Forests are some of the most incredible places on Earth—teeming with life, filtering our drinking water, and providing us with a number of outdoor recreation opportunities.

Trees are also the most effective means to capture and store carbon, making them our frontline defence against climate breakdown. Now, landmark research by Crowther Lab in Switzerland has quantified how global forest restoration could help us address the climate crisis.

The results are astounding. The researchers conclude that the restoration of Earth’s forests could capture two-thirds of man-made carbon emissions. The researchers called for planting 1.2 trillion trees to capture this potential.

Natural solutions

Of course, there’s no substitute for immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions—the kind that can only be achieved via massive reductions in the use of coal, oil and gas and their rapid replacement with low-carbon options, such as solar and wind. 

Additionally, not all areas that could be forested should be forested, and this new research should appropriately be treated as an assessment of the global potential of our lands to support new tree cover, rather than a concrete roadmap for where and under what circumstances to expand forestlands. 

However, this research does highlight that we cede an important tool in the fight against climate change if we don’t prioritise natural climate solutions and act collectively to conserve, restore and expand forests and other natural ecosystems that sequester and store carbon. 

A global reforestation action plan requires governments around the world to back policies and programmes to support these efforts.

Critically, policies and programmes that work against these goals, such as misguided subsidy schemes in the European Union that incentivise the conversion of power stations to run on wood from forests—so-called “biomass”—are counterproductive and imperil our ability to avert the world consequences of climate change. 

Pellet manufacturing

Burning forest biomass for energy emits large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), which persists in the atmosphere for decades or longer, even under the best-case scenario in which logged trees are immediately replaced with saplings (there’s no requirement that the mature trees be replaced with saplings at all).

The large new demand for wood created by support for biomass energy also results in more intensive and extensive logging of forests, thus depleting the very ecosystems that we depend on for sequestering and storing carbon. 

According to the Crowther Lab study, more than half of the locations with the potential to restore continuous tree cover are in just six countries, the top three being Russia, the US and Canada. Unfortunately, these are countries where forests are under major threat, including as harvesting grounds for forest biomass to burn for electricity. 

The US Southeast boasts some of the most precious and diverse forest ecosystems in the world. It’s also ground zero for wood pellet manufacturing and export to Europe and increasingly emerging markets in East Asia.

Year after year, a company called Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturer, sources trees from mature hardwood forests. These trees are ground up and pressed into wood pellets and then exported via ships around the world to become fuel in power stations. 

Dirty energy

The top markets for this dirty energy are in the European Union, where companies like Drax Power in the United Kingdom and Ørsted in Denmark, receive lucrative subsidies to burn biomass.

These energy giants don’t have to count smokestack emissions in quotas and policymakers can claim emissions reductions despite exacerbating issues of air pollution and pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told us that limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C requires cutting global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions worldwide by 2050.

They also told us that every half degree difference above and beyond 1.5°C represents disproportionate additional climate-related suffering. Indeed, no effort should be spared to meet this goal.

The massive climate mitigation potential of a global reforestation agenda places in stark relief the choice between a future in which we prioritise maximising carbon storage by forests vs. one where forests are harvested and burnt for energy. 

Zero-emission technologies

The fact is that reliance on energy produced from forest biomass is incompatible with the aim of phasing out carbon emissions.

Policies that promote the use of forest biomass as fuel must be scrapped immediately and biomass subsidies redirected to genuine zero-emission energy technologies.

In parallel, bold conservation agendas to keep existing natural forests intact and dramatically expand forested lands must be a priority of all governments seeking to address the climate emergency. The time to act—and plant trees—is now.

This Author

Sasha Stashwick is senior advocate with the Climate & Clean Energy program at the Natural Resources Defence Council, a US-based NGO working on international environmental issues. 

There is plenty the EU can do to save and protect the Amazon rainforest – and much of that begins at home.

The infernos still tearing their way through large swathes of the Amazon are transforming the most fertile and biologically diverse land in the world into a charred, desolate landscape.

In the first eight months of this year, the total number of fires increased by 82 percent compared with last year. In August, a group of farmers in Para state had, in a show of solidarity with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, reportedly declared a “day of fire”. A total of 26,000 fires were recorded that month.

