Greenpeace

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

I haven't written a web log entry for a few days. I've been busy building dams for Greenpeace.  I never thought I'd type that line.  Usually we're opposing dams, not building them.

Building dams is apparently extremely laborious and time consuming work. Fortunately we've had an infusion of community members from the local village helping us out.  They really know how to work and have shown up most of the city folk here.  They also are extremely entertained by seeing a "bule" put in some hard labor.  They've taken to calling me by the name of some soccer player who plays for AC Milan who they think I look like.  Probably some white dude with a beard.  They also call me "Mister Sport", which I'm not sure is a compliment or an insult.

So yesterday we finished two dams, and it was incredibly satisfying to see the water level rise behind the dam.  Rob said it one of the coolest and most effective actions he's ever been a witness to.  We have three more dams to go, however.

The idea of building these dams is to help raise the level of water in the peatland area to its previous height, thereby restoring the area to it's natural state.  This would take quite some time, as the forest has been cleared and burned.  But damming the canals is the first step towards restoration.  The oil palms, already planted in the area certainly aren't going to like the rising water levels.  But that doesn't really concern us, especially as seeing as this palm concession is illegal under international law.  The law states that any peatlands over 3 meters in depth may not be deforested and converted.  The peatland area where this concession exists has peatland depths of over 8 meters (26 feet).  8 meters was the maximum depth that could be measured with the tools that were used by the surveying crew of scientists who helped us measure the peatland depth.  In many areas the peatland depth exceeds 8 meters.

So far we haven't had any reaction from the company that owns and operates the concession, Duta Palma.  Some of the workers have come by to check out our work, but none have done anything to stop us - yet. There could me many reasons for this, such as the probability that they know that their operation is illegal.  Another possible reason is that they know how much support we have among the community, and even among the local officials, which brings me to another story.

We had yet another visit from government officials.  This time we were told to expect about 6 people, and of course about 15 arrived.  They were mostly officials from the Indonesian equivalent of the county level.  Also with them were some people from military intelligence.  The government officials were extremely friendly. They even visited one of the damming sites and expressed their support.  The military intelligence officials, dressed in all black with sunglasses, weren't quite as vocal in their support.  But I assume that's just their MO. It was great though to see the support we are getting from official government in Indonesia.  This can sometimes be a risky place to make bold statements, and how Indonesian officials will react cannot always be predicted.  Right now it seems that we are safe from goverment intervention.

After our last visit from the police and police intelligence I contacted the U.S. embassy,mostly because the visiting officials asked me if I had registered with the embassy.  I have to say that I have had excellent support, especially from the consulate in Medan on Sumatra. They have kept in contact, and even read my web log.  Illegal logging is an issue that is very important to them.

I only have a few more days left in camp.  It has been nearly a month. I acclimated to the heat here, I sleep well every night, I haven't had a beer in a month, and I wake up at 5:30 almost every morning, and people make fun of me for my American accent.  I have a feeling that some changes will be coming soon.

I'll send out more updates on our progress, and any reaction from Duta Palma, if they react at all.

Also, I'm told that my web log is being translated to mandarin and is published on the largest web site in China.  So that's kind of cool.

Hayden

This Saturday is the second Step It Up, a national day of action to find out who are the real leaders on global warming. Step It Up’s April 14 rally produced more than 1,400 events in 50 states, the largest global warming event in U.S. history. This Saturday’s event promises to be even larger.

The demands from Step it Up are simple: a carbon cut of 80 percent by 2050, a moratorium on any new coal-fired power plants, and five million new Green jobs. Think we can do it? Of course we can. The technology is with us today, but the political will is missing.

That’s why Step It Up and Greenpeace’s Project Hot Seat are so important. If you don’t know, Project Hot Seat is our campaign to get Congress on board with real solutions to global warming. The best bill in the House to accomplish a significant reduction in CO2 emissions is Henry Waxman’s Safe Climate Act. The bill has 142 co-sponsors. The magic number is 216, the number of votes needed in the House to pass a bill. You can help get us there by going to www.projecthotseat.org to take action.

I’ll be in San Francisco this Saturday for a Step It Up rally outside Speaker Pelosi’s office. The event will be like a carnival with a variety of attractions to educate people on global warming and get them involved. The Rolling Sunlight will be there, a moving example of the possible. The Sunlight can generate enough solar energy to power an entire concert. If you’re in SF, come by and visit us. If you’re not here, be sure to go to www.stepitup2007.org to find an event in your area.

Best wishes,

Daniel Kessler
Greenpeace Media Officer  

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Today we began the process of damming the canals that drain are draining the peatland forests of the bordering palm oil concession.  We began work with about 40 people at 6am this morning, mostly volunteers from the local communities.

The first job was to finish moving all the damming materials over half a mile up one of the canals.This is a huge task that requires hours of work, as we're talking about tons of material for each dam. We use canoes to carry the sandbags, and we float the wood poles in the canals and someone has to wade through the coffee tinted water pushing them up the canal against the current.

We are planning on building a total of 5 canals in the coming week. Assisting us are experts in canal dam building and peatland restoration from Indonesia.

In addition to the challenge of moving many tons of material over many miles, we also have the additional challenge of having to time our work with the tides.  We use high tide to move the materials up the canals, and then we use the lower tides to begin the building process of the dams.

I was fortunate enough to not have to work most of the morning, as I was supporting our para-motor pilots.  I have to stay on standby with first-aid supplies in case of any incidents.

When I finally got to one of the dam building sites most people were already exhausted.  They had been working at the site since 7am with only a break for lunch.  I helped carry wooden cants to the dam building site.  After about an hour of that I went to work with an axe sharpening the ends of the cants so they could be pounded into the ground for dam supports.  Cedar and I worked on that as many people watched, and apparently were very entertained by the site of two white guys working with axes.  We chopped on amid the laughter, and made our own jokes about the irony of working on a Greenpeace action that involves chopping wood.  Usually we're on the other side of that.

