As McDonald’s continues to “ghost” their responsibilities to animal welfare, The Humane League is launching a global brand-jacking campaign that brings their commitment-phobia to light.

#McGhoster aims to attract public attention towards McDonald’s failure to commit to meaningful improvements for chickens, creating a pressure group that’s impossible for them to ignore: their own consumers.

McDonald’s is one of the biggest restaurant chains in the world with a net income of $5.877 billion. Yet, as companies like Pret A Manger are making concrete, meaningful changes to chicken welfare, McDonald’s is lagging behind.

Party’s over

To bring this issue to the attention of a global audience, the campaign is being launched with an online film that takes place in the ‘McDonald’s Mansion’ in the aftermath of a raucous party.

As the scene unfolds, we hear angry voicemails from people who feel they’ve been misled and ‘ghosted’ by the host of the party. Overlayed on this grand scene is a stern wake-up call to the corporation: The Party’s Over, McDonald’s.

Pru Elliott, head of campaigns at The Humane League UK, said: “McDonald’s invests so much in portraying itself as the friendly ‘good-guy’ and as industry leaders.

“But while it has taken progressive steps on some animal welfare issues, the truth is that when the suffering of millions upon millions of chickens – the most numerous animals in McDonald’s supply chain – is at stake, McDonald’s fails to live up to the upstanding image it portrays.” 

Under McDonald’s new “improved welfare” policy, chickens raised and killed for its menu are still unnaturally bred to grow so large and so fast that they can literally become immobilised under the weight of their own enormous bodies, often unable to stand or walk and left to lie in their own excrement.

The issue is so severe that if we, humans, grew at a rate similar to McDonald’s chickens, we would weigh 300kg at just two months old.

Overcrowded conditions

These chickens are also kept in overcrowded conditions that prevent them from behaving naturally. What’s more, eating meat from sick and debilitated chickens, raised within cramped and confined factory farms, can put humans at risk of contracting bacterial infections such as salmonella and campylobacter.

Elliot said: “McDonald’s has failed to take meaningful action against the extreme suffering of chickens in its supply chain. The company has repeatedly offered pseudo-solutions which do not compare with the progressive steps being taken by other companies.

“At best, the steps McDonald’s has taken suggest an acknowledgement that the current situation is unacceptable, and at worst it could be an attempt to mislead customers with a rhetoric that sounds promising but fails to deliver.”

Rather than asking people to boycott McDonald’s, The Humane League is simply calling on the fast food chain to improve animal welfare in its supply chain and publicly commit to the ‘Better Chicken Commitment’ and the North American equivalent.

Taylor Ford, Director of Campaigns at The Humane League, said: “What we’re asking for is perfectly reasonable and an essential part of McDonald’s ethical responsibilities. The commitment we are asking McDonald’s to sign simply addresses the very worst suffering endured by chickens.

Get involved 

Ford continued: “The changes we are proposing are supported by scientific evidence, backed by leading animal protection charities and have been adopted by over 130 companies in the US.”

You can watch and share the film from Facebook or YouTube.

Viewers are then encouraged to sign the petition at McGhoster.com to apply pressure.

The film is being accompanied by a series of out-of-home posters, ad vans and social posts to build momentum and encourage consumers to speak up. You can now even find references to #McGhoster within Wikipedia. Please click here to see stills and images from today’s launch.

This Article 

This article is  based on a press release from The Humane League. 

Environmentalists have lodged an official complaint with the European Commission over illegal management of protected North Sea nature reserves, which have been left decimated by damaging fishing practices.

WWF and ClientEarth, supported by other organisations, are calling on the Commission to challenge the Netherlands, the UK and Germany over a recently submitted proposed management plan for the Dogger Bank – a unique undersea conservation site, and home to sharks, porpoises and other iconic species – that contains multiple breaches of EU law.

The nations have systematically failed to protect areas within the Dogger Bank, which is shared between the three countries, from damaging fishing practices, despite those areas being designated as conservation sites for more than a decade.

Destructive practice

These nations proposed that the Dogger Bank be a protected area in the early 2000s. Since then, failure to effectively implement protection and manage activities has left biodiversity in decline, affecting the ecosystem’s ability to support breeding grounds for many species.

Despite the site’s status as a marine protected area (MPA), the proposed management plan, submitted by the Netherlands, the UK and Germany on 19 June will allow the highly destructive practice of bottom trawling across two-thirds of Dogger Bank seabeds and demersal seine fishing, using large nets, across 95 percent of its area.

These fishing techniques are not only harmful to the seabed, as the ropes and nets destroy the surfaces they pass through, but also cause bycatch of sharks, cold water corals and other sea animals.

Kirsten Schuijt, CEO, WWF Netherlands said: “It’s incomprehensible that the Netherlands, the UK and Germany propose to open this unique conservation area, part of the European Natura 2000 network, to fishing techniques that will continue to damage its precious seabed structure.

“Given that the European Commission is now pressing for better implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives, we are confident that it will seriously consider the complaint lodged today, that it will closely monitor the adherence of Member States to their responsibilities, and that it will take the measures necessary for the restoration of the Dogger Bank.”

