The Ecologist explores the causes of environmental degradation and the impact of our societies on the natural world, and this can be insightful, necessary – but overwhelming. So The Ecologist is increasingly seeking the solutions, successes and hope that will steer us into the future.

The Ecologist was established in 1970, and in its lifetime has sparked and nurtured organisations like Friends of the Earth and the Green Party, exposed the shocking environmental records of huge corporations like Monsanto, and initiated multiple global campaigns. You can learn more about the history of The Ecologist here. 

It’s mission has always been to deepen the public understanding of the relationship between human society and the natural environment. This remains more relevant today than ever before. 

Recognise complexity

We are now entering a new era in our history. As well as celebrating solutions, The Ecologist will look to systems theory and social ecology to more deeply understand the interconnectedness of the issues that affect us all. You can read more about our way of being by scrolling down to the ‘themes’ section of our About Us page.

The world has changed significantly in the lifetime of The Ecologist – and so too has the magazine. It has evolved from small print journal, to national news magazine, to a global online news organisation.

And to remain a platform that is respected and valued globally, it must be in tune with what its readers and contributors are saying and wanting. To that end, The Ecologist has been asking questions about who it serves and how it can better support them.

As a result, we will be focusing on delivering high quality content delivered by and to change makers, thought leaders and academics. Of course, these categorisations overlap, intersect and merge – and all of them overlap or are linked in one way or another to consumers, trade, media, public and private sectors, and many others.

So, The Ecologist will focus its content and not try to cover every story on the earth – and there are thankfully plenty of platforms like ours who we collaborate with, or who pick up where we leave off – but we also recognise complexity and interconnectedness and our content will reflect this. 

Synthesising wisdom 

We will keep learning about our audiences, our contributors, and the world which we all impact and are impacted by. We will host events that bring together contributors and audiences to nurture fruitful collisions, alchemy, discussion and debate.

We want to live by the ways of being that we are exploring – including networks and ecosystems – and we will absorb and offer thinking that contributes to what it means to be a networked organisation in our current age.

We want The Ecologist to become a network that reaches far and wide, not to simply churn out information to people who are already overwhelmed with it, but instead to play a role in synthesising thinking and ideas.

As biologist EO Wilson says: “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

We want to understand and amplify the known and less-well-known voices around the world who can help our global, national, community and individual leadership make those important choices that will impact the world that we live in now, and will leave to the future.

This is where you come in…

We want to grow our network and connect people and ideas, and so we are looking for talented contributors who are interested in writing regularly for The Ecologist, through the lens of one of our three content strands – thought leadership, change makers, or academia. 

These are currently not paid roles, but we will do what we can to get your work and ideas out to a global audience of millions.

We’ll also provide you with one year’s free membership of the Resurgence Trust, which includes a bi-monthly print version of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine – or digital if you prefer. And you’ll be invited to events to meet other ecologists and environmentalists. This is where the alchemy happens!  

If you are interested in becoming a regular volunteer contributor then please email us and we will provide you with further information. You can trial our ‘beta’ form or simply email us.

If you are an academic, contact Catherine Harte at academia [at] theecologist.org. If you are a thought leader, contact Elizabeth Wainwright at thoughtleader [at] theecologist.org. If you are a change maker contact Marianne Brooker at changemaker [at] theecologist.org. If you would like to contact the editor directly, email Brendan Montague at brendan [at] theecologist.org. 

We look forward to you being a part of our unfolding story!

This Author

Elizabeth Wainwright is a contributing editor of The Ecologist working with thought leaders. She is a former editor at the Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. Elizabeth co-leads the community development charity, Arukah Network, and is based in Devon. Twitter: @LizWainwright.

Dozens of people were attempting over the weekend to stop Banks Group from finishing building the access road to its Bradley site near Dipton.

Work on building the road stopped at the site at 8.30pm on Saturday after protesters locked themselves across an area where the company was trying to lay tarmac. Construction is yet to start again.