More damn building tomorrow.  I have to make this short as bugs are attacking me and the computer I'm writing on.  Ah, one just flew into my eye.

 

 Hayden 

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Yesterday afternoon we received a visit from 22 members of various regional and local police and police intelligence officers.  They hung around the camp all afternoon, taking pictures, asking us questions, and speaking with some of our Indonesian campmates.  One of them also helped himself to Frode's last piece of chocolate, which Frode wasn't too happy about.  I grabbed my camera and asked if we could get some pictures with them, to which they happily agreed.

Finally at around 7pm they departed, but they've left two armed officers here at camp to keep an eye on us.  We're making every effort to explain to all the various law enforcement agencies why we're here, and that our work here is also about helping the Indonesian goverment.  Hopefully this message can get through to the right people, and we can continue our work unabated.

And a big Hi from Rob, he really is the greatest guy

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Yesterday our real Communications Hardware Coordinator arrived, over a week late.  This means that I was replaced.  Which is a good thing.  I was tired of having to stay here at camp and be the comms center for our various activities.  And when I came here I never anticipated having this responsibility.  I was happy to fill in until Geoff got his Visa taken care of, but I knew that it was just temporary.

Geoff arrived yesterday morning, and we did a walk through of all our gear here and how it functions.  The solar system, lighting, satellite comms, radios, GPSs, etc. etc.  And then I was free, finally.  I immediately got on a "pong pong" (local diesel power boat) full of very heavy building materials and worked for hours and hours, carrying many tons (literally) of building materials including sand and lumber in 100 degree heat.  I was so hot at the end that I actually dove into the dark black water of the canal.  The water was so acidic is burned every cut and scratch on my body, and there are many.  I figured that if anything the water helped disinfect my wounds.  I'll try to get some photos up in the next few days from our photographer, Oka.  Attached is a photo of some of the materials we had to unload.

And this morning, I was able to leave camp once again, this time to help support Cedar, one of our para-motor pilots.  He was doing an aerial survey of the concession, and looking for peatland fires.  Since many of the Indonesians had to go into town to the mosque for their Friday prayers, that left me and another bule (white foriegner) to be on the motorbike team.  So that was a lot of fun, but getting out of camp is quite challenging, especially for someone who's experience is solely on road bikes.  But I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and the most challenging part was wearing full motocross protection, boots, body armor, gloves, helmet, goggles, in this heat and humidity.  It was nearly unbearable.  But I still enjoyed it.  There's something exciting about riding a motocross bike covered in Greenpeace logos.

So that's what I'm up to now.  I'm also doing more work for the international media team.  I'm one of the talking heads featured in a web video that should be up on the Greenpeace International site soon. Also some news networks very familiar to the United States will be
visiting the camp soon, and it's been suggested that an American accent may be in demand for parts of that.  And since I'm the only one here with one of those, it's assumed that I'll be doing some work with them. And the last update on the media front is that I just wrote my first blog for the Chinese website QQ.com, which as I mentioned earlier is the largest web site in China, and the fifth largest web site in the world, so I'm told.  There going to have someone translate it into Mandarin, so hopefully I end up saying the same thing on the other side.  I'm going to have a friend in the Greenpeace China office letting me know how it's
sounding on their end once it's translated.

Okay, more building materials are waiting for me.  Also, we're about to be visited by the city and provincial police forces today.  Hopefully that all goes well.  I may actually take a cue from others at camp and register with the U.S. embassy.  Though I'm confident things will be
fine, especially with all the attention we're beginning to draw.

More coming.

Hayden

I’m writing as Southern California burns. There’s been a lot of talk within the environmental community and in the media about whether or not these fires can be linked to rising temperatures caused by global warming. What’s beyond dispute, however, is the scary reality that as temperatures rise, the frequency of massive fires and other horrific natural disasters will rise along with the mercury.    

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported earlier this year that North America's annual window of high fire ignition risk could increase by 30 percent this century. They said fires and insect outbreaks are likely to intensify as temperatures rise, which will cause drier soils and longer growing seasons. Add that to the findings of U.S. Geological Survey scientists who said recently that rising temperatures have increased the death rate for old-growth conifers, firs and pines in the Sierra Nevada, making more fuel for fires.

So what can we do? First, we can recognize our immediate vulnerabilities. Together, population growth and development into the wildland-urban interface is tempting fate. People need to make smart choices about how much land they need, how far from population centers they want to go and how their decisions affect the land, wildlife, and other people; in my mind there’s no reason to put a firefighter’s life at risk for a swimming pool and a nice view.

On a larger scale, we continue our push to make Congress take immediate action on global warming. Nov. 3 is Step It Up, a national day of action on global warming that will make it clear just who are our leaders on the defining environmental issue of our time. Please go to StepitUp2007.org  to find out about an event in your area.

 

Daniel
Greenpeace Media Officer

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Last night at camp we had an incredible display of talent from all over our planet.  We had an amazing blend of cultures on display from Germany, Finland, Papua, Java, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S.A. and Argentina.

The talent show, or what we called the unjuk bakat in bahasa indonesia, is definitely a foreign concept to Indonesians, and probably to many others in camp from places farther afield.  I'm not sure of the cultural history of the talent show, but it is certainly something familiar to most Americans.

I suggested the idea of a talent show last week, when I noticed that after our nightly debriefings about the days events, the camp separated into separate groups, generally based on languages spoken.  I wanted to create a fun evening event that would get us all together.

It was challenging at first to get the Indonesians to sign up and participate in this foreign concept.  I even got a bunch of prizes together to try and encourage participation.  Most people were wary to participate, but the night of the event when it really became apparent how it was truly open to all comers we had some late entries from our local hosts.