Ignoring advice

ClientEarth wildlife lawyer Tatiana Lujan said: “The fishing practices allowed in the proposed management plan are the equivalent of cutting swathes through a rainforest, using the excuse that it will grow back again.

“Each time the seabed is razed by fishing practices like bottom trawling, the recovery of the ecosystem is reduced dramatically, until it stops being able to support apex species like sharks and porpoises.

“The proposal put forward by the Netherlands, the UK and Germany is illegal under EU law on three counts and ignores the scientific advice that supports the restoration of these conservation areas.”

Lawyers for the organisations said that the first legal breach relates to the failure to establish a management plan that is coherent with the ecological requirements of the site under the Habitats Directive, as the proposed Dogger Bank plan gives a green light to damaging fishing practices across sandbank conservation areas.

The second breach relates to the failure to protect the Natura 2000 site from further environmental degradation, as demonstrated by the observed declines in biodiversity. Thirdly, fishing practices should only be approved if there is scientific certainty that they will not have an adverse impact on the sites – something the plan provides no evidence to support.

Emergency measures

In their proposal in 19 June, the three countries asked the European Commission to allow bottom trawling and seine fishing across the majority of Dogger Bank areas designated as Natura 2000 protected sites.

The European Commission must respond to this proposal by taking measures that offer real protection for the Dogger Bank.

In the immediate term, enforcement of emergency measures are critically needed in the next 12 months to address the Dogger Bank’s current state of decline.

This Author 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth. 

Image: Ed Dunans, Flickr. 

We are all increasingly aware of the perilous state of our oceans and seas, of growing pollution, of huge volumes of plastic waste and over-fishing.  

The importance of harvesting fish stocks at sustainable levels is easily understood when we know that the world’s reported total fish catches have been stable since the late 1980s, yet the global population is expected to reach 10 billion in 2050.

Fighting against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is an absolute priority. 

Unreported fishing 

The UN biodiversity report published in May this year stated that by 2015, 33 percent of marine fish stocks were being harvested at unsustainable levels; 60 percent were maximally sustainably fished, and only 7 percent were harvested at levels lower than what can be sustainably fished.

The same report estimates that as of 2011, 33 percent of the world’s reported fish catch is now illegal, unreported or unregulated.    

In this context, IUU fishing is serious challenge for coastal states around the planet and especially for developing countries – which are struggling to obtain enough resources for effective monitoring, control and surveillance.

While much of the IUU fishing focus to date has been on illegal fishing, concentrating resources on the ‘unreported element’ will deliver significant results too.

Unreported fishing could be the result of a simple technical error on the vessel.  It could be an oversight of the captain, already responsible for so much in addition to logging the catch, or it could be in some specific cases a planned strategy, where one catch is reported but not another, to minimise the tax paid or to avoid fishing restrictions.  

Distorted market 

Whatever the reason, an unreported catch distorts the real picture and clouds understanding of the actual situation, which is vital to set up a sustainable fisheries management plan.

It also creates distorted market conditions for the fishermen who are operating in full compliance with the regulatory requirements.  The unreported catch is likely to be sold alongside the legitimate catch, depressing the market and reducing prices. 

But the biggest problem, and the least discussed, is unregulated fishing. This describes a country or an area that has no fisheries regulations in place, where fishing can take place at anytime, anywhere, by any means, and with no limit to the amount of fish they can catch.

The only way to address this issue is through close cooperation, education and awareness raising, technical support to governments such as fisheries management advising, and in some cases financial support.

Political pressure is important as well, but should not take precedence given the fact that convincing people to change always brings better results than imposing change.

Technological breakthroughs

Firstly, despite the challenges, technological breakthroughs over the last ten to twenty years now make it entirely possible to monitor the world’s fishing activities wherever they are.

Ten to fifteen years ago, vessel monitoring systems (VMS) were not widely accessible and were prohibitively expensive.  Communications between the shore and sea have improved dramatically, and government investment is much more likely to support better connectivity. 

Technology can now tell where a vessel is, what it’s doing, and e-reporting can log a catch in real time. 

Past reporting was paper-based and then collated by the authorities with the resulting analysis available several months down the line. E-reporting (where used) is instant, enabling regulatory authorities to be much more reactive and responsive to the status of specific fish stocks, imposing or lifting restrictions in a matter of hours.

This has been demonstrated in the case of Blue Fin tuna in the Mediterranean sea, where detailed monitoring and analysis of a fish population in crisis, followed by careful management across the industry, led to recovery and growth in numbers. As a result, in some places populations have been restored to their levels of ten to fifteen years ago.

Cultural shift

Secondly, there has been a significant cultural shift.  Customers are questioning and demanding supply chain transparency in ways they never have before.  

While the general public may not be aware of the principles behind sustainable fisheries management, almost anyone in the developed world can tell you that the oceans are environmentally threatened and greater scrutiny along every part of the supply chain is required as a result. 

Thanks to this growing awareness, fishermen, companies, and political bodies can create innovative  programmes to reduce the scourge of IUU fishing.

The European Union is the top market for fish exports in the world. This gives Europe immense leverage over countries in and not in, the EU. Under the European Commission’s carding process, a country with inadequate measures in place to prevent IUU fishing can be issued with a formal warming – a yellow card, to improve. If they don’t improve then their fish may be banned from the EU market – a red card.  