Mercosur

The blame for the fires has been squarely placed on the shoulders of Brazil’s new far-right president, who is a conspiracy theorist and climate change denier, notoriously pro-agribusiness and ranchers, and rabidly opposed to the indigenous peoples of the rainforest.

However, the rest of the world cannot absolve itself of responsibility that easily. While Bolsonaro is responsible for the accelerated devastation of the Amazon, the rainforest has been under attack for decades.

Since 1970, nearly 800,000 km² of Amazonian rainforest has been cleared, which is an area larger than France and about the same size as Turkey. Although forest loss to date has been due to human activity, scientists fear we may soon reach a tipping point when tree loss starts to feed on itself, destroying much of the ecosystem.

The vast majority of the deforestation in Brazil and other Amazon states has been due to the clearing of land for cattle rearing to feed the world’s voracious appetite for beef and leather.

For its part, the EU imports 120,000 tonnes a year of Brazilian beef, and this figure would balloon under a free trade deal recently agreed with the Mercosur bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay).

Sustainable

Another major cause of deforestation in the Amazon is soy production, which is intensifying in light of the current US-Sino trade war. Although China is the world’s largest importer of soybeans, the EU is the world’s premier importer of soymeal and the second largest importer of soybeans, according to ‘Who is paying the bill?’, a major new report commissioned by the EEB, on the externalities of EU policies.

“These vast flows of animal feedstocks (soybeans and soymeal) being imported into the EU have significant implications for land use in exporting countries, principally in South America, as vast tracts of land are given over to soy monocultures,” the report explains.

“The area planted with soybeans in South America is continuously growing with the combined soybean area of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia expanding two-and-half times between 1988 and 2008, from 17 million hectares to 42 million hectares.”

“Ironically, despite Europe’s significant contribution to deforestation in the Amazon and other forested areas, this is not counted when the EU is measuring its sustainability,” notes Patrizia Heidegger, director for global policies and sustainability at the EEB.

“This enables us to ignore our footprint in the outside world, look at the growing forest cover in Europe and believe we are becoming more sustainable.”

Flames

Unless something dramatic changes, this spells devastation for the Amazon and other rainforests around the world, including the unique flora and fauna they host, not to mention the indigenous peoples who live there and act as custodians of these forests.

The European Union can save the Amazon, and other rainforests, by halting the import of goods produced on land that was formerly forest. An alliance of 26 leading NGOs has urged the EU to pass legislation that will guarantee that all products sold in Europe are free from deforestation and human rights abuses.

“The EU is in a rare position to act for the Amazon by using its unique market leverage,” said Hannah Mowat, campaigns coordinator at Fern, a Brussels-based organisation dedicated to protecting forests and the rights of people depending on them, which is a member of the EEB network.

“Forget the unaccepted €20 million offer from the G7, let’s talk about the €6 billion euro leverage we have, which is what the EU spends on importing rainforest-destroying products like soy or beef,” insists Nick Meynen, policy officer for environmental and economic justice at the EEB.

“Rather than ratifying the EU-Mercosur trade deal that would fan the flames only further, erect new trade tariffs based on the carbon emissions associated with the import of products such as soy, leather or beef.”

Evolve

Another option would be to divert the equivalent of some or all of these funds to finance the restoration and preservation of the rainforest.

“Beyond Mercosur, all trade deals between EU and the outside world must include safeguards to protect biodiversity and contribute to our climate targets,” says Célia Nyssens, agriculture policy officer at the EEB.

Renegotiating harmful trade deals is not enough. We also need to tackle damaging lifestyles.

Margarita Mediavilla is professor of system dynamics and senior scientist with LOCOMOTION, an EU-backed project which is modelling scenarios for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and sustainable future.

She observes: “As long as our dietary patterns continue to evolve towards more meat products, the pressure to gain land from rainforests worldwide will increase.”

Transition

“There is no way around the fact that we have to reduce our consumption of animal products,” insist Nyssens. “We need to transform the way we produce and consume meat and dairy.”

The only way to reduce our pressure on rainforests is