For the indigenous people who live in the Bolivian Amazon, life is hard. People are increasingly suffering from the effects of climate change, both forest fires caused by prolonged dry seasons and flooding due to more intense rainfall.  The flooding has the knock-on effect of causing malnutrition and disease because forest communities rely on firewood. When there is no dry wood, cooking food or boiling safe drinking water becomes extremely difficult and gas is often too expensive to get hold of.

The dependency on firewood not only reduces the unique biodiversity of the Amazon, collecting it and cooking with it is a time consuming and back breaking task which mainly falls on women. Deforestation also means these women must walk further and further to find the fuel they need to feed their families. It is estimated that women spend four hours a day cooking on wood and an hour collecting it.  

But now the versatility of renewable technology and the natural energy provided by the sun is starting to change all this.  Through its local partner organisations in the region, UK charity Christian Aid has started to give solar ovens to women. These orange boxes, powered by solar panels to capture sunlight, have already proven effective on the high plains of Bolivia where radiation is strong. But they have now been shown to also work further down, in the lower, more forested valleys, and even during the rainy season.  

At first it was unclear if families would adjust to the new contraptions having spent years cooking food in traditional ways on wood fires. But after plenty of practice and training women have become masters of what they now call ‘solar cooking’. They prepare the food in the morning, place it in the oven in a sunny spot and then let the power of the sun and human-made technology do the rest. It’s remarkable to see the oven lids opened after a few hours as clouds of steam emerge and pots full of delicious food are lifted out.

The 3 kilograms of firewood each family used to use for every meal is obviously a great saving for the forest, reducing deforestation and protecting the Amazonian ‘lungs of the earth’. For the women of the often-patriarchal communities the solar ovens have also had a transformative impact on their social and political lives too.

Doña Natividad Matareco, from the Bermejo region of Bolivia, said the saved time had allowed her and other women to become more politically empowered. “The Women Organisation in the community has meetings on Sundays in the afternoon,” she said. “We discuss important issues about the community. Before I could not attend the meetings because I thought ‘I cannot go, I have to cook. If my husband comes back and the food is not ready he will be upset’. But now I can attend the meetings. For me this is a big change. Now I can be in a meeting all day, discussing important community issues. As women, we need to decide ourselves that we have the right to participate, to organise ourselves, to look after ourselves.”

This newfound ‘spare time’ has also helped women’s economic empowerment too. In another community, Doña Esther Guarayuco, now is able to run a small shop. She explained: “I now have more free time which I use to clean my house, or to sew things with my sewing machine. I also have my small grocery store: I can do one thing and still sell.”

In the era of Donald Trump – whose behaviour towards women and threats to action on climate change are well known – it’s easy to feel despondent. But it’s worth remembering that in the jungles of the Amazon, away from the news headlines, environmental protection and gender justice is on the march.

This Author

Joe Ware is a journalist and writer at Christian Aid and a New Voices contributor to the Ecologist. He is on twitter @wareisjoe

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

“It’s like the rug has been pulled from under our feet.” Ana Sipona is a landowner in West Pomio, in Papua New Guinea, an area that has been devastated by logging and palm oil operations in recent years. Dozens of foreign companies have signed land deals under a government scheme – Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs) – that has allowed them access to a vast expanse of land and forest resources all over the Pacific country.

A wealth of biodiversity sustaining millions

With over 800 indigenous languages spoken, forests and waters teeming with more than 20,000 species of plants, 2,000 species of trees, and 700 species of birds, Papua New Guinea is one of the most diverse countries in the world. Historically, this abundance has been one of the country’s greatest assets. Most Papua New Guineans have been able to maintain traditional lifestyles based on a mix of cash crops and subsistence agriculture, hunting, fishing, and gathering. Until recently, 97% of the country’s land was maintained under customary ownership, a system in which the land is owned and controlled by the clans and the tribes who live on it. Most people live in small communities of a few hundred villagers who maintain intimate relationships with the land and natural resources. Rural families get their income from the sale of produce from family gardens, forest products, and small-scale cash crops such as cocoa, coconut, vanilla, betel nut, and coffee.

This treasure of biodiversity and the livelihoods of millions is now threatened by this new wave of land grabbing. Some 5.5 million hectares of land have been leased through the SABL scheme. Most were signed without the consent of local communities. Added to pre-existing logging concessions, over 15 million hectares-more than one third of the country-are now in the hands of foreign firms. The country has now surpassed Malaysia as the world’s top exporter of tropical wood.