The system was introduced in 2010 and is clearly delivering results among those countries who want to reach the lucrative European market. 

Sustainable management

Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing all seriously impact the sustainable management of fishing. 

If the UN is to achieve its sustainable development goal, number 14:  to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development, then we need to extend fisheries regulations to the countries that are unregulated today. 

Then we can apply advanced technology to monitor sustainable fisheries management – a vital step to reaching this end.

This Author

Anthony Uberti is an expert on fisheries regulations at CLS Group. Anthony works with EU Member States and with governments around the world advising on fisheries monitoring and surveillance.

John McDonnell has praised the efforts of Extinction Rebellion protesters who paralysed parts of London.

The shadow chancellor said the “relatively minor disturbance” caused by the activists and the school student strikes movement had “definitely been worth it”.

More than 1,000 arrests were made by police during Extinction Rebellion protests in London over 10 days in April.

Accountability

In a speech in London, Mr McDonnell said: “The relatively minor disturbance to everyday life caused by the demonstrations by Extinction Rebellion and the school student strikes has definitely been worth it.

“These forms of direct action have secured the publicity that clearly has focused people’s minds, not just on the threat of climate change but importunately on the solutions available to us.”

He said a national effort similar to that under Clement Attlee’s government to rebuild Britain following the Second World War was needed to tackle climate change.

Mr McDonnell launched an inquiry into the “shadow banking” sector as part of the effort to shift finance away from polluting industries.

It would examine what state intervention may be required to increase “transparency and accountability” of institutions which do not have the same regulatory scrutiny as banks.

Contribute

“I am setting up a review group to overview the financial system as it currently relates to the climate emergency, in terms of both: where and how it is causing or exacerbating the problem of climate change; and where and how it could be providing solutions to problems,” he said.

“The review will cover commercial banks, investment banks, pension funds, hedge funds, private equity, asset managers, derivatives and securities traders and exchanges, and any other aspect of the finance sector of relevance.”

Mr McDonnell said he had also put forward a plan to legislate so that any company listed on the London Stock Exchange would be “required to contribute to tackling the climate change crisis” – with de-listing as a sanction.

Zero

“When we de-list companies that fail to meet environmental criteria from the London Stock Exchange, investors can be confident that their money is not going on making the world uninhabitable for their children,” he said.

Mr McDonnell promised that as chancellor he would use the “full might of the Treasury” to address the problem of climate change.

Stephen Jones, chief executive of industry body UK Finance, said: “The shadow chancellor has today posed the question of whether the financial sector is up for rising to the challenge of climate change.

“Achieving net zero carbon by 2050 is a difficult but critical target that we must all work together to address and as an industry we stand ready to respond.”

This Author

David Hughes is the Press Association’s political editor.

Eighty three Birmingham City Councillors voted unanimously to declare a climate emergency earlier this month. 

They called on the government to provide the ‘powers and resources’ to help Birmingham become zero-carbon by 2030. I was in the viewers’ gallery, swept up in the frenzy of excited applause, and finding it hard to suppress a glow of pride.

Only four short months before, the chances of Birmingham – the birthplace of the industrial revolution – declaring a climate emergency or even taking small steps towards defending the living planet seemed practically nonexistent.

Landslide action 

I thought back to the evening before the first youth strike, writing the words “I’m 14 years old and I want a future” on a piece of cardboard. I had no idea of the landslide of political action that was awaiting me.

It began sometime in January. My father showed me a video of a girl named Greta speaking in Davos about the climate. It was an amazing speech, but at the time I only expressed a mild interest.  

After following her Instagram account I researched the climate crisis and soon found out that youth strikes were taking place in Sweden, Belgium and Australia. My father had evidently done the same, as one evening he said: “If you ever wanted to do something like that, I’d totally support you.”

From then on I kept mulling over what I could do, and I finally found the answer when, over a plate of vegan pasta, my grandfather casually asked whether I’d seen that there was going to be a global youth strike for climate, and that people would be on the streets in London.

But climate solutions need to happen everywhere, so instead of looking into tickets to Euston, I texted some friends to see if they would join me striking in Brum.

Making friends

It can be frustrating growing up in a world so beset with problems. I’ve always wanted to make a positive change, but never known how.

I was keen to be like Greta and sit outside the Council House with a sign, but how does action outside lead to changes inside? I decided to write to some people who might know…

I started with my local Councillor Kerry Jenkins, who got straight back saying she would love to meet and put me in touch with a couple of others Councillors eager to help our cause.

Then I contacted Friends of the Earth, asking for advice about how to protest. They agreed to meet me and my friend before the strike… and so my activism began!

A few days later I climbed the steps to Birmingham’s Victoria Square, nervous and unsure of what to expect, but this trepidation soon melted into excitement as I saw there were others already there, a needed reassurance. I put my shyness aside and began to make friends.

Climate emergency 

Kerry Jenkins and another Labour councillor Olly Armstrong, who had come along with his two sons in tow, soon appeared outside the Council House and invited not just myself, but all thirty strikers inside, keen to hear our thoughts and demands.