Simon Daniels, one of the blockading activists, said he planned to stay as long as possible to prevent the operations from going ahead.

New woodland

“I spent four years studying the science behind climate change. Today, I am taking the data to its logical implications. Coal has got to stop. My actions are necessary,” he said.

Banks Group has permission to extract 500,000 tonnes of coal from the site. The activists claim Banks’s planning agreement means it cannot start mining operations on the site until it has completed the access road, and that because the road is not yet finished, planning permission should have expired on Sunday.

The company insists all legal permissions are in place, and that its permission has not expired because it has already formally begun mining operations.

A statement released by the company said: “Around 30 new jobs will be supported at the Bradley site when it is fully operational, along with others in the local supply chain.

Breathable air

“Site operations are scheduled to run for between two and three years, with all on site activity complete in 2021. Restoration will include the creation of new woodland and a nature reserve area, as well as the return of some of the land to agricultural use.”

Previous protests against the mine in April led to arrests after activists tied themselves to trees and hid in underground tunnels.

Suzanne Leigh, a local resident, said: “If Banks think we’re going to leave them be, they can think again. Local people have fought for thirty years to keep this valley green, keep the air breathable, and keep fossil fuels under the ground.

“In that time this country has moved past coal. Coal is our heritage but the valley itself is the asset we value most here.”

This Author

Alexandra Heal is a journalist and MA student at City University, London. She freelances for BBC News and is co-founder of siftguide.com. She tweets at @alexandraheal.

When it comes to the growing ecological crisis on the planet today, major media can do a pretty poor job of covering this subject matter with any constancy or depth.

Even when major news media focuses upon the environment, it tends to run hit pieces on the disappearing glaciers, followed by another piece on the importance of recycling as if the latter will effectively solve the former.

And when the mounting ecological disaster is covered, it is presented as tenuous as the growing fears of economic collapse, each postured as conspiracy theories whose remedy is to just “snap out of it” and be positive!

Amenable species

When we turn towards media focussed on ecology, this news tends to be about emerging theories, how new tech is revolutionising the planet, the industry standards of mattress recycling for hotel beds, or the usual story on roadside pollution. All are important areas of potential change.

However, even the cumulative efforts of all the above would not put a dent in one of the most important ecological issues facing us: the consumption and production of meat.

Meat production is the elephant in the room that not even the largest environmental charities are addressing – but now the U.S. government is.

Earlier this month the US government gave the nod to the ecological disaster at hand when a Congressional subcommittee on government spending voted to advance a bill to the 46-member House Agriculture Committee.

This would authorise the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to regulate how cell-cultured meat products are labeled and inspected for safety, proposing  to “regulate products made from cells of amenable species of livestock, as defined in the Federal Meat Inspection Act, or poultry, as defined in the Poultry Products Inspection act, grown under controlled conditions for use as human food.” 

Grass-fed beef

Cultured meat proponents claim that this technology would spare animals life, require less energy and land, and emit fewer greenhouse gases than conventional meat production does. While the proposed measure does not go into detail as to the relationship between meat production and its ecological impact, plenty before have.

One of the most important books on this topic without a doubt is Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. 

Pollan examines every aspect of our food system to include the ethics of our current diets based on various primary food sources ranging from the industrial, the organic, to the local, examining the impact of our food system on the body and on the planet leaving no mystery as to how each dinner he describes came into being.

Himself an omnivore, Pollan specifically critiques environmentalists who push meat-eating or who claim that grass-fed animals is a solution to environmental ruin.  It’s not, he maintains, it’s part of the problem. Pollan advocates for a diet that is mostly plant-based and if one does eat meat, then to move away from eating it daily.

On the flip side of Pollan is Nicolette Hahn Niman who argues that grass-fed beef can be made sustainable in Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production. 