People’s resistance to the theft of their land and forest

Ana Sipona is one of the many citizens who have mobilized their communities and are standing up to their own government and the loggers, to protect their land, their forests, and their livelihoods. Taking On the Logging Pirates, a new report from the Oakland Institute, features some of the leading figures in this struggle who all share their experience of resistance.

The testimonies tell the story of the steady destruction of traditions and natural landscape and describe the impact on people’s livelihoods. They also recount the various forms of resistance, including public protests, roadblocks, civil disobedience, petitions, and court cases to have their land returned to them.

People’s resistance has been met with violence and intimidation. In a number of cases, local villagers resisting these land deals through peaceful protests have been arrested, beaten, or relocated. Paul Pavol, from West Pomio, shares the hardship faced by his community: “We, the landowners, continued to set up road blockades and invited international organizations to help us get support for our cause, but we are still waiting for justice …

“Police have confronted our families and clan members, intimidating us and suppressing our rights. Some of our community members faced police brutality. They used abusive language, belted us with sticks, made us stand under the hot sun for hours, and arrested us. We were treated like animals and second-class citizens on our own land.”

People resisting the theft of their land and destruction of the environment reject the deceitful development rhetoric of the government, conveniently used to take away people’s land and forests. The government’s official strategy is to “free up land for development“, which justifies taking people’s land for the so-called development of the country.

The land defenders advocate for a model of development that respects people, their culture and values, and their natural environment. Communities are rising up against the inaction and complicity of their own government and call on their leaders to stand with the people instead of foreign firms that have inflicted corruption, conflict, and devastation.

Palm oil is not bringing development

Research conducted by the Oakland Institute has revealed that these land deals are not benefitting the people or the economy of PNG. In Kimbe, West New Britain Province, Rose Avusi explains: “I don’t see any benefit to the community. There is no education facility, no health services. The price of oil palm is still very low, so it doesn’t bring any benefit to the people or any change to their lives.”

Though palm oil operations have been going on for decades in West New Britain, there is still no sign of improved living conditions or ‘development’ for the people. Whereas these so-called investments have a high human and environmental cost, economic benefits appear to be marginal, especially given widespread financial malpractice and tax evasion.

Most important, these land deals are taking place against the will of the people and in violation of the country’s laws and of its constitution, which is supposed to protect customary land rights and sets self-reliance, sovereignty, and the sustainable management of natural resources as the overarching principles for the country.

Lack of action on the Commission of Inquiry’s findings

In May 2011, the government established a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to look into the operations behind the SABLs. The CoI report released in 2013 details how the majority of the land deals were granted illegally, without proper informed consent, or granted under threat, intimidation, or bribery. As confirmed during the Institute’s field research, land deals involved all sorts of irregularities, including faked signatures and coercion or sheer bullying of communities. When presenting the CoI report to the parliament in 2013, the country’s prime minister, Peter O’Neill, said that the report revealed a shocking trend of corruption and mismanagement and that the program had, in his own words, “failed miserably”. He later announced that all illegal land deals would be cancelled and the land returned to the people.

Three years later, the government has taken no action to reverse any of the 70 land deals and return land titles to landowners.

This land grab is stoppable

With one third of the land in the hands of foreign corporations and the struggle on the ground so unequal and unfair, the good news is that this land grab is stoppable.

Following the Oakland Institute report that provided clear evidence that timber companies in the country were evading taxes while engaging in illegal practices, in November 2016, the government acted on the findings by substantially increasing in the log export tax. This action is expected to reduce logging and deforestation in PNG, and was a direct result of the public outrage and citizens’ mobilization against illegal logging and corruption.

On the legal front, local communities have scored several victories against the logging firms and palm oil conglomerates. Legal action to wrest control of the land back to its rightful owners was successful in 2014, when a National Court ruled in favor of returning 38,000 hectares in Oro Province following a suit by landowners. In September 2016, a court decision in East New Britain Province and a Supreme Court ruling on an SABL in East Sepik Province returned a total of 150,000 hectares. Nevertheless, these figures are still far from the millions of hectares stolen from the people of Papua New Guinea.

Governor Gary Juffa of Oro Province however carries this message of hope forward, stating: “The country is rising up to defeat the pirates. Of course, there is hope. Not all are convinced that greed and profit are the only way of life. Many are realizing that the forests are them. Lose the forests, lose yourself. They are rising up. Their sons and daughters are learning to live in this ruthless and globalized world. The forests will not be lost. The pirates’ days are numbered… The forest, as it has always done, will reclaim its territory.”