We introduced ourselves, and then were asked the surprisingly difficult question, “What do you want from the council?” I raised my hand, stood up, and answered: “The very first thing that we need Birmingham to do is declare a climate emergency.”

Between that day and the unanimous declaration, there was a lot of work and a lot of support from a lot of people. At each new strike, we achieved more and more.

We met Councillors (including the Leader of Birmingham), working specifically with Lisa Trickett and Green councillor Julien Pritchard, MPs like Jess Phillips, Richard Burden and Liam Byrne, the Conservative Mayor Andy Street and other representatives of the West Midlands Combined Authority, people from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Extinction Rebellion.

We spoke on the local news, to newspapers, teachers unions amongst other Trade Unions, and at local area forums. Everywhere we went we were clear: political parties need to work together, they need to declare a climate emergency and the target needs to be 2030!

Carbon-free revolution

A few months later, all four political parties stood side-by-side proposing a motion to deliver on one of the strongest climate change targets in the world, stating: “Birmingham started the industrial revolution, it can lead the carbon-free revolution.”

Contrary to what many think, however, this does not mean our job is done. Birmingham Youth Strike 4 Climate is only just beginning and we will not stop until the council talk turns into action.

We have taken the crucial first step, but the next one may even be harder – if my Twitter feed is anything to go by, some Brummies may not take kindly to being at the forefront of climate action!

The Council will have to make it clear that this is positive for our city, it means faster journeys, cleaner air, less litter, stronger communities.

And anyway, we have no choice but to reduce our carbon emissions, it needs to be a priority, both socially and financially. There’s nothing more important than ecological breakdown – not even Brexit!

This Author 

Olivia Wainwright is a member of the Birmingham Youth Strike 4 Climate (@bhamys4c), she blogs about the climate and has been regularly striking since February 15 2019.

During the first episode of the BBC’s long-awaited series War on Plastic, television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and presenter Anita Rania shed new light on how vast our plastic problem has become.

In one of the starker moments of the show Fearnley-Whittingstall found discarded packaging from some of the UK’s best-known brands as he explored a major landfill site in Malaysia.

He said: “When we put [these items] in our recycling back in the UK, we think we’re doing the right thing. I really want to know who’s responsible for this horrendous mess. Is it our local councils? Is it our Government? Is it our supermarkets? Is it the manufacturers of these goods? They’re all in it together.”

Waste

Viewers were left with a prevailing sense that despite increasing efforts at recycling, there is still no guarantee that their waste will actually end up being recycled.

The UK is unable to recycle the vast amount of packaging it produces and much of it is sent abroad with the intent that it will be recycled and made into a new product. As the episode exposed – in reality – much of this waste ends up in dump sites around the world.

Measures are needed to ensure that waste material that does end up in the natural world are either recovered or recycled.

The 3R Initiative – which stands for Reduce, Recover and Recycle – brings together business giants Nestlé, Danone, Tetra Pak and Veolia, in a bid to both standardise and hasten efforts in tackling waste, plastic or otherwise.

These corporations recognise that once their product is sold, their disposal is at the hands of consumers. And even with increasing numbers of the public engaged with recycling, the bulk of recyclable waste still ends up in landfills or worse – the environment.

Time for action

With this in mind, the Initiative developed the 3R Project and Crediting Mechanism which provides a crucial financial incentive for the recovery of plastic and other types of waste.

Recycling projects who recover plastic waste, avoiding its release into the environment, will receive credits that can then be sold to businesses mindful of their residual plastic footprint.

Activities that go one step further – and ensure that the waste recovered actually ends up being recycled – will receive a different type of credit, reflecting their contribution to plastic circularity.

The Initiative will also give businesses who participate access to a new standard – the 3R Corporate Standard – which will quantify their efforts to tackle the problem of waste in a standardised and credible way, and independently verified.

The Initiative is being led by Verra, an international standard-setter and BVRio, an environmental market developer, who will develop and manage the standards and program infrastructure.

Financial incentive

NGOs Conservation International and project developer South Pole will provide expert advice and give support to the various projects and workstreams that make up the initiative.

The Initiative aims at having a wide membership, with participants from different sectors and inputs.

Giving those on the ground the financial incentive to recover and recycle waste, whilst ensuring that corporations are kept to a consistent standard when measuring their efforts, can support efforts in reducing the amount of waste that ends up in the environment. 

This Article

Pedro Moura Costa is director of BVRio and co-founder of the 3R Initiative.

Climate breakdown, mass extinctions, and extreme inequality threaten the earth’s rich tapestry of life and leave our own fate increasingly uncertain.

At a time of such social, political and ecological upheaval, it’s natural to dream of a utopian world in which these problems are no more – in fact, people have been doing it for centuries. 

Such visions are often dismissed as nothing more than pointless flights of fancy, yearnings for impossibly perfect societies. But these assumptions are largely incorrect.

Being otherwise

Utopianism is the lifeblood of social change, and has already inspired countless individuals and movements to change the world for the better.

Utopia is not, as its Greek etymological roots suggest, a “no-place”. The name may derive from Thomas More’s classic sixteenth-century fictional work, Utopia, but it is not confined to literature depicting distant or fantastical ideal worlds.