Greenhouse emissions

Yet, there are problems with some of her contentions, even if the nutritional value of grass-fed beef is higher than cord-fed beef.

For starters, Niman is able to sell her upscaled beef to the affluent area of Marin County, California, at a price most Californians could simply not afford. So the sustainability of such beef would be for an elite public and would unavoidably end up not being sustainable.

The most debatable point of her book, however, is when Niman makes the argument for grain-fed beef while utterly failing to demonstrate the availability of grazing land to produce enough beef to feed those in just North America. And she fails to demonstrate how this would work. It is physically impossible.

In the Keegan Kuhn’s and Kip Andersen’s film, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, we are given information as to the pros and cons of corn-fed and grass-fed beef. 

Many facts are presented, such as how the raising of factory animals creates 18 percent of greenhouse emissions and how livestock and their byproducts account for 51 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Not sustainable

At one point in the film, Andersen visits the Markegard family farm where they specialise in grass-fed beef and he hears their figures for what would work. The film then takes these figures and shows the physical impossibility of having grass-fed beef to feed the world using the Markegard family’s model for farming.

If it takes 4,500 acres of grassland to produce 80,000 pounds of beef with the average American consuming 209 pounds of beef a year, this would mean that 382 people could live from this land (11.7 acres a head).

Take this figure and calculate for 314 million Americans and that comes to 3.7 billion acres of grazing land. However, the continental United States is only 1.9 billion acres and thus, the filmmakers show how there would have to be grasslands extending into Canada, south through Mexico, all of Central America, past Colombia and well into Brazil. 

This land should then be cleared of cities, buildings, and homes with all mountains and forests levelled, all to create grain-growing terrain to feed enough cattle to in turn feed only those in the United States.

Kuhn and Andersen demonstrated that grain-fed beef is simply not sustainable by any measure and point to the larger issues of how the meat lobby has maintained the silence of major NGO’s on this specific issue.

Respecting life

Watching Cowspiracy, it is no wonder that Greenpeace refused to be interviewed while other organisations under investigation – Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, and Rainforest Action Network – were unable to answer the filmmakers’ questions regarding the impact meat production has on the planet which directly affects their NGO’s mandate.

What is evident is that the meat industry is powerful. During the production of this project, one of the film’s backers pulled out, apparently after coming under pressure from someone within the meat industry.

While there are various ways to bring about ecological change that don’t necessarily mean donning Birkenstocks and going vegan, recent literature and films on the subject are strongly advocating that if people cannot become vegan or vegetarian, that at the very least they ought to try eating less meat. 

Or, as the United States will soon find out, cultured meat could also be a happy alternative. 

One thing is certain: it is incumbent upon us to take the necessary steps to do our part in preserving the environment and respecting life as we thus far know it.

This Author

Dr Julian Vigo is a scholar, film-maker and human rights consultant. She is the author of Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015).

The world’s largest amphibian – the Chinese giant salamander – is on the brink of extinction due to the demand from the luxury food market, according to a new study.

Andrias davidianus has now all but disappeared from its traditional freshwater habitats, fished to satisfy the growing demand for this highly coveted delicacy. The amphibians, which can grow up to 1.8m long, are routinely harvested from the wild to stock commercial breeding farms.

Chinese giant salamanders belong to an ancient group of salamanders that diverged from their closest relatives over 170 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, and are considered a global conservation priority for maintaining evolutionary history. Now they are classified as critically endangered by the leading global watchdog of nature conservation.

Most extensive wildlife survey

Dr Samuel Turvey, from Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Institute of Zoology, is a co-author of the report published in the journal Current Biology.

He said: “The overexploitation of these incredible animals for human consumption has had a catastrophic effect on their numbers in the wild over an amazingly short time-span. Unless coordinated conservation measures are put in place as a matter of urgency, the future of the world’s largest amphibian is in serious jeopardy.”

The landmark study details how a team of scientists from ZSL, an international conservation charity, working alongside local partners including the Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ), conducted the most extensive wildlife survey seen in China to date. 

