Campaigners from Friends of the Earth U.S., Friends of the Earth Europe and NAPE-Friends of the Earth Uganda are in Indonesia this week for strategy meetings with Walhi-Friends of the Earth Indonesia and a closed-door discussion with palm oil giant Wilmar International to make the company aware of ongoing problems in its operations and to ask about implementation of its much-talked-about “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” policy.
Friends of the Earth groups have…
In a powerful new video, When We Were Hela, Pulitzer Prize - winning journalist Ian Shearn takes us to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, where a massive natural gas project has caused death and destruction in local communities. The story in his video, as well as in his in-depth article in The Nation, centers around a $19 billion liquid natural gas project built by ExxonMobil and financed by the US Export-Import Bank. In 2012,…
What if fighting dirty money in our elections was the key to fighting dirty fuels in our economy? That’s the question asked in a recent report released by the Sierra Club and Oil Change International.
From the perspective of the fossil fuel industry, political contributions are just another form of investment. The only difference is that, for the millions polluters spend on elections, they see billions in bonus profits. As the report says, “The return…
Follow the Honey: 7 ways pesticide companies are spinning the bee crisis to protect profits
On April 23, 2014, President of Friends of the Earth Erich Pica gave remarks at a press conference hosted by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) on the environmental benefits of the Government By the People Act, recently introduced by Sarbanes. The bill would provide tax incentives for small donors and match small donations made to candidates with federal funds, lessening the grip big polluters have on American politics. A companion bill, the Fair Elections Now Act,…
Update, April 21, 2014: Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Oregon Aviation Watch have filed a petition asking the EPA to address the continued use of leaded aviation gasoline. The below blog post, originally posted in June 2013, details the Friends of the Earth's history of pressuring the EPA on the issue of leaded avgas.
It has been more than 16 years since the Environmental Protection Agency required the complete phase-out…
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launched the second installment of its Fifth Assessment Report detailing the findings of Working Group II, which focuses on the impacts of climate change and outlines future risks and adaptation strategies. The report makes it evident that that the impacts of climate change are reflective of grave injustices, with the poorest and most at risk people and countries more acutely affected by a predicament they had little…
Friends of the Earth Argentina is engaged in a campaign to protect some of that country’s most important wetlands, and their campaign will soon arrive at the doorstep of an unlikely accomplice in the potential destruction: Harvard University.
According to a report released late last year by the Oakland Institute and the Responsible Investment at Harvard coalition, industrial timber plantations owned by Harvard University in the Corrientes province of Argentina have degraded the Iberá Wetlands ecosystem and…
When Friends of the Earth detailed the abuses and illegal actions of the Indonesian palm oil company Bumitama Agri in our report, Commodity Crimes last November, it set in motion a discussion in which the company made a number of promises to improve its practices. The report and its allegations also contributed to the pressure that led Wilmar International, the largest purchaser of Bumitama’s oil, to make its historic No Deforestation, No Peat,…