This Author

Frédéric Mousseau is the Policy Director at the Oakland Institute where he coordinates the Institute’s research and advocacy activities on land investment, food security and agriculture. He has authored several reports around land deals and logging in Papua New Guinea, available at Oakland Institute

The Oakland Institute reports and film on Papua New Guinea:

On Our Land: Modern Land Grabs Reversing Independence in Papua New Guinea Land Grabs

The Great Timber Heist: The Logging Industry in Papua New Guinea Timber Heist

Taking On the Logging Pirates: Land Defenders in Papua New Guinea Speak Out! Speaking Out

On Our Land: Watch the Film

Right now, the UK government is figuring out how to make a decisive break from using coal for electricity – by 2025.

At the same time, it’s deciding whether to approve a brand new coalmine – the UK’s largest – on a beautiful stretch of north-eastern coastline.

Are we the only ones who feel there’s only one clear choice here?

Last year, Northumberland County Council made the astonishing decision to approve plans for a three million tonne opencast coalmine near Druridge Bay.

Then, in September, the approval was ‘called in’ by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid. It’s believed to be the first planning decision called in on climate grounds. The next step will be a public inquiry, expected in June this year.

It’s a significant and symbolic move by the government. A massive coalmine would be totally inconsistent with governmental commitments to address climate change. It’s vital this mine is not given permission to go ahead.

Banks Mining’s backward logic

Banks Mining group, the project’s owner, argues that the Highthorn planning application “allows for a five year extraction period, meaning it will be completed well in advance of the government’s 2025 date for phasing out energy generation from unabated coal.”

This message unfortunately misses the point of the coal phase-out and ignores the disastrous effects of fossil fuels’ contribution to climate change. We are not in a race against time to mine and burn as much coal as possible before we’re no longer allowed to. We’re on a serious mission to decarbonise.

Over its lifetime this mine would be responsible for the release of more than 8.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – roughly the entire annual output of Belize or Albania. That is the equivalent of driving 1.8 million cars for a year – or, more pertinently, installing 2,150 wind turbines.

Approving this application cannot be in line with the UK’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement – nor the UK’s coal phaseout, which, by definition, implies measured steps and the gradual reduction of coal energy with a deadline of 2025.

The 2025 deadline should not be used to grant coal unbridled use for another eight years!

Coal developments mean stranded assets

Coal is, by popular admission, on its way out. Even large coal players such as Drax Group have converted a large sector of the Drax power station to biomass.

ClientEarth does not condone the industrial use of biomass energy due to its dubious status as a ‘renewable’ source of energy. But we do take this move by Drax to transition from coal as testimony to the speed at which it is vanishing from British energy culture.

And take the brand new coal facilities that have come online in the Netherlands – and just as quickly found that they’ll most likely need to close to meet carbon commitments. We need consistent decisions from the UK that make it clear that investment in coal is now unviable.

At the top of the list of questions considered at the public inquiry this summer should be the grave impact burning coal has on human health and the environment. Last year’s ‘Lifting Europe’s Dark Cloud‘ report showed mitigating coal use would reduce the EU’s thousands of premature deaths from coal by nearly 90% each year.

Are councils hampered when it comes to considering climate change?

The council’s approval was a reckless, short-sighted move. Coal is increasingly uneconomic and the project is – by Banks’ own admission – short-lived. The mine would leave a hole in a landscape that supports a rich and self-sustaining tourism industry.

Concerns are so high in Northumberland over the loss of beautiful land and valuable wildlife habitats, and the increase of pollution in the region, that local campaigners are raising money to take the decision to court.

Local planning decisions, logically, need to be consistent with the climate aspirations of the whole country. That means that they should fit with the goal of our climate change law: driving emissions down.

But local councils may feel nervous about making planning decisions to refuse permission for developments, only for applications to be upheld on appeal – leaving cash-strapped local authorities stuck for substantial costs.

Local authorities need a clear instruction from the UK government to requiring them to uphold national climate change obligations. This would ideally take the form of an addition to the National Planning Policy Framework or a National Policy Statement. Instructions need to be clear enough that climate considerations come out on top of conflicting priorities – including the financial worth of a development project to the developer and landowner.

An opencast mine has no place in this transitional time. UK, European and world leaders have committed to the vital journey to a low-carbon economy. This decision has been called-in in large part due to its threat to the climate. Those carrying out the planning inquiry must keep this at the front of their minds.