Field surveys were carried out at 97 sites in 16 of the country’s 23 provinces over a four-year period, providing first-hand evidence of the desperate plight faced by Chinese giant salamanders, which face threats including poaching for growing human demand.

A related study also published in Current Biology reveals that the Chinese giant salamander, previously thought to represent a single species, actually appears to consist of at least five distinct genetic lineages – some of which are now exceedingly rare and possibly already extinct in the wild.

A flagship species

Dr Fang Yan from KIZ, a co-author, said: “Together with addressing wider pressures such as poaching for commercial farms and habitat loss, it’s essential that suitable safeguards are put in place to protect the unique genetic lineage of these amazing animals, which dates back to the time of the dinosaurs.”

Chinese legislation prohibits the harvesting of wild populations of Chinese giant salamander. The country’s Ministry of Agriculture supports widespread releases of farmed animals as a conservation measure.

Paradoxically, this approach may be harmful to wild populations as it risks mixing genetic lineages and spreading wildlife disease. The study’s authors instead call for the establishment of captive populations of genetically distinct lineages for the specific purpose of conservation breeding.

Chinese giant salamanders are a flagship species for China’s freshwater river systems. Efforts to conserve these charismatic amphibians will play a vital role in protecting the region’s habitats and biodiversity, as well as freshwater resources for the people of China.

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor of The Ecologist. Click here for more information on the work ZSL is doing to conserve amphibians worldwide. 

The campaign against onshore fossil fuel exploration has taken a dark turn, with an attempt by an oil company to stifle peaceful protest. I am one of six women who decided to be named and defend ourselves in the High Court against this attack on human rights.

It’s not just on behalf of ourselves. The injunction by UK Oil and Gas is against “persons unknown”. If we had stood back we would now have an interim injunction banning “lawful activities” which conflicted with UKOG’s commercial interests.

Support their campaign online.

We felt we had no choice. The potential for other companies to use this wide ranging and draconian step was enormous. So we put our names forward and became the Surrey and Sussex six!

Drill on Leith Hill

In fact, many more people came forward initially. The first hearing at the High Court in March was so crowded that extra chairs were brought in.

Bianca Jagger turned up outside the court to talk about the need to defend human rights. UKOG had bitten off more than it could chew. The judge adjourned the case – which was clearly not going to proceed within the couple of hours set aside.

Within days UKOG had amended their injunction to remove the reference to lawful activities. It now seeks to ban promoting or encouraging activities which they are seeking to define as “unlawful”.

These include some commonly used and perfectly legal tools of peaceful protest in the campaign against fracking and other forms of extreme oil and gas extraction. 

None of us chose to take this on. Oil drilling plans arrived on our doorsteps. Europa Oil and Gas has been trying since 2009 to get all its consents to drill on Leith Hill in the Surrey Hills – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Green Belt.

Public access

The proposed oil drilling site is accessed by an historic sunken lane which is so narrow that it is difficult for two cars to pass at some points. Europa plans to use the lane to move an oil rig and tonnes of aluminium trackway and to bring out waste including radioactive waste.

The plan was given the green light by the Planning Inspectorate in 2015 after Surrey County Council had turned it down.

There was an heroic fight by the Leith Hill Action Group, which has raised thousands of pounds for legal costs. Now just the traffic management plan and the environmental permits have to be secured.

During that long saga another local group was formed – A Voice for Leith Hill – which aims to give voice to this beautiful area, its trees, the water which feeds the aquifer for Dorking and Leatherhead, the wildlife and tranquillity.

This was designated public access land, until the Forestry Commission leased it off to Europa and put up a fence.

Fracking by another name

A protection camp popped up towards the end of 2016 and has been there ever since. Locals and protectors are now working together to oppose this awful plan.