I started off the evening, figuring that I should set an example of how it's not that bad making a fool out of yourself in front of everyone, and it can actually be quite entertaining to the audience.  I created a skit (which was a new word to many people here, including most of the english speakers) - it was called "The Debrief" and I played Rob Taylor, our fearleass kiwi leader, and re-enacted one of our debriefs, except different people played different characters.  The highlight was JJ, one of our pilots, dressed up as Yifang, our Chinese forest campaigner.  He wore some of her clothing, which was quite funny considering that he's about twice her size.

After the skit, we had an incredible performance by both of our pilots, JJ and Cedar.  They did a duet with a guitar, and a single stringed bass, made from a 5 gallon drinking water container, a large piece of bamboo, and a piece of nylon twine recovered from the construction of our camp.  They also put in some lyrics in Bahasa Indonesia - "bule bule, bule gila!" which means "white foriegners, crazy white foreigners" - which of course was received with rousing applause and laughter.

Frode, our Nordic campaigner really put himself out there.  He did a three act performance: the native forest, forest destruction, and then forest recovery, sung by a cat.  Yes a cat.  He was backed up by JJ and Cedar.  My face hurt from laughter after that one.

Rob Taylor then did a re-enactment of his punk rock days from twenty years ago.  He played so hard that JJ had to take some time to re-tune his guitar.

After this we had a story told in bahasa by Yusef, from Papua, translated by Findi.

Richi, our camp manager from Jakarta, then stepped up and had us all play a game, based on the concept of forest fires, that had us all running around and knocking each other over, and laughing like crazy.

Arti, our Argentinean video editor, played an electronic song that he made earlier in the day on his Mac computer.  It was pretty impressive, especially when considering he only put about 30 minutes into it.  Arti followed this with an awesome 1 minute video about our action in the forest from a few days ago, where we hung a giant banner that read "Save Our Forest, Save Our Climate".

Our last performance was a slide show put to music by our photographer, Oka.  It was lots of personal shots, and it was great to see how much we'd actually accomplished in the past 2 weeks.  We got to see lots of fun shots that we normally don't get a chance to see - the ones that don't make it to our website, on TV, or in the newspaper.

At the end I handed out the prizes to all who participated.  The prizes, or "hadiah", included two bottles of soda, which is a very hot commodity here at camp, a coupon for a 15 minute massage from our campmate Hengke, a coupon for two free hours of solar charging, for phones or laptops, which also is in high demand here.  And finally, the grand prize was a free paragliding flight in Byron Bay Australia, courtesy of Cedar.  The coupon was non-transferrable, and didn't include transportation to Byron Bay.

It was a late night for the camp, but it didn't seem that anyone minded.  In fact, there's been a request for encore performances.  So we'll see if that happens in the coming weeks.  We're actually getting busier every day, so it's not something that I can really think about now - but I think we may have some mini-performances in the coming evenings.

Stay tuned for exciting things - I'm moving from the Communications side of things to more of a laborer, so I'm looking forward to that.  I'll write more when I can.

Hayden

Three years after launching ExxonSecrets.org, we finally have a BLOG!

Why? To enhance the conversation with all of you who have used and expressed your appreciation for ExxonSecrets since its birth.

We started ExxonSecrets to broadcast our research on the growing web of global warming denial.  Climate deniers and front groups were working together in increasingly tangled coalitions- shifting associations, organizations, titles - deceiving the media and policy makers and delaying progress.  Tired of explaining all these connections over and over to reporters and colleagues, we designed the graphic network mapping tool with web aces Josh On of TheyRule.net and Amy Balkin, most recently of PublicSmog.org.  The relational database behind ExxonSecrets was built upon opposition research going back to the early 1990s by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research, CLEAR, now housed at Greenpeace.

There have been well over 1000 custom ExxonSecrets maps made and used by people like you to illustrate the intricate web of the climate denial industry.  ExxonSecrets has been cited, quoted, and used as a research tool over the place in the past three years -  from Mother Jones to Vanity Fair, from the Wall Street Journal to the Guardian and, of course, on the blogs, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, DeSmogBlog and others.   But its not about media and web hits, we stopped counting ;), what is most important is that it's now well known that Exxon has worked hard to delay action on global warming and continues to fund and work with the climate denial machine and its cogs.

The new ExxonSecrets blog is really a response to requests worldwide - from fellow bloggers, academics, scientists, journalists, researchers, policymakers and activists -  asking to interact with ExxonSecrets, contribute information and comment on what we've revealed.  Well, let's get the conversation going.

We will also now be able to shout (or blog) about our research on the fly. Things happen almost daily that we can connect to our research on front groups and deniers as they meddle with the policy arena and the media.  Take the recent campaign against Al Gore by Heartland Institute or the attack in the UK against An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 DCI/TechCentralStation post-Katrina video news release on hurricanes, coordinated attacks against the IPCC and its findings, Exxon unceremoniously dumping the Competitive Enterprise Institute last year and on and on.  We always have more than we can convince reporters to write.

And we know you know even more! Not only can you comment on the blog pages, we've also set up a wiki.  Skeptic detectives, get working - there's plenty of information out there that we may not know but somebody else does.   

Welcome to ExxonSecrets 2.0! Have fun, stay in touch, do good work. 

Remember, we have a planet to save.

And, for inspiration, I have to include this picture of a license plate I spotted on the way home from work, on a Prius to boot...

I get the sense that people are interested in the staff behind the curtain here at Greenpeace so here is one story of an inspiring forest defender.  If you receive the quarterly newsletter you've met Jeremy before and should enjoy this update. 

 

Last week Forest Campaigner Jeremy Paster was awarded the People and Planet award by Rainforest Action Network (RAN).  Here is an excerpt from the event as covered by Branden at RAN.