Deniz Kemal works with the Energy team at environment lawyers ClientEarth.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Reclaim the power! Progress towards a fossil-free UK‘.

Contact: Ellen Baker, ClientEarth – 0203 030 5951 / ebaker@clientearth.org

Campaigners are currently fighting for protection over decapod crustaceans, saving them from unnecessary suffering.

Crustacean Compassion, a new animal welfare group, wants the UK government to recognise lobsters, crabs and other crustaceans as animals – entitled to the same protection afforded to other creatures.

Their first step towards achieving their goal comes in the form of a petition to protect crabs and lobsters from pain under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

The petition to Defra Minister George Eustice highlights the fact that currently there is no legal requirement to take the welfare needs of decapod crustaceans into account, with live crabs and lobsters on occasions being found in supermarkets wrapped in plastic shrink wrap, or being boiled in restaurant kitchens and taking three minutes to die. Some are just ripped apart, with claws or tails hacked off with knives.

Some supermarkets and restaurants do stun crustaceans before they are slaughtered, in response to public concerns, however animal welfare laws do not currently apply to decapod crustaceans in the UK. A number of creatures come under the umbrella of the decapod family, including crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns, and shrimp.

Evidence has shown that these water dwellers do indeed feel pain and that the inhumane way in which they are often stored, handled and slaughtered causes them suffering. One piece of research by Robert Elwood and Laura Adams of Queen’s University involved 40 European shore crabs. A percentage of the crabs were administered a 10-volt, 180-hertz shock for 200 milliseconds every 10 seconds for two minutes. Crabs that were not shocked served as the controls. The crabs were then measured for their lactate levels, which indicates a stress response, and those that had been shocked showed a far higher level of lactate.

In New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, decisions have been made to include decapod crustaceans in their animal welfare legislation. In Australia, a Sydney fishmonger became the first business to be convicted of animal cruelty when it pleaded guilty to breaching the New South Wales Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act in February this year, for dismembering lobsters with a band saw.

Investigators from the RSCPA watched workers at Nicholas Seafoods separating lobsters’ tails from their bodies while they were still alive. The process was believed to cause the lobsters immense pain.

But as decapods are not legally classed as “animals” in the UK, any crustaceans handled here can come under extreme stress and suffering without anyone being held to account.

Crustacean Compassion’s Campaign Director, Maisie Tomlinson said: “We believe that it is unfair, unscientific and legally inconsistent that the Animal Welfare Act excludes decapod crustaceans, given what is now known about their ability to feel pain. The Act explicitly states that invertebrate animals can be included under the definition of ‘animal’ if there is sufficient evidence of pain and suffering.

“We urge George Eustice to amend the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to include these sentient, sensitive creatures under its protections so that responsible food businesses can do the right thing.” 

Crustacean Compassion was formed after its founders read about live crabs being packaged in supermarkets. In November 2015, a Korean supermarket in Surrey was found to be selling live crabs pre-packaged in cling film. They were slowly suffocating and completely immobilised. The RSPCA was powerless to take legal action because the animals weren’t covered by the Animal Welfare Act.

For the Government to take action crustaceans must first be recognised as sentient, pain-feeling creatures. They must be seen to be animals. Seen as such, they would have to be kept, stored and slaughtered in a humane way.

Although there are no set rules for how to slaughter crustaceans, international guidelines do exist, with particularly comprehensive advice from RSPCA Australia. They recommend stunning before slaughter, and the next best method would be chilling first.

Crustacean Compassion believes that UK legislation to protect lobsters and crabs from unnecessary suffering is overdue, and its petition calls for an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (England and Wales) to include decapod crustaceans in its definition of ‘animal’ which would give them legal protection from cruelty.

This would ensure that anyone farming them, storing them or slaughtering them would have to abide by basic animal welfare principles: enough food, a suitable environment, and protection from unnecessary pain and suffering at slaughter. 

The campaign group put in a Freedom of Information request which revealed Defra had carried out no assessments on the welfare needs of decapod crustaceans since research showed their ability to feel pain. That’s no change since 2005 when it was decided decapods wouldn’t be included in the Animal Welfare Bill.

At this time however, they included a caveat stating that invertebrates could be included under the Act’s protections if scientific evidence of their ability to feel pain became satisfactory.

If you would like for decapod crustaceans to be recognised under UK law as animals, you can join the many signatures already collected by Crustacean Compassion and sign their Petition

This Author

Laura Briggs is the Ecologist’s UK-based news reporter  

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