The drill proposed at Leith Hill – the same used at other sites in Surrey and Sussex – involves horizontal drilling. It isn’t defined as fracking because the water volumes involved are too low. Instead it would use acid to fracture the rock and release the oil. This is tight oil, in rock that has low permeability.

Many involved in the campaign across the Weald have signed up to the Weald Action Group and become experts in acidisation and the environmental impacts of it.

This is fracking by another name, with its own set of impacts falling through a loophole in regulation and good practice. Local communities and the environment are suffering as a result.

When the Environment Agency said it was minded to grant the permit for drilling on Leith Hill over 100,000 people signed a petition about their concerns to their drinking water. Independent hydrogeologists have found the oil company’s claims about risk to be lacking the right analysis. 

Keep fighting

Which brings us back to the injunction. We are standing together across the Weald against the rush for tight oil. UKOG has now bought a 40 percent share in the Leith Hill site. It operates at Horse Hill near Gatwick Airport and Broadford Bridge in West Sussex. 

It is planning to move ahead with plans on the Isle of Wight this year. At Markwells Wood – now not in the injunction – UKOG have been ordered by the South Downs National Park Authority to cap the well and restore the site.  

The injunction seeks to outlaw activities like slow walking and lobbying suppliers to the sites. At the Brockham site near Dorking last year nine people were arrested for slow walking.  Three were prosecuted. One of those arrested but never charged has also stepped up to be a defendant.

Jacqui Hamlin says that when the charges were dropped: “It was a great relief, as the whole thing had been a huge worry, and I felt like a real weight had been taken off my shoulders.

“I was also pleased that it was recognised and accepted that a criminal prosecution for this kind of lawful protest was not necessary and in the public interest”.  

Legal team

After the slow walking at Brockham it was found out that a side track had been drilled without planning permission under the noses of the regulators.

If had not been for local people and protectors at the site, providing evidence and reports to the county council, this might never have been discovered.

It was UKOG’s CEO Stephen Sanderson who said the aim was to build “back to back wells” in “industrial production”. Communities across the South East and those fighting fracking in the North of England do not want that.

Whatever drives us – whether it’s climate activism or fears about drinking water or concerns about HGVs on narrow lanes or unstable geology – we must keep fighting these plans and the unjust injunction that seeks to silence us.

Now we are fundraising. We are protected against UKOG’s costs but need to pay our legal team. Please support us by pledging online. 

This Author

Vicki Elcoate is a member of the Weald Action Group.

Delegates from around the world met in Germany to negotiate what is known as the Paris Rulebook – the set of rules and frameworks that will serve to implement the Paris Agreement – earlier this month.

These negotiations make 2018 a particularly important year: “I have talked about the COP24 as a ‘Paris 2.0’. If we fail to approve the work program of the agreement, the Paris Agreement has no impact,” explains Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations for Climate Change.

The international community must agree on a long series of climate measures under Paris, such as the implementation and design of carbon markets, the creation of a transparency process, setting up a mechanism to increase climate ambition and – most contentious – a financing mechanism that helps the poorest countries make their transition to sustainable energy and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Climate action

With such a delicate job ahead, NGOs have criticised the fact that actors with interests opposed to climate action can attend and participate in the negotiations. 

“In just seven months, parties aim to lock-in the guidelines to the Paris Agreement,” said Jesse Bragg from Corporate Accountability. “Turning Paris from just a set of aspirations on paper into actual action.

“If those rules and guidelines continue to be written with big polluters looking over the shoulders of delegates, our chances of achieving Paris’ aspirations could be lost.”

Corporate Accountability is among the NGOs who are denouncing how large oil, gas and coal companies have direct access to climate negotiations thanks to organisations such as the United States Chamber of Commerce or the Business Europe association.

This access leads them to influence decisions, to appear greener as an organisation – also known as ‘Greenwashing’ – or to promote false solutions.