 
"And finally, a surprise award, for Jeremy Paster. Jeremy was one of the key organizers of the ‘99 WTO protest and has been a great friend to RAN and the movement. He was diagnosed in 2006 with advanced metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 35. He was recovering from an operation when we announced this award - to recognize his great contributions to the world through his activism, his photography, his work and his spirit. RAN ED Michael Brune took the stage with Jeremy’s friends, Ilyse Hogue, John Sellers and Marianne Manilov. The three of them managed to gain the attention of the room - 650 people mind you - with Jeremy’s story. And while holding the space by telling stories of Jeremy (which I invite them to post on this blog) Jeremy was racing to the venue, having “escaped from UCSF”, in his own words. And after quite a few emotionally charged minutes, Jeremy made it to the party. Escorted by friends and family he was wheeled to the stage and stood to accept his award. And in accepting it, his humility and grace honored us. We are so very blessed by this very very fine man. If you’d like to learn more about Jeremy, visit www.jeremypaster.com. You can make a donation to help offset his significant medical expenses here: http://jeremypaster.com/donate/" 

Congrats Jeremy! 

 

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

So today is a pretty relaxed day, other than having about 100 people at camp today for day 4 of the fire fighting training (and on a side note I got totally shafted and was on dish duty yesterday and had to help wash what seemed like hundreds of dishes.)

The highlight so far today is that I just sat down for an interview with QQ.com, the fifth largest web site in the world (and the largest in China.)  I was a bit circumspect as to why she wanted to interview me, of all people (as opposed to Hapsoro, our Indonesian forest campaigner, or Rob Taylor, the overall logistics coordinator) and Yifang, our Chinese forest campaigner didn't help at all when she supposed that she wanted to interview me because I'm "an attractive and charming American" - the internationals in the room thought that a bit of an oxymoron. Regardless of the reason I wasn't about to turn down an opportunity to tell 120 million people about why this campaign is important, and about how China and the U.S. are partners in leading the world in creating pressures that lead to deforestation - and how all of that links to global warming.  I definitely hit all the important points, as to what she chooses to write, that remains to be seen.  I wish I could read Chinese (or Mandarin, I suppose.)

I definitely got the feeling that some of my more assertive comments won't make it to print.  Being such a large website their content is watched closely by the Chinese government, and any criticism of the government must be balanced with compliments.  Needless to say, I didn't have too many good comments about China's role in forest destruction, other than that they are beginning to do a decent job of protecting it's own forests.  And of course I linked the U.S. into that equation, as China is many times just the middleman for manufacturing of products that end up in American homes and buildings.

On a completely unrelated note, half the camp was awoken last night by a blood curdling scream.  We all got up to look for the source for the scream, but to no avail.  I think it was just someone having a vivid and vibrant nightmare, not a too atypical side effect of taking Chloroquine, an anti-malarial.  It took me awhile to get back to sleep after that. Especially with the chainsaw snoring resonating from the women's sleeping quarters.

That's all I have for today.  We're busy unloading materials for an upcoming activity that we're working towards.  I'll write more about that next week.

Hayden

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

 

We all got up this morning at 4:30.  The group of climbers wanted to  make it to the edge of the palm oil concession without being noticed by the workers, or the security patrol.  The edge of the concession, or what we call "the forest wall" is where the burned clearcut ends and where the native forest begins.  However this native forest is in the process of being cleared for more palm oil.  The "forest wall" is just how far they've gotten in clearing the forest.

To edge of the concession is about 4km away, but is clearly visible from our fire lookout tower.  Rob and I were up in the tower at 5am as the team left.  My responsibility was to run communications for the climb team, and also for the para motors, which were scheduled for a flyover at 8am.  My new title, as Rob told me yesterday, is "Communications Hardware Coordinator", so now I'm no longer just the U.S. campaigner/volunteer.   GPI is even putting up a photo of me with that title, apparently.

So, back to the action.  The team, of all Indonesians, hung a huge banner (36'x30') from two trees accross the road that runs into the forest from the concession.  Shortly afterward Cedar flew over in the para-motor, this time with the wing that has the Greenpeace logo on it. We got some great images, and the entire event went remarkably smooth. No conflict with the workers at all.  And as of this writing the banner is still hanging.  We decided to leave it there as a parting gift.

In other happenings, we dug up some maps of the area, and I found out that the river that runs by our camp has it's headwaters in the hills, not near town, so now I've started to go for swims in the afternoon (I can't go in the evening, as the local residents believe that if people swim in the evenings, and have fun, that bad things may come.)  Today I went for a swim with JJ, Frode, and Hengke, and we had a great time, diving off the dock.  As we were getting out a boat arrived that was unloading about 80 huge bags of sand.  We did the Indonesian thing to do, which was to pitch in and help carry the bags of sand up the dock to land.  So we worked for about 20 minutes, and these guys were really surprised and entertained by 3 "bule" (white foreigners) helping them carry heavy loads up the dock.

And that's all I have for now for an update.  Stay tuned.  The most exciting stuff is yet to come.  Also, I'm happy to report that there aren't any lingering effects from the lightning strike.  I'm fine.

Hayden

Yesterday evening, a very powerful lightning storm came through camp. As we though it was winding down I was crouched on the porch of the warehouse talking with one of our pilots, Cedar, when a lightning bolt struck a tree about 30 feet from us.  A massive shock came up through my feet and into my legs.  It was very painful, without a doubt the most powerful electric shock I've ever received.  I looked at Cedar, and said some things that shouldn't be put into print, and then asked if we're okay.  Both of us were shaken up, to say the least, and kind of stumbled back to the main building.  It turns out that a lot of people felt a shock to some degree.  Suzette, who was in the communications room (and my bedroom) writing an email got a major shock.  It turns out that the electric charge likely came up through a ground wire into the room and burned into some of the floorboards.  Also, our inverter, which converts the battery power (charged by our solar panels) from 12 volts into 220, was completely fried.  So we're without power for some of our most essential electronics.  But we're working fast to get a new one (and I'm typing fast, since this computer is running on battery power.)