Utopianism is in fact a philosophy that encompasses a variety of ways of thinking about or attempting to create a better society. It begins with the seemingly simple yet powerful declaration that the present is inadequate and that things can be otherwise.

Present in communities, social movements, and political discourse, it critiques society and creatively projects futures free of the strangleholds of the time. Put simply, it embodies a longstanding human impulse towards self-improvement.

Utopianism is manifest in countless historical examples of those that have dared to challenge the status quo and assert that things can – and indeed, must – change. Take Martin Luther-King’s dream of a world free of racial segregation for example, or the strivings of the suffragettes for gender equality.

Ecotopian aspirations 

Now, our relationship with the natural world is humanity’s defining challenge – and utopian ideas have shifted to meet it. “Ecotopian” aspirations are already in full view in community networks attempting to create more conscious ways of living such as the Transition Network, social movements such as Extinction Rebellion, and bold policy proposals such as the USA’s Green New Deal.

What’s more, many of the ideas put forth by these projects were long since imagined in prominent ecotopian literary works.

In the ideal worlds sketched in Ernst Callenbach’s Ecotopia and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Pacific Edge for example, resources are renewably sourced and communally owned.

Healthcare, education, and meaningful employment are available to all. Extreme wealth disparities have been eradicated through income caps and minimum earnings schemes.

These ideas are reflected in many aspects of the Green New Deal, which aims to transition the USA towards communal ownership of energy systems and a 100 percent renewable energy system by 2030, as well as enshrine into law rights to single-payer healthcare, guaranteed work at a living wage, affordable housing, and free university education.

Climate breakdown 

It’s not clear whether Alexandro Ocasio-Cortez, the leading figurehead for the grand policy package, was directly inspired by these works. But judging from the way she has been promoting the Green New Deal, she certainly sees the value in painting visions of utopia.

For example, her viral video, titled “A Message from the Future”, creatively imagines a more socially and ecologically resilient society just a few decades on from now – and, crucially, helps us to believe that it is possible. 

As a decentralised global movement that gives its members autonomy and demands politics in which citizens lead, Extinction Rebellion also echoes ideals from ecotopian novels.

In Ecotopia and many other similar works, most aspects of life are decentralised, from small-scale agriculture to neighborhood-specific healthcare. In Pacific Edge, the direct brand of politics Extinction Rebellion advocates is central to social and ecological wellbeing.

Extinction Rebellion urges efforts of wartime proportion to decarbonise by 2025 – a utopian target that has been met with scepticism in some quarters. But whether or not it is achievable, such a demand has been crucial in highlighting that what is presently deemed politically possible is not sufficient to stop catastrophic climate breakdown. 

Intentional communities 

Their radical visions have shifted the climate and ecological crises to the forefront of the political agenda. And, crucially, they have switched millions on to the idea that fundamental transformations in the way we organise and power our societies are possible.

To some, the serious political proposals outlined by Extinction Rebellion and in the Green New Deal might seem as unrealistic as the literary works that imagine their realisation. But living examples of ecotopian imagination can already be found in the world we live in.

Thousands of intentional communities across the globe are already creating spaces with social and ecological justice at their heart. Many of these eco-communities have been directly inspired by the communities imagined in ecotopian novels. For example, hundreds of eco-villages in the Baltic region were set up according to the concept laid out in Vladimir Megre’s The Ringing Cedars of Russia.

Some movements, such as the Transition Network – whose co-founder describes himself as a “vision harvester” – are even working to transform existing settlements across the world, with great success.

As just one example among initiatives in nearly 1,000 towns and cities, Transition Marlborough’s Bee Roadzz project in south-west England has drawn together local residents, businesses and organisations to link habitats and combat the rapid decline of bees and other pollinators. 

Better future

In shattering the perceived rigidity of the present, utopianism paves the way for change. Perfect worlds may not be realisable or even desirable, but that doesn’t mean we should shy away from imagining and striving for a better future.

Societies without extreme inequality and environmental degradation are surely within the bounds of possibility.

Whether in the form of a creative novel, a social movement, or a political proposal, dreaming can help us get there.

This Author 

Heather Alberro is an associate lecturer and PhD Candidate in political ecology at Nottingham Trent University. This article was first published on The Conversation. 

Image: A Latvian ecovillage based on The Ringing Cedars of Russia. Santa Zembaha/Wikimedia Commons. 

Campaigners have have maintained a nearly constant presence since early January at the West Newton Rathlin Energy drilling site in East Riding.

This week has seen another large increase in movements and traffic leaving the site with a number of oversized loads, causing disturbance and disruption in local villages such as New Ellerby. 

The increase in activity follows the announcement by Rathlin Energy that they are removing the current equipment used for drilling the exploratory well. This indicates that Rathlin Energy are preparing the site for the next stage – flow testing the well. This has been recognised as one of the most dangerous stages of exploration. 

Public footpaths

Last weekend a group of walkers, and campaigners from surrounding areas joined forces to challenge the recent closure of local and regularly used footpaths and the lane leading to the West Newton site.