Presence of polluters

At the UN conference earlier this May, a collection of countries representing more than 70 percent of the world’s population have asked the United Nations to adopt a definition and clear regulation of Conflict of Interest (COI).

This would prevent organisations that delay climate action at the national or international level from influencing climate change negotiations.

However, the UN negotiations on this issue were postponed for another year – until June 2019. This is despite the high interest from civil society groups and several country delegations.

The United States and the European Union in particular vetoed any progress on the issue, preventing any progress on an agreement that regulates the presence of polluters in the negotiations.

During the recent climate negotiations, a letter signed by 88 members of the European Parliament from six different parliamentary groups was also presented, requesting a definition and regulation on conflict of interest in the climate negotiations.

Leaders in obstruction

Likewise, European civil society also presented a letter signed by more than 100 organisations, asking Arias Cañete, Commissioner of Energy and Climate and leader of the European delegation in the international negotiations, to support a conflict of interest policy.

“The EU has managed to block policies on conflict of interest and return home and get away with it, not receiving any backlash,” argues Pascoe Sabido of Corporate Europe Observatory.

“Now we see how more groups are paying attention, and no longer accept that the EU, as a climate leader, should be standing in the way of such an important policy as this.”

In addition, these civil society groups presented a report detailing the revolving doors of several European countries, including the UK, between governments and fossil fuel companies. The report, whose authors stress it is not exhaustive, identifies 88 cases of revolving doors across 13 countries.

Max Anderson, a member of the European Parliament, said: “There is a revolving door between politics and the fossil fuel lobby all across Europe. It’s not just a handful of cases – it is systematic.

Private sector

“The fossil industry has an enormous economic interest in delaying climate action and the revolving door between politics and the fossil lobby is a serious cause for alarm.”

The report finds that the UK scores ‘medium’ in the climate performance index, that is, in its efforts for a transition towards an energy efficient and low carbon society.

It also emphasises that fossil fuels are subsidised with more than 7.4 billion euros per year in the UK, and argues the problem of revolving doors is “endemic” to the country.

As many as 60 percent of ministers and public officials who left government took up roles in the private sector in the same sector as their ministry between 2009 and 2015, according to the study.

The UK department with the highest percentage of people taking up private sector employment in the same field as their public service role was the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). DECC became part of Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in July 2016.

Nearly 90 percent of people leaving DECC took up jobs in the energy sector, including six former energy ministers. The study argues that the revolving doors within the fracking industry are particularly worrying, especially in times when no more fossil fuels should be extracted.

Experts argue that we need a policy that regulates revolving doors and conflicts of interest if we want to advance climate policy. On the level of international discussions, however, this has been kicked into the long grass.

This Author:

Anna Pérez Català is an environmental scientist specialised in climate change and development. She has worked for NGOs, governments and organisations on climate and environmental issues. She is the campaign manager for Climate Tracker, an organisation supporting environmental journalists worldwide to bring climate change into their national debates. Anna tweets from @AnnaPerezCatala

When a young postwoman from Wales started a petition calling for manufacturers to stop using plastics in menstrual products, she could have hardly hoped for a better response. Ella Daish’s petition was launched in February and gained more than 100,000 signatures in two months. 

Reusable and biodegradable alternatives have been available for years, but Ella’s success demonstrates that increased awareness of single-use plastic has stimulated much greater public interest. 

This year, the UK’s first washable ‘period underwear’ was launched by the St Albans-based start-up WUKA, and recent industry figures reveal that demand for reusable menstrual cups is at an all-time high.  So, is the tide turning in the battle for greener periods? 

Period plastics

While there are certainly promising signs, achieving a meaningful reduction in plastic menstrual products presents a formidable challenge. Menstrual product sales are worth about £270 million a year in Britain, with the industry dominated by some of the world’s most powerful consumer goods conglomerates.

The average menstruator in the UK will get through around 11,000 pads and tampons in their lifetime. It’s estimated that up to 90 percent of a menstrual pad is plastic.