So yesterday was a very exciting day and I think we're all lucky that no one was seriously hurt. And now I have yet another story to tell when I get home.

Hayden

Today was finally the day we got in the air.  Yesterday we had to call off the launch of our two para-motors due to some shaky weather.  This morning we were all up before 6am, waiting on standby for the weather conditions to become right for flying.

After a lot of waiting Cedar took off from our makeshift runway, which is on a small clearing in the oil palm concession.  I was acting as the tower for the flight.  I was up in our fire spotting tower with a couple radios and a high powered scope to keep track of our pilots.

Cedar flew over the concession and got some excellent aerial photos of the forest destruction, and the native forest that borders the oil palm area.  He also got a pretty sweet aerial shot of our camp.  Though, after taking a look at the photo, we all realized that we need to do a little cleanup of the construction materials lying around camp.

An hour and a half later Cedar touched down.  It was a great first flight.  He didn't spot any peatland fires, but he only saw a fraction of the oil palm concession.  Tomorrow Cedar, and our other pilot JJ, intend on flying much farther into the forest clearing in order to spot and illegally set peatland fires.

That's all the updates I have for now.  It's still hot here, there are still a lot of bugs, and every day a cold beer is sounding better and better.

Hayden

This morning we got up early and took a walk into the concession area to do a show and tell to the new campaigners that just arrived.  They toured the forest destruction caused by conversion of forests to palm oil plantations.  We took a walk through the wasteland of the charred remnants of trees and saw the network of canals that have been dug to drain the peatland.  Yifang and Frode, from our Chinese and Nordic offices had many questions, and the tour, not surprisingly, was sobering.  I've attached a photo which can give you some idea of what it looks like out there.

Our camp borders the concession area.  The local village, Kuala Cenaku, has contested the rights of Duta Palma, the company clearing the forest and planting the oil palms, saying that they have historical rights to the land.  And if it were up to them, they would've preferred that it stay as native forest.  Tragically, the forest next to their village is being logged and burned, and it continues to be logged today.  From our fire observation tower we can see the edge of the forest clearing. We're using every means we have to put a stop to this forest conversion and all other peatland forest conversion, until a region-wide environmental sound policy can be implemented.

Meanwhile our camp is nearing completion.  Nearly all the walkways are built, John and I spent all day yesterday treating the water so that it is safe enough to wash and cook with, and we only have a few finishing touches to put on it for the camp to be fully completed.  Some people have noted that it's beginning to look like a sort of "eco village", especially with the addition of some campaigners who spend some of the day "lazing around" in the shade under the trees typing things on their laptop computers.  We've also had a lot of new arrivals lately and we're nearly at capacity.  In fact, we've decided to build an annex to the main sleeping quarters to accommodate even more people who will be arriving in the coming weeks. The camp has really taken on a more active vibe.  Evenings are filled with meetings, planning sessions, and even English and Bahasa Indonesia classes so we can help bridge the language gap among us.

In addition to the campaigners, we've also had some guitar players join us, who also happen to know how to pilot a para-motoring machine.  A few evenings we've had late night guitar playing sessions and stayed up until the very late hour of 10:30.

That's all I have for an update now.  We have to do a quick cleanup, as the village chief is paying another visit to our camp this afternoon.

More to come....

Hayden
at the Forest Defender Camp, Sumatra, Indonesia

Not many people can say that they’ve been dripped on by a whale’s oil—but I can. I worked in New Bedford, Massachusetts for a couple of years and frequently visited their whaling museum. They had a gigantic 66-foot blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. Even though it has been dead since 1998, it’s skeleton is somehow still exuding oils that drip from his nose (I think) and onto people walking around below. Pretty crazy, huh!

Walking around the museum, it was amazing and depressing to learn about the history of whaling and how it turned communities like New Bedford into major cities with economic riches. Once humans discovered that they could kill whales and then actually haul them back to land—whales were doomed.

It just wasn’t enough for us to take a couple whales to sustain our needs; we actually decimated entire populations. If we took too many of one species, then we just turned our attention to another species until they were decimated too. As a result of over-indulgence, communities and whales suffered. Cities like New Bedford took a major economic hit once whaling was no longer feasible or allowed – and many whale species were exploited to the point where their populations may never recover.

Whales today still face many threats—getting tangled up in fishing gear, being hit by boats and swimming around in polluted waters. You’d think that in the face of all these threats, they’d at least be safe from whaling. We learned our lesson, right? Well, not our friends in Japan. They seem to think they’re above the law and can continue to whale under the guise of “so-called” research.

Yeah, right! What kind of research is Japan conducting that justifies the need to kill 1,000 minke whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales this year? I haven’t seen any new “scientific” journals posted about whale discoveries coming out of Japan. But, I have seen pictures of whale meat in Japanese markets and even in school cafeterias. Right, it’s research! Everyone believes that.

So, this season I’m following Greenpeace’s Great Whale Trail. It’s really sweet, actually. They are proving to the world that they can research whales withOUT killing them. You can follow too.

They have humanely tagged a bunch of humpback whales and will follow them by satellite as they journey to their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The best part about it is you can follow the journey too. They’ve made it all available online. From the looks of the map, the whales are heading towards New Zealand right now.

I understand that it’s not easy to change habits. We all fight against change—and are only compelled to move when we are made to, or don’t have the strength to fight against it any longer. I just hope we are able to convince Japan to stop whaling before it’s too late. The whales have had to change because of us. Let’s give them a break, show some compassion and make the oceans a safer place for them to live. I for one, have enough strength to share with them—so they can rest a little easier—why can’t the rest of the world?