The group said: “We wanted to show Rathlin Energy and ERYC that residents in Withernwick and Ellerby – or anywhere else for that matter – ought to be able to continue to walk the public footpaths that have been closed for no good reason.

“We walked peacefully on these years-old paths without the need of interruption from the police or anyone else. The paths were closed for alleged road works, but even the police don’t know where the roadworks are.

“We want to empower other villagers to walk on the paths too. It is our right to do so. It is Rathlin that is industrialising our local area – why should we residents allow them to walk all over us? The path was closed without any of the statutory notice to those affected, like us.”

Possible contaminants 

The group were approached whilst walking on a public footpath and right of way by a small number of police officers who questioned their motives and intent, and stated that the presence of thirteen people consisting of teachers, managers, mothers, fathers, grandparents and a number of dogs had made the Rathlin private security nervous.

The group were then told that the area was subject to a Section 14, which contradicts previous interactions and notices associated with the recent emergency road closures leading to the site.

The group were asked for details, which they politely declined to give. They were allowed to continue their walk, with the remaining police seemingly as puzzled by the closures and necessity of their presence.   

While large amounts of infrastructure used during the drilling process continued to leave the site throughout Saturday and into Sunday, campaigners joined the local community of New Ellerby.

They did this to take the protest to the village and highlight the dangers of increased movements of heavy good vehicles, but also the possible contaminants that will also be leaving during this phase, and how this could become the norm for traffic movements in the future if Rathlin Energy succeed in their plans to develop a network of infrastructure across East Riding.

Planned industrialisation

The campaign group highlighted the dangers and the continued planned industrialisation of this area.

Around mid-morning on Sunday the campaign group engaged a vehicle travelling through the village carrying a very large and heavy load.

The campaigners safely engaged and slowed the vehicle, but according to them the driver allegedly used his vehicle to attempt to intimidate protestors. The vehicle drove towards campaigners, say witnesses, and lightly made contact with an individual.

Due to this the campaign group and monitors directed the vehicle into a safe lay-by and requested the police deal with the incident.

During the process of slow-walking the vehicle to the layby a number of potential defects were noticed by the group, and once the vehicle was safely stopped a further inspection revealed a number of serious and potentially dangerous defects that were recorded and reported to the police, according to the campaigners.

At the request of the campaign group the Humberisde police force brought a specialist traffic officer to the scene, who then confirmed he was not happy with this vehicle completing its journey.

The vehicle was then taken away under police escort to a secure compound where it will remain until VOSA have completed a full inspection and it is deemed safe to travel. 

Community monitoring 

 

 

Campaigners and local residents involved in the incident highlighted that these alleged dangerous defects might never have been spotted without their continued protests and slow-walking. 

There is an urgent need for monitoring by the community, as neither company, police or council are taking appropriate precautions. 

This week, a number of pieces of infrastructure and the main body of the rig will be leaving the site. There was at least one arrest on Monday morning, and around 40 police officers on the scene observing a handful of protestors. 

The campaigners have set up a website here. 

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from West Newton Gateway to the Gas Fields. 

Bolivian president Evo Morales was inaugurated in 2006 as the first indigenous person to be sworn in as a president of a sovereign nation. Since then, he has shown extraordinary resolution in strengthening the legal and economic situation of indigenous people in Bolivia.

Giving constitutional protection to Mother Earth (Madre Tierra in Spanish or Pachamama in Quechua) has earned him accolades from environmentalists all over the globe. But the reality is far from it.

Bolivia has opened the country in general and indigenous and protected territories in particular to the onslaught of international oil and gas corporations. The president’s dream is to make Bolivia the energy hub of Southern America.

Protected areas

The easy targets for oil and gas are already running thin in Bolivia. Drilling has to go deeper and deeper. A much cheaper option is then to start drilling in the protected areas, where gas-bearing strata are believed to be much shallower.

The president’s Supreme Decree No. 2366 from 2015 authorised oil and gas production from most protected areas and specifically exempted exploration wells from the usual Environmental Impact Assessment procedures.

All in all, now eleven of the nation’s protected areas have been opened – rather arbitrarily – for oil and gas exploration, by the stroke of a pen. 

The Bolivian people do not let this happen easily. The residents of the Tariquía National Reserve for Flora and Fauna in the southern Bolivian federal state of Tarija have had enough. For more than two months, they have now blocked the only access road to a new exploration frontier.

They have fought running battles with police trying to smash through the barricades. They are trying to protect one of the last remaining extensive stands of sub-Andean mountain forests.

Local resistance

The forest is an important headwater for major rivers in Bolivia and Argentina. Humidity rising from the forested mountain slopes drive the climate engine that is feeding rain to the lucrative agriculture in their state.

All this has brought local activists powerful friends and vicious enemies alike. Can they succeed?

On a remote bridge over the muddy waters of the small river Los Lapachos in Chiquiacá Norte, local farmer families gathered under a rugged blue tarpaulin donated by a friendly trucker. This make-shift resistance camp blocks the only access to the strategic part of the 260,000 hectares nature reserve.

Earlier in the year, the police broke through another blockade further down the road. In a show of force, they accompanied company officials from the Brazilian PETROBRAS to enter the reserve.

