. We need to ensure that the government gets a clear message that this is what Society wants. We need to demonstrate the importance and urgency of the network to the Parliament Under-Secretary for Natural Environment and Fisheries, Richard Benyon MP, and ensure that Defra does not reduce the number of Marine Conservation Zones going forward for consultation in 2012. We would be very grateful if you could email or write to the Minister highlighting your concerns using the suggested letter at the following link http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/saveourmczs
2. No to subsidies for destructive biomass and biofuel electricity
Please take part in two simultaneous email actions and tell your MP and the government that renewable energy support should go to clean, sustainable real renewables, such as sustainably sited wind, solar and tidal energy, and not to destructive biomass and bioliquid electricity (eg palm oil sourced from cleared rain forest plantations ) . The background to this campaign and the email actions can be found here
3. Plantations are not Forests
This month's second campaign is from Rainforest Rescue and is called Plantations are not Forests. Annually, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a specialised agency of the United Nations that is responsible for forestry, examines the tree population and the extent of deforestation worldwide. The FAO's definition of forests include plantations such as palm oil monocultures. This campaign is urging the FAO to change its definition of forests. The current definition of forest has negative repercussions at the local and global level in that it legitimises the expansion of industrial monoculture tree plantations, whose social, economic, environmental and cultural impacts have been widely documented and denounced. https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/mailalert/781/plantations-are-not-forests
4. Stop drilling for oil in the Arctic
This month's campaign is from Greenpeace and concerns drilling for oil in the Arctic. Right now, Cairn Energy is drilling for oil in Arctic waters. Yet Cairn's own spill response plan shows that an oil spill there would be catastrophic and near impossible to clean up . Please sign the petition below to ask Greenland's Prime Minister, Kuupik Kleist, to protect the Arctic and his country's economy by cancelling Cairn's drilling programme and refusing future licences. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns
/climate-change/arctic-impacts/Protect-the-Arctic
5. Save the Amazon
This month's campaign is being run by AVAAZ. The Amazon is in serious danger: Brazil is on the verge of gutting its forest protection laws. Unless we act now, vast tracts of our planet's lungs could be opened up to clear-cutting devastation. Deputies in Brazil's lower parliamentary house have passed a batch of reforms easing the decades old Forest Code. The reforms must go before the Brazilian Senate to become law and President Dilma Rousseff can veto the changes. Please join your name to the petition at the link below and pass it onto your friends.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_amazon_a/?vl
6. Save our Environmental laws
It was recently revealed that the government might scrap vital laws which protect wildlife and the countryside and help stop climate change. Hardliners have branded the rules ‘red tape' and say they could be scrapped within months. 38 Degrees, the campaigning organisation, has set up a petition to remind David Cameron that he promised to run "the greenest government ever". Please take 30 seconds to speak up for legal protection for wildlife and the environment`at this link: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/dont-scrap-environment-laws#petition
7. Greenpeace - Volkswagen Campaign
It's not every day you're called to step up in defence of you planet – but today is one of those days. Greenpeace have just launched a new global campaign to change Volkswagen by turning them away from the Dark Side, and they need your help. Despite the green image it likes to portray, Volkswagen is at the heart of a group of companies lobbying against new laws which we need to cut CO 2 emissions, reduce our oil use and protect places like the Arctic from climate change. Volkswagen have also just launched a TV advertising campaign using Star Wars characterisation and Greenpeace are using Star Wars characters in their campaign against VW. You can become a trainee Jedi and petition Volkswagen by using this link http://tinyurl.com/GreenpeaceVW
8. Support the Renewable Heat Incentive
38 Degrees, the campaigning organisation who famously organised the successful petition to save our forests, is running a campaign to Back Renewable Heat. Currently only 1% of our heat energy comes from renewable sources, but 47% of UK greenhouse gas emissions come from heating. That means half the problem of climate change is about how we heat our homes and workplaces. The new Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme was supposed to start in April 2011, but the Coalition Government has not committed to stick with it. But if this plan is dropped, the UK won't be able to acheive the "low carbon economy" or the "green recovery" that was promised by George Osborne before he was elected. The Spending Review will decide whether the government will stick with its commitments or stop investing properly in renewable heat. Sign the petition now to Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, calling on him to continue to support the initiative and the tell your friends. http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/heat-initiative
9. Global Bee Emergency Petition from AVAAZ
Quietly, globally, billions of bees are dying, threatening our crops and food. But a global ban of one group of pesticides could save bees from extinction.
Four European countries have begun banning the poisons, and some bee populations are recovering. But chemical companies are lobbying hard to keep all killer pesticides on the market. A global outcry now for a ban in the US and EU, where debate is raging, could provoke a total ban and a ripple effect around the world.
Let's build a giant global buzz calling for these dangerous chemicals to be outlawed in the US and EU until and unless they are proved to be safe. Please join the 600,000 people who have already signed this petition to save bees and our crops : http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees?fp and then forward to all your friends.
10. 'No, Not in My Name'
In April 2011 the EU, backed by the world's drug industry, intends to bring in legislation to control the strength of all natural health supplements that can be sold in the UK and Europe and to ban some entirely. This is supposedly being done to regulate health products to 'safe' dosage levels, but many in the natural health industry believe that it is a back door way of the drugs industry gaining control over natural health products which they have previously had no influence over. The 'No, Not in My Name' campaign aims to gather 5 million signatures by the end of March to present to Parliament saying UK citizens want the right to choose which health supplements they use and at what strengths. If you agree please sign the petition and read more about this whole silent subject on which the powers that be hope to pass legislation without the general public even noticing! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/joininghandsinhealth
11. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Fish Fight
Around half of the fish caught by fishermen in the North Sea are unnecessarily thrown back into the ocean dead due to crazy EU regulations which are meant to conserve fish stocks. Over 300,000 people are supporting Hugh's campaign. If you want this senseless waste of food to end, please join them by going to http://www.fishfight.net/ and sign the online petition to the EU Commissioners.
12. Access to clean safe toilets
This campaign from WaterAid, whose mission is to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world's poorest communities, is now over, but the results of the appeal can be viewed at the link below.
Some 2.6 billion people worldwide still don't have access to clean, safe toilets – a basic human right. The campaign is to call upon our new Government to make tackling this crisis and increasing UK funding one of their top global development priorities during their first 100 days.
Please sign the WaterAid petition at this link
Campaign Outcomes
1. Save our Forests
Government U turn and the proposed sell off of 85% of the forests has been halted.
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests
2. Pakistan Floods
An update on this appeal at the link below.
http://www.dec.org.uk/item/442
3. Lets Stop Factory Farms
Planning permission denied for the mega dairy in Lincolnshire.