I'm finally back in town after 4 days and 3 nights at the Forest Defenders camp.  I've really begun to enjoy being out there.  The main building is complete, and we've installed all of the lighting (powered by solar, of course) so we can stay up later, working, talking, etc.    There's still a ways to go to complete the camp, but it's looking good.  As John, our tech guru says, it's really beginning to look like the television set of "Survivor Sumatra" 

I've begun to get a little involved with the design.  A building in front of the Belair Adat (the main building, and I really have no idea how it's spelled)  was being built.  and they were going to clear out some very small trees/shrubs.  After I threatened to chain myself to one of the shrubs, the architect yielded, and now it has become a nice deck area, with some small trees coming up through the coconut wood to provide shade.  Now we've planned to get some party lights (or what we may call "christmas lights") and string them on the trees for evening lighting. 

 This morning I went on a hike into the concession area (the area of forest that the company Duta Palma is clearing for palm plantations) and we surveyed some canals that were dug in order to drain the peatland.  This is a crucial step in clearing the land.  After the canals are dug in the peat (that in this area is many meters thick) the water drains out, irreversibly drying out the peat.  The dried peat is then ready for burning, which as I mentioned earlier, releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.

 We were measuring water flow and water depth of the canals.  While I could surmise many reasons, I honestly can't tell you exactly why we were doing this, as it was a request from some science geeks back in Europe.   But it was very interesting to see the clearing process first-hand after reading so much about it. 

A few notes about the Forest Defenders Camp: 

 There are so many insects there, it's incredible.  Now that we have the lighting installed for evenings, we've become extremely popular with our six legged neighbors.  Probably the most noteworthy are the Rhinoceros Beetles.  They are freakin' huge!  And when they dive bomb into camp, they circle the lights and are the size of small birds.  They slam into anything in their path, including you.  I got a great picture of one who visited us two nights ago.  They really do have horns similar to a rhinoceros. 

 Also, an update on my bag, which on my last entry I mentioned was stuck in Taipei.  Well, it finally arrived and was kindly delivered to me by Hengki and Yusef, two new forest activists who just arrived from Papua.  I immediately popped my malaria medication, and I'm hoping that none of the first 100 mosquito bites I received were from malaria carriers.  I'm sure I'll be fine. 

 One more update:  I'm also now one of the camp medics.  Our camp doctor, Naki (who we endearingly refer to as Doogie Howser) is leaving for Idol Fitri.  So it's me and a local nurse who arrived today.  Funnily enough, within an hour of her arrival she ended up being my first patient.  She was unpacking her supplies and happened to burn her hand on a bottle of pure hydrogen peroxide (unlike the %1 or %2 solutions you buy over the counter) -  oh the irony.

 More to come...

 Hayden

Okay, here we go, my first blog, ever. I've already done some trash talking with my friend Kieran Mulvaney, who prides himself on his blogging abilities - so let's hope that I can pull off an interesting and informative blog.

I'm now sitting at our not quite complete Forest Defenders Camp in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. And I'm exhausted from a very long day of hard work.

What would possess someone to spend 5 days traveling, with almost no sleep, enduring 40 straight hours of spending time in airports and on airplanes, followed my more airplanes, followed by a death defying drive across Riau Province, to arrive at a town that is still a 3 hour boat ride away from the camp? To save the Peatland Forests, of course.

The peatland forests need to be saved, but not just to protect all the cute little (and huge) creatures in it. They actually need to be saved to save us, humans. Peatland forests are an enormous carbon store. And these forests are being converted to oil palm plantations at an alarming rate. And when this conversion occurs, they burn the peatland forest and all that carbon that has been stored is released into the atmosphere as a Greenhouse Gas, Carbon Dioxide. This forest conversion has helped to propel Indonesia into third place in Greenhouse Gas emitters, behind the world's largest polluters, China and the United States. I find that fact staggering, considering that Indonesia isn't a huge fossil fuel hog, like its co-polluters. Who knew that saving our forests could be just as important as switching to clean energy when it comes to stopping Global Warming?

So now you know why we're here. Now let me tell you a little about what the camp is like. First of all, it's hot. Really hot. They say it's been getting up into the low to mid 40's. So that's well over 100 degrees. And did I mention the humidity? It's not easy building a camp in this kind of heat. But I can't complain too much, I've only been here one day. And it was a very long day, with lots of work. I helped install the solar array, and we finally got power to the camp, thanks to the sun, and a lot of hard work. I'm writing this email now using some of the energy we produced after 1pm, when we finally got all the wires wired (and narrowly avoided a 6 inch long scorpion, which decided to hang out behind our battery bank.)

The camp is coming together, though we still have a ways to go. We have the main meeting house and bunk quarters nearly complete. We got the roof on our kitchen today, and our fire-spotting tower got a little taller. We also now have solar power, as I mentioned earlier, and tomorrow we'll get our water tank installed, make our solar installation more permanent, and keep plugging away on the buildings to get them finished.

It's Ramadhan, and most people are about to break fast. In other words, it's time for dinner. I'll keep the updates coming as the camp progresses, and hopefully send along some photos of our progress. And remember, when the camp is finished, that is when our real work begins. I have many more stories to tell, just from my first few days (did I mention that my bag still hasn't arrived at the airport?) but it's already been a 13 hour work day, so I think I'll call it a day.

Hayden

I hope I can shed some light on how this North Pacific Fishery Management Council process takes place, of course from a position of bias and not so happy.

I have been attending the Council meetings, off and on, for about 20 years or so. Began back in the day when we were fighting for the establishment of the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program which we hoped at the time would benefit the villages. It was a long battle and one you can read about just by goggling it, if you are interested. I want to, however say a few words about that later, as it sorely impacts the people in the villages.

If you want to know the details about the Council process you can also get on their web page at www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc. That is an interesting site. So I will simply give you a perspective from someone who is from a village, and also from my position as a Campaigner, time and space allowing.

Lets see. If I were living on St. Paul Island and I wanted to submit a comment on some issue the Council was addressing, it would probably go something like this.