The majority of the menstrual items we throw away will be incinerated or linger for centuries in landfill. Around 8.5 per cent of sewage debris – which includes menstrual products – will find its way onto Britain’s beaches. These materials can take centuries to break down, threatening the health of marine environments with microplastics. 

Non-organic pads and tampons can also contain chemical absorbers, fillers, lubricants, and chemical and pesticide residues from the bleaching and manufacturing process.

These have the potential to impact our health – vaginal tissue is particularly absorbent – while the residues and leaching of materials and additives are environmental contaminants.

The scandal

The Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) has been concerned about the impact of these products on the environment since 1989 when its founding group of feminist campaigners published ‘The Sanitary Protection Scandal’. 

This report was the first of its kind, and was highly critical of the disposable menstrual product and nappy industries for perpetrating unsafe and unsustainable manufacturing processes. 

Three years of campaigning by WEN resulted in labelling about Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) on tampon packaging, followed by a nationwide ‘Bag it and Bin it’ campaign, to stop menstrual waste from being flushed down the loo.   

The campaign is important because awareness of alternatives remains weak. Smaller ethical companies have a fraction of the marketing budget of the consumer goods giants who dominate the industry, which makes it difficult for them to get the word out.

To make things worse, powerful brands like Always and Tampax, owned by Procter & Gamble, are allowed to market their products in schools under the guise of period education but neglect to let young people know about more sustainable options such as washable pads and menstrual cups. 

The taboo around periods also means that even those who are aware of alternative products can be reticent about spreading the word, even among friends and family.

What next

Firstly, major manufacturers need to remove plastics from menstrual products and packaging, and switch to organic and compostable versions to keep plastics and chemicals out of our environment.

We can’t expect everyone to make the move to reusables, and manufacturers have a moral duty to ensure that their products aren’t contaminating our planet for many hundreds of years.

We must also demand a full and balanced education on menstrual product options in schools so that young people can make an informed choice that’s based on their needs and those of the environment rather than what’s best for big business.

As part of the Environmenstrual campaign, we’re launching a pilot programme of workshops in schools and universities and we’re aiming to design a toolkit that can be used by teachers, students, and educators. 

The fact that the cheapest options are those with the most potential to damage our health and the planet makes this a social and environmental justice issue: those with the least power have the greatest exposure to dangerous products. 

Period poverty

According to a survey by Plan International UK, one in ten girls aged 14 to 21 can’t afford menstrual products. While reusable cups and pads will last for years and can offer long-term savings, they require an initial investment, which may put them out of reach of anyone on a low-income.  

Our coalition partners, The Cup Effect and Bloody Good Period, have teamed up to run ‘CupAware’ parties  – like Tuppaware parties! – to demystify menstrual cups and secure donations forasylum seekers and refugees. 

We’ve also begun to explore the potential for a funded voucher scheme for reusables, which could operate in a similar way to the successful Real Nappies for London scheme which WEN set up in 2007. This sees local authorities subsidise washable nappies to the benefit of low income families. 

Learning how to make washable cotton pads can also be a fun and low-cost way of securing reusable menstrual wear. Making subsidised reusables available on every university campus would be another great step forward in the campaign against period poverty. 

With new innovations in the menstrual product market, it’s also important that we offer a critical eye to new products, to help secure the safest options. 

Your support

The movement for sustainable menstrual products is underway, but we need your support. Our Environmenstrual crowdfunder closes on 30th June 2018 and we’d be delighted if you would support this important campaign by making a pledge.

• Support the Environmenstrual campaign crowdfunder
• Find out more about menstrual cups, period underwear, washable pads, reusable tampon applications, compostables, or have a go at making your own 
• Join our coalition 
• Take part in the Environmenstrual Week of Action, 13th-20th October 2018 
• Sign Ella’s plastics petition
• Take part in a beach or rivers clean up
• Check out this video on ‘unflushables’ by Bristol-based campaign group, City to Sea
• Support WEN: become a member and get in touch on Twitter and Instagram

This Author 

Julia Minnear is a Co-Director at Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) – the only UK charity connecting women’s health, equality, and the environment. She also co-ordinates LEEF – London’s professional network for environmental & sustainability educators.

