Our work to defend tropical forests against the expansion of the palm oil industry is rooted in a broader effort to fight land grabbing -- the large scale acquisition of land by industries and governments that too often forces subsistence farmers, indigenous peoples and other land-based people off their land and puts their land into the service of extractive industries, industrial agriculture, or financial speculation. So we're pleased to share My Home, My Land, a…
Many governments and financial institutions support the deployment of “less dirty” fossil fuels to fight climate change both domestically and internationally, and claim this is a sane, sensible approach. Let’s try applying this logic to smoking. Here’s a scenario. A heavy smoker walks into her doctor’s office hacking up a lung. The doctor tells her patient that it’s fine to smoke, as long as the cigarettes are filtered. Ludicrous, right? The competence, let alone the…
On April 24, at the Ministerial meeting in Iqaluit, Nunavut, the United States will chair the Arctic Council, taking over from Canada. The last time the U.S. held the gavel at the Council -- a high-level intergovernmental forum composed of eight nations and six native organizations focused on sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic region -- was 2000. Much has transpired in the Arctic in the time since the U.S. last chaired the…
Monday, April 20, 2015, marks five years after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which spilled 210 million gallons of oil across the Gulf Coast. On the Friends of the Earth Medium page, climate change campaigner Marissa Knodel notes five lessons to remember after the months-long spill, the effects of which still linger today in the Gulf.
Read the full post here.
1. The BP Deepwater Horizon blowout and spill was…
We are excited to announce that the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for Central and South America has been awarded to Berta Cáceres, the indigenous co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, known as COPINH. Friends of the Earth congratulates Berta and COPINH for their bold and visionary efforts to stem the tide of destructive development under the gravest threats facing any environmental defenders today.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded to…
The board and staff of Friends of the Earth U.S. are deeply saddened by the passing of Oronto Douglas. Oronto was a co-founder of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria. Oronto was also a leading human rights attorney who championed the rights of people in Africa to demand a healthier and more just world. Despite being arrested and tortured by the country's military, Oronto continued to speak out and work for social justice. We…
Last Thursday, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the second highest court in the state, ruled that the state’s environmental regulators are breaking the law by failing to clean up stormwater pollution in Montgomery County.
Last week, Yum! Brands, the company that owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, announced a zero deforestation policy for its sourcing of palm oil, to ensure the palm oil the company’s restaurants use to fry foods will no longer be linked to rainforest destruction and human rights abuses. The policy sets a December 2017 target for establishing safeguards for palm oil sourcing. Just days prior to the Yum! Brands announcement, industrial agricultural…
Every year, thousands of cruise ships criss-cross the globe, burning highly toxic fuel, producing asthma-causing emissions and dumping sewage directly into the ocean. Most cruise lines only meet federal pollution standards that are decades out of date.
Through the Friends of the Earth International network, we have been collaborating with Friends of the Earth Europe and all the Friends of the Earth national affiliates across the continent to influence public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic by exposing the corrupt influence Big Oil, Wall Street, global agricultural giants, and other selfish interest groups pushing for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership trade deal between the U.S. and EU. This is an…