The issue. Crab. How much? Well this year, some 63 million pounds. Sounds impressive, but when I was the pastor on St. Paul some 10 years ago, the quota was 250 million pounds, and the entire season began 15 January and lasted sometimes into May. Now its just about 2 weeks before the quota is caught. So lets say, I am an employee of the City government. We are interested because of the raw fish taxes we get from the processing of the product and the additional services, such as fuel sales, dockage fees, grocery sales and additional other services. So the local economy benefits from this activity. Now, keep in mind that I am working for a municipal government which probably can afford the rest of the story. The Tribes? Probably cannot afford to do this.

So, I write a position paper and submit it to the Council for consideration. Then it is decided that I should attend the meeting to submit verbal testimony to support our written position. I have to travel. Well, so, from St. Paul to Anchorage, where the meetings are usually held; sometimes they are held in Seattle Washington or Portland Oregon. So I have to buy a ticket. A round trip ticket to Anchorage from St. Paul on PenAir is about $900.00. Then I have to get a hotel and food, and maybe a car, but certainly a cab. So additional $180.00 per day per diem, or there abouts. So for one week, at $180.00 per day is? Ya, $1260.00. So now, with the air fare that totals, ya, $2,160.00 just to attend! For one person! There are other costs too, like being away from home, family, incidental expenses, etc.

So, usually the Council begins meeting on a Monday. The SSC or the Scientific and Statistical Committee begins bright and early in the morning. Now I have to follow the issue and try to figure out where and when the issue will be addressed by the committee. Sometimes, and more often than not, the agenda is moved around, often without much notice, so I have to sit there throughout the entire day and listen to hours and hours of stuff I have not idea about. This report, that testimony. Lots of stuff. Oh we get breaks, and when that happens, I will try to corner someone from the committee to lobby. But I am relatively unknown, and often the members have buds or other people who are "council groopies" that are better known and more attuned to the issues that get the time and the ears. So, I try to wiggle my way into some conversation with someone. Then back to the meeting and more listening. Now, the issue on the crab is being discussed. First there will be staff reports, scientist reports, and others who signed up to testify. Then, if I signed up, my time will come. I am called to the hot seat by the chairperson. The committee are all sitting at tables arranged usually in kinda a circle, with table cloths shrouded on them, microphones, lots of papers and folders and notebooks, really looking knowledgeable. So I walk up to the table, sit down, introduce myself and say what issue I want to address. Now, figure. An entire table of experts. An audience of about 30 people. Bright lights. Microphones. And I begin to talk. Usually I will have about 3 to 6 minutes to say what I wanna say. Then questions from the committee, if any, and I am done. Whew...public speaking. Not fun. 

But that is basically what happens, and happens both at the Advisory Panel (AP), which meets from Monday to usually Friday of the same week, and usually at the same time as the SSC is meeting, and sometimes the issue I wanna comment on is taken up at the same time there as in the SSC. Sometimes not. And all three meet in different rooms, and,yes, usually at the same times.  But with the AP, the process is the same, and same set up, but this time with about 25 or so members on the panel. And 3 to 6 minutes to talk. And with the Council itself, usually the same. They usually meet from Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday. But here it is more intimidating, cause, well, they are THE Council. They have a bigger room with bigger tables and bigger chairs and more of an audience. And here, you get 3 minutes for an individual and 6 minutes for an organization to testify, and no more. There are green, yellow and red lights to tell you how much time you have. And, the Chair will say, "...thank you, your time is up." Any questions from the Council? If not, thanks. And its done. Here again, with the AP and the Council you try to lobby during breaks, but you also have additional competition from the other folks there. Lobbyists, processors, lawyers, fishers and long time friends who usually have the ear of the people you wanna talk to. And if you are lucky to get a Council member to talk to its usually really quick. They are on a break and have to go to the restroom or do something else. I personally have found some more approachable when I have followed them into the restroom, at least I can talk to them. So it is very difficult and extremely intimidating.

So, when John Hovevar wrote about our experience? Well, it was really something else. Imagine a person who lives in a village trying to do this. Imagine a person who's second language is english trying to do this. The expense? The intimidation? Ya, very little gets done if you are from a village. Unless of course if you are representing a CDQ organization, well, thats totally different. You will have bocoo bucks and paid lobbyists and lawyers to help you and speak for you. I have heard some of the executive directors of these organizations get paid upwards of $300,000 a year. They do this stuff. It is intimidating and really frustrating when and if you are a Tribal president trying to effectuate change. To protect your foods and your homes. It is nearly impossible to do it through this process.

This is why, it seems to me, the cultural heritage zones are the best chance to get protections for our families. We need to have a flag to rally around, an issue that makes sense. We need to help the people. We need support. For this, I am so grateful that Greenpeace is stepping up to the plate, not only to work to protect the oceans and habitat, but to help and support the Tribes on this planet we call mother earth.

This process is not fun. Not developed for people who live in villages, thats for sure. Too expensive and too foreign to our ways of living and communicating. But....? 

 

Kimberly-Clark, the world’s the largest tissue company, destroys ancient forests to make its disposable products.  They film Kleenex commercials by inviting people to sit on a couch in famous public places and “let it out” with a fake psychologist.  Sounds goofy, right?  Also sounds like a great opportunity for creative activism!

When Kleenex came to Times Square in New York, Greenpeace activists infiltrated the shoot and shut down filming with a banner.  The video is a classic (watch it here).  And, like any good classic, it deserves a sequel.

This time we were in Chicago.  It was a beautiful day for a ball game.  Fans decked out in blue and red Chicago Cubs gear were streaming towards historic Wrigley Field, eager to watch their team advance to the major league baseball playoffs.

Meanwhile, in a parking lot across from Wrigley Field, a Kimberly-Clark advertising crew was setting up another Kleenex commercial.  They had thought of everything…except the irony of trying to sell Kleenex at a Cubs game while clear-cutting cub and bear habitat in the Boreal Forest.