Thailand is one of the most popular holiday destinations in the world. Last year, it welcomed a staggering 35m tourists — up nine percent on the previous year.

This figure is expected to grow to nearly 37.7m tourists in 2018 and to hit 64.5m by 2028, as the Thai tourist board markets the country’s untapped regions.

Some argue this is good news for Thailand’s economy. But its popularity among visitors is weighing heavily on the natural environment. Thai authorities have said they will today temporarily close the popular Maya beach – made famous by Danny Boyle’s 2000 film, The Beach. This is due to the environmental damage excessive tourism is having on the area.

Marine damage

The closure is one of several that has taken place in the last two years, with Koh Tachai closed in 2016 and the three other islands off Phuket shut down that same year. This begs the question, is tourism in Thailand reaching a tipping point?

Indeed, Tara Buakamsri, country director for Southeast Asia at Greenpeace Thailand told The Ecologist: “It has already passed the tipping point.

“The 35m global tourists who visited Thailand [is equivalent to] half of the whole population of the nation. If this trend continues then profit maximisation from mass tourism and exploitation of natural resource will lead to the depletion and devaluing of [its] ecosystem and sustainable tourism will pass the stage of no return.”

The Thai government appears to be taking steps to tackle its most pressing issues around waste disposal and marine damage.

In July, the government will introduce a series of bans, aimed at reducing marine damage, across its three popular islands – Samui, Tao and Phangan, the latter of which is infamous for its full moon parties.

The measures, which will last two years, include no coral anchoring, no fishing and no construction that has a harmful impact on the marine ecosystem.

Jatuporn Burutphat, the chief of the marine and coastal resources department, said at the time of the announcement: “The amount of garbage and waste water on these islands is so big that it will become unbearable in the near future, and we have to think about the future.”

Maya Beach

The government will close down Maya beach for four months from June, although experts are dubious about how beneficial this short-term break will actually be for the environment.

Thon Thamrongnawasawat, deputy dean of the Faculty of Fisheries at Kasetsart University in Bangkok has said: “Temporary closures can help to a certain extent. But an ideal solution is a permanent closure, which is not possible due to our reliance on tourism revenue.”

He added that 77 percent of the total of 238.4 sq km of coral reefs in Thailand’s waters has been devastated and explained how water pollution from beach-front hotels was one of the biggest causes of this damage.

Plastic pollution too is a major problem for Thailand — as well as other parts of Southeast Asia, including Bali in recent months.

Ms Buakamsri flags Thailand’s islands of Koh Chang and Koh Panyi as areas at particular risk of this. “Plastic waste is produced in [Thailand’s] society and increasingly by the tourism sector – Thailand has been the sixth biggest contributor of plastic pollution in the world oceans, presenting an urgent environmental issue facing the country.”

Sustainable tourism

The need to develop a whole raft of credible sustainable tourism policies is clearly urgent for a country that makes a large amount – 21.2 percent in 2017 – of its gross domestic product (GDP) from travel and tourism.

Thailand will also need to address how it competes against them in a sustainable way as neighbouring countries like Vietnam and Myanmar continue to expand their tourism industries.

Some, however, are sceptical that Thailand will be able to grow sustainably. “I don’t think they are able to protect these islands and areas as long as the government and its policy prioritises economic development including mass tourism at all cost,” concludes Ms Buakamsri.

“Moreover an inclusive community involvement in economic sector like tourism — the key component for a sustainable tourism and ecological-based approach — has long been ignored.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist who splits her time between Europe and Asia. She writes for national, international and specialist publications on travel, property and the environment.