After a tense stand-off, the villagers signed a deal with the authorities: consultation first, exploration later. This principle is in fact enshrined in the Bolivian Constitution and spelled out in detail in the environmental laws of the country.

But contracts with the exploration company had already been signed even before the Environmental Impact Assessment study was drafted. Some selected local farmers were asked to sign papers for a donation of free stoves and gas bottles, only to find out later that they indeed had signed off their ancestral lands to gas exploration.

Spectacular failure

The Bolivian state under president Morales is automatically majority shareholder in each and every oil and gas venture in Bolivia. The national Department of Oil and Gas is effectively controlling and at the same time shareholder of the industry.

The minister in charge, Luis Albert Sánchez, is celebrating victory after victory, promising a new Abu Dhabi in the mountains.

But despite enthusiastic support from government, production rates are declining, as the existing fields in the east of the country are quickly running dry. Exploration has become excessively expensive.

The last exploration borehole Boyuy X-2 reached 7,963 m, the deepest borehole on the South American continent, before it had to be abandoned, dry and cold. This came as a shock after President Morales had publicly announced it would drill into “a sea of gas”.

After such spectacular failure, the industry is looking west, into the foothills of the Andean mountain range, where due to extensive folding, the gas-bearing strata are believed to be much closer to surface.

Ecological restoration 

Twenty to thirty years ago these mountain ranges were mostly declared nature reserves, due to their eminent ecological importance.

Nature reserves like the Reserva Nacional de Flora y Fauna Tariquía, the Parque Nacional de la Serranía del Aguaragüe, the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory and several others further north are all in the potential extension zone of the industry.

Many of these parks therefore already had a resident agricultural population when they were proclaimed. There are serious human impacts with cattle ranching and slash-and-burn farming (“chaqueo”) the most damaging interventions, besides local and selective logging for local furniture making and building purposes.

Thus, these sensitive and essential areas were earmarked for ecological restoration and conservation.

The previous minister in the Presidency, Juan Ramón Quintana, called fracking an attack on the environment, but the Government has since U-turned in allowing fracking.

Complex interests

The industry itself is more careful. It has learnt its lesson and avoided the world fracking at all cost. These industries maintain that until now, hydraulic fracturing has not been employed, but many of the new exploration targets like the Los Monos Formation are in fact shale-dominated formations, whereas all earlier gas fields came from conventional sandstone deposits.

Only one Canadian company (Cancambria Energy Corp) has openly admitted to prepare for shale-gas targets. 

Matters in Bolivia are generally complex. Local government authorities and some residents are furious that the income of oil and gas production is not evenly distributed between producing and non-producing areas.

The impact of this resource curse can be felt everywhere. Decades of hard lobbying by some industries and some states have left a legacy of uneven distribution of the spoil.

In particular, new production areas get the lion’s share of environmental impacts but less or no benefits at all from the income. Thus, the lobbying gets harder every time.

Fever pitch

In spring 2019, the two gas producing provinces of O’Connor and Arce twice called for general strikes. All life came to a halt, government closed, business stayed closed, schools didn’t open, crippling its own economy.

The discussion has reached such fever pitch that some local residents of the Reserve of Tariquía offered to drop their resistance against gas exploration, if they only would get their fair share of the proceeds.

This has divided the resistance, and local government is trying to do its best to deepen the differences in the camp.

But Bolivians have lived through decades of political lobbying. Many ordinary peasants and their leaders have such sharp political acumen, a tradition of tolerant political debate and organizational discipline that can weather half-hearted attacks on their integrity.

Solidarity is not an empty phrase. For them, the struggle for the Reserve is also one for their dignity (they were never consulted), their survival (they have seen the impacts just next door) and unity (they refuse to let them be divided).

Dedicated resistance 

Local activists are supported by a growing network of environmentalists, churches, student organizations and climate activists under the slogan “Don’t touch Tariquía” (Tariquía No Se Toca!”).

Their dedicated, disciplined and creative resistance took both the industry and the Government by surprise.

In the long years of “Evo rule”, government has stifled civic activism to the minimum. Repression of critical NGOs is vicious.

This was once a new wave of brave environmentalism that ties in with the struggle for genuine indigenous empowerment and the climate change movement gaining momentum also in Bolivia, where the impact is already felt sharply.

During the last months, resisters and their supporters have scored important gains. The police and the corporate officials have withdrawn. The ruling party “Movement for Socialism” (MAS) is afraid of more public unrest ahead of the forthcoming elections in October 2019.

Environmental impact

This time, the government’s lead is marginal and has long left the comfort zone of earlier elections.

In the state of Tarija, opposition parties govern. They put every spanner they can find into the workings of central Government which then retaliates by withholding support or funding only white elephants. 

But oil and gas exploration and environmental impact assessment licenses are a national task. Thus, the Morales Presidency has given the green light for gas exploration in the Reserve.

It took local lawmakers several months to finally even get a copy of the Environmental License, a public document under Bolivian law. What they found was a glossy and voluminous document of 1746 pages, describing the environmental impact on the drill site and the access road.

