Greenpeace

Across the country, hundreds of activists and Greenpeace volunteers have been scouring grocery stores for unsustainable seafood products in preparation for Greenpeace’s annual seafood scorecard release.

U.S. consumers buy a large portion of their seafood from grocery stores, but companies like SUPERVALU (with banners like Bristol Farms, Albertson's, Save-a-Lot and Cub foods) still lack a comprehensive sustainable seafood sourcing policy and are selling red list seafood that is overfished and caught with destructive practices.  

I visited two Bristol Farms locations, one in Beverly Hills and the other in South Pasadena. Both stores had multiple red listed fish products on their shelves. Doing detective work on endangered species, I felt like a spy uncovering illicit goods. But the mind-boggling part of the experience is that you don’t have to dig through mislabeled packages or read long ingredients lists – these endangered and unsustainable fish are in plain view.

 (Photo courtesy Alexis Soto)

It’s pretty simple to find a list of endangered seafood. Not only can we use this to inform our purchasing practices, but we can also easily influence stores by speaking to the management and expressing our concerns. It’s important to remember that we fund them and they don’t exist without our support. We need to wake up before it’s too late and take endangered fish off our grocery store shelves.

With the new Greenpeace scorecards coming out this month,grocery stores have the opportunity to implement sustainable seafood policies before their names are besmirched by the blood of orange roughy and Chilean seabass. Due to consumer pressure on these key issues, companies like Trader Joes,Whole Foods, Target and Costco have already improved their purchasing practices.  Speaking to store managers and demanding sustainable seafood policies is a simple, quick way to spark meaningful change. 

 

This weekend, Southern California saw some of the heaviest rainfall in decades.  And if you were in Irvine, California you saw wet, dedicated apes and activists.  These damp orangutans visited a localPizza Hut chain to deliver a message, along with thousands of petitions signed by folks in the local community.  

When the apes weren’t dying from lack of habitat

Passersby made phone calls to Pizza Hut customer service

And a big batch of petitions was delivered to the local store manager. 

Customers across the country have been asking Pizza Hut tostop serving up rainforest destruction with its pies, but I’m starting to wonder if Pizza Hut is listening. They say “we love to hear from customers,” “follow us on Twitter or fan us on the Facebooks”…but why? Pizza Hut acts like it wants to be a person of the digital age, have a presence like a person.  But I’ve started to realize while Pizza Hut likes to talk, they don’t really like to listen. 

Thousands and thousands of people are waiting for an answer from Pizza Hut.  Our question is simple:  Some of the world’s largest food companies like Burger King, Kraft, Nestle and Unilever have already taken steps to cut their ties with rainforest destruction,why won’t Pizza Hut do the same?

 We'll take that answer anytime now.... 

Emily Champlin is the Frontline Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace San Jose in California. She eats a bagel with a schmear of environmental justice for breakfast every morning. A California girl to the core, she grew up with love and respect for her planet and fellow earthlings. When she's not bear hugging trees Emily is writing, dancing or cooking.

Welcome to the end of the year 2010! People and this planet have gone through a lot together these last couple millennia. It's nice to know that for the last 39 years Greenpeace has been reuniting the respect between earth and earthling. Environmentalism in the industrial and technological age of today is both tricky and full of new opportunities. For example, corporations like Pizza Hut are sourcing palm oil from rainforest destroyers who are contributing to the destruction of 4.5 million acres of Indonesia's rainforest every year. In a system set up to protect profit over people, to keep the cogs of industrial pollution turning, changing the tide on this issue may seem hopeless. Have no fear fellow rainforest lovers, Greenpeace is here! All it takes is a little time and a little creativity to put the power back into the consumer's hands. 

One cold night in a little kitchen in San Jose California a few friends came together to take back that consumer power. We thought, what better way to reach out to corporations and our peers than taking advantage of this technological age by making a video; a video that speaks to exactly how we feel about being tricked into supporting the extinction of the Orangutan and countless other species. A video that, well...let's just have it speak for itself. Enjoy, and may the forest be with you!

Ready to be part of the fight? Leave a piece of your mind on the Pizza Hut facebook page here.

Jeff Favret is the Campaign Coordinator in the New York City Frontline office.  He's been working with Greenpeace for 4 months where he stands up for his beliefs on the daily.  While not crusading for a green and peaceful planet, he enjoys skiing and sports.

The weekend before Thanksgiving volunteers from the New York City Frontline Office hit the streets for a photo hunt.  It was for the Pizza Cut Campaign, which is an effort to get Pizza Hut to cut ties with Sinar Mas and end the deforestation of the Paradise Rainforest in Indonesia. 

From the beginning it was obvious that the city wasn’t going to be a hard sell. A city that is famous for its pizza only has a handful of Pizza Hut’s scattered across the five boroughs, mostly in tourist areas like Times Square.  The crew was able to make its presence felt at all of them, drawing gazes and a slew of questions from curious city dwellers.  What started out as a simple photo assignment quickly turned into a great day of environmental campaigning.  Here’s a photo from the 14th Street Pizza Hut location.

To further our progress in this crucial fight to end deforestation be sure to follow this link to the Pizza Hut page on Facebook, and leave a comment on their wall demanding the company cancel all contracts with palm oil supplier Sinar Mas. Also, please like our Pizza Cut page on Facebook by clicking on this link.

Nick Hurley is the Campaign Coordinator in the Greenpeace Los Angeles Frontline Office. Not only does he inspire people to take action on campaign issues in the community, but he holds campaign meetings with over 30 participants. Nick enjoys rallying against coal and strumming on his guitar. 

Dear Consumers,

With 80% of our worlds ancient forests gone, we can't afford to lose any more to mono culture industries such as the palm oil industry. Currently, Pizza Hut is contributing to widespread deforestation in the Paradise Forests of Southeast Asia, which consists of the islands of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.

Pizza Hut is currently purchasing palm oil from Sinar Mas who is contributing the fast disappearance of the Paradise Forests. Beyond the fact that this forest could be gone before we know it, the existence of countless critically endangered species is also on the line. Animals that only exist in this portion of the world like the orangutan, Sumatran tiger and Sumatran rhino are all nearing extinction. Plants and animals aren't the only living beings in the region either. Hundreds of indigenous cultures that have lived off of these forests are also experiencing big problems. These cultures combined speak over 1000 languages which account for around one sixth of all the languages that exist today. Please visit this link to learn more about the issue.

For the sake of our future generations and mother earth herself, it is critical that Pizza Hut cut Sinar Mas from their supply chain. As consumers it is our job to ensure that these industries are making smart choices for the well being of our planet. If these corporations won’t make changes on their own and governments continue to do nothing on these issues, then we must take a stand together. Please take the time to visit and express your thoughts on at least one of the various social networking sites that Pizza Hut advertises on, including Facebook and Twitter. 

Sincerely,

Nick