What a set up!  It was almost too easy for undercover Greenpeace volunteers to throw curve balls at the Kleenex crew.

What happened next?  Watch the video!

Pssst: If you have a YouTube account, rate the video, save it to your favorites list, and leave a comment for Kleenex to see.

You can read more, see photos and take action here.

Share the video and spread the word about Kleenex and Kimberly-Clark with family and friends!

George and I are at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council mtg in Anchorage this week.  George has been to a lot of these week-long monstrosities before, but this is my first time to experience it firsthand.  Imagine a process that involves six or more meetings a year, each lasting at least a week, full of nearly impenetrable jargon, at rotating locations spread all over the Pacific Northwest, and you can see pretty quickly that only professional industry lobbyists can hope to fully participate.

There are a handful of conservation-minded folks and small-scale fishermen that try to make a dent here, but for the mostpart it's by, for, and about the big money fishing industry. 

I'm here to present preliminary findings from our canyons exploration, and to start pushing for these areas to be protected.  I met with the Scientific and Statistical Committee last night, and things went well.  Bob Stone came up from NOAA's Auke Bay lab in Juneau to provide expert assistance, which was great.  Most of the SSC members attended, along with a handful of guests.  There were quite a few constructive questions, along with some free-flowing discussion.

In additions to sharing our findings, I also made a case for why the canyons should be set aside as no-take marine reserves.  It was a bit disturbing to see how little understanding there was of the existing protections along the Bering Sea shelf break (there are none), but this just helped emphasize the need to fill that gap.

If overheard hallway conversations are any indication, we've created quite a buzz here.  I heard people talking about the canyons expedition three times yesterday, and we're not even on the public agenda until Thursday.  One lobbyist paced back and forth through the hotel talking loudly on his cel phone, trashing our project at length to a reporter.  It was useful hearing what his attacks were going to be in advance!

The real drama will take place Thursday evening, when I present to the N. Pacific Council and the general public.  After more than a decade of failing to take action, the Council may finally be ready to move. 

Wish us luck!

John H

I am a long time Burma activist. I have spent some of each year for the past 7 years on the Thai-Burma border working with former political prisoners, refugees, migrant workers, doctors, lawyers, students, and 20-something backpackers for the freedom of the Burmese people. This issue, the freedom of a people, is not just a human rights issue, it is an environmental justice issue. Greenpeace, many years ago, worked on forest issues within Burma. It seems that American companies are very happy to make shady corrupt deals with the Burmese regime. If you do not know what is happening inside Burma right now, please check this out.

But what I really want to talk about this Monday morning, is how repressing human rights magnifies environmental degradation. Looking at the situation inside Burma is the easiest way to talk about this issue, though there are several cases within the United States where this also exists. Love Canal, Hurricane Katrina, superfund sites around Los Angeles, CA, refineries in Convent, LA, and chemical waste landfills in Port Author, TX --- to name just a few.

As many communities around the United States have seen, illegal dumping and irresponsible management of toxic substances leads to water and land pollution and the poisoning of our families and loved ones. One way to better understand the situation within Burma is by picturing the Love Canal and then adding child soldiers, slavery, and ethnic cleansing.

This weekend a couple friends and I spent an amazingly beautiful Washington DC early Fall afternoon walking around the city. As we were walking through downtown we saw about 100 birds flying in circles above a small round-about park in formation. We started discussing the simple complexities of eco-systems. We shared knowledge on how schools of fish react to predators and how bats understand community. We talked and talked and what we were really saying was that we are all connected. Everything we do effects the lives of people and animals and the giant complex eco-systems around us. A government can not suppress a persons freedom of speech without it directly relating to the way that government regulates toxic chemicals or the way that government turns a blind eye when foreign companies mismanage their waste systems within their country.

Supporting the Saffron Revolution is just one way to support the environmental justice activists within our own country. And what we are all doing by taking cyberactions, reading up on what is being done about the blown over oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and better understanding the connection between building pipelines and child slavery inside Burma is realizing Aung San Suu Kyi's words, " Please use your liberty to promote ours."

Renee 

 

 

I am back in the office after a long day last Thursday. I have been working on environmental issues full-time for over 7 years now and yesterday was the first time I crossed a police line and got arrested.

I felt completely confident I was doing the right thing by engaging in civil disobedience to demand that our governmental take real action, not false steps to curb global warming. Global warming is the real challenge of my generation and the generations to come.

If we do not take bold and swift action now I fear to think about the future world we will live in. Last Thursday, myself and 48 other activists protested Bush and his charade of a meeting on global warming. Bush is trying to take the world in the wrong direction by working outside and not engaging in the international Kyoto Treaty process, and his meeting is nothing more than a propaganda effort to deflect international criticism.

I was there on Thursday to do my part to show that Bush does not stand for the vast majority of Americans on this important issue. If Bush was serious about moving the country forward on global warming he would sign the Kyoto Protocol, period.

A friend of mine mentioned the other night that when people engage in civil disobedience an issue has reached a tipping point, he pointed to woman rights and the civil rights movement as examples. I think that this statement rings true to an extent.

Last Thursday, I shared a cell with two women, one of them was a grandmother and the other worked at a University of Maryland, like me they had ever been arrested before. They were not the stereotype of the 'lefty environmental extremist'. Across the country people from all walks of life are taking serious and bold action to preserve the future of our planet by demanding action on global warming.

Some might think a few people getting arrested is not going to do anything. While it may be true that our protest was a completely symbolic act I believe it is important to show the Bush does NOT speak for many Americans with his criminal stance on global warming.

I have always been inspired by the bold and brave acts of people in our history like Alice Paul and John Lewis. I hope that the movement to fight global warming continues to gain momentum like other social movements. It must, we have no other option but to force action. Our survival depends on it.

 

--Kate Smolski