It only records a few water samples, presents nice, colorful maps and copy-and-paste data from other sites. Such a “study” does not do justice to the impact of invasive exploration and even less of gas production facilities of gas would the exploration be successful.

Dearth of data

The value of this ecologically important nature reserve has not been duly appreciated. There is a dearth of hard data on the ecosystem of the Reserve. Biodiversity profiles are outdated, forest resources are not mapped, land use patterns have not been studied, there is no climate research, no micro-seismic studies, nor is there a geological map of any detail available.

In the absence of all this, the state-run National Service for Protected Areas (Servicio Nacional de Áreas Protegidas, SERNAP) simply changed the Management Plan in 2014 to allow the gas exploration in areas that were suddenly of less importance to the conservation goals.

Since then, SERNAP has been effectively dismantled of its political clout to protect the areas under its auspices.

The new Management Plan has never been published, the Management Board has not convened, and key positions have remained vacant for years.

Today, this large area avails of less than 20 rangers, ill-equipped and poorly funded, to control an area larger than the island of Mauritius.

New research

In this complex situation, the state Universidad Autonoma Jose Misael Saracho (UAJMS) in Tarija has offered to bring some sanity into the heated debate.

It started from the observation that the environmental impact studies presented by the exploration applicant are deficient and cannot be taken for granted, as hardly any base-line data exists to allow for a reliable modelling of the impacts on a largely unknown ecosystem.

Under such conditions it is not prudent to continue with invasive exploration activities, until their impacts can be effectively modelled and assessed.

The university has therefore requested the help of the German Senior Expert Service (SES) to draft an interdisciplinary and intercultural research proposal to fill some of the most glaring gaps: a study on water quality, on micro-climates, on forest resources and fauna biodiversity, in order to allow the approximate value of environmental services rendered by nature reserve to the local and regional economy.

This is an exceptional window of opportunity as the exploration activities are suspended due to the brave resistance of the local residents and the political maneuvers of the Bolivian Government.

Community dialogue 

The government has agreed to hold new community consultation, probably only in 2020. Such a real community dialogue must be based on facts and figures and their appropriate interpretation.

The local resistance of a few farmers and their families has so far withheld permanent damage from the Reserve.

Let us hope that they can maintain their militant stand even through the harsh Bolivian winter approaching and against all attempts to split the movement. They need international support.

You can offer Bolivian farmers solidarity through their Facebook groups Unidos por Tariquia (United for Tariquia), Chiquiaca Resiste (Chiquiaca Resists) and Tariquia Hoy (Tariquia Today).

The farmers also need practical and material support, which can be channeled through David Porcel at WhatsApp: +591 70226231, or through the farmer’s organization Subcentral campesino de Tariquia, c/o Yenny Mesa Valdez at WhatsApp: +591 72969755.

This Author

Dr Stefan Cramer is a retired environmental geologist, currently working with the voluntary German Senior Expert Service (SES) as a consultant to the University of Tarija.

Two thirds of festival-goers say reducing their impact on theenvironment is their number one priority this summer, new research suggests.

Revellers are gearing up for Glastonbury with many expected to abandon their tents at the end of the five-day event at Worthy Farm in Somerset.

And earlier this year the long-running festival announced it was banning single-use plastic drinks bottles from the site.

Festival

According to a study of UK revellers, 62 percent said they wanted to see festival waste reduced as well as better recycling facilities. Despite this more than a third of fans (38 percent) admitted to having abandoned a tent at a festival.

But almost the same number (36 percent) said they did so assuming it would be recycled, despite the majority of tents being taken directly to the landfill.

The State of Play: Festivals report, produced by Ticketmaster and insights company Kantar, asked roughly 4,000 festival-goers about the UK festival landscape.

Its results also indicate strong interest in diversity on line-ups. Some 41 percent said they wanted more representation while nearly a third (29 percent) said they considered the male to female ratio of line-ups before buying a ticket.

Moreover, men appeared to be more concerned about representation than women. Some 32 percent of male revellers said they wanted representation while only 28 percent of their female counterparts said the same.

Line-up

Radio DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley said recent years have seen organisers rethink how they run their events.

She said: “It is well known that the UK loves a music festival more than anywhere else in the world – which can be attributed to the incredible music, the atmosphere and the lifelong memories made.

“I’ve been going to festivals for a long time and in recent years there has been a radical and long overdue rethink in the way they are run.

“The good news from Ticketmaster’s report is that while we still see festivals as a place where you can let your hair down and enjoy quality time with friends or family, we’re finally thinking harder about (or – we’ve woken up to) the impact festivals have socially and environmentally.

“It’s so encouraging to see that issues like diversity in line-ups and sustainability are part of the equation when people decide which festival they want to go to, and even more encouraging that organisers are already responding to this.”

Sustainability

Andrew Parsons, managing director at Ticketmaster, said: “British summer wouldn’t be what it is without festivals and these findings give us an insight into what festival fans really want.

“While it’s mostly all about the music and having a great time, I’m not surprised and encouraged to see fans wanting more action on sustainability issues and line-up equality.

“Festivals have always been a microcosm of wider society and with the continued rise of social consciousness we expect fans will only become more demanding of festivals to get it right.”

This Author

Alex Green is a reporter with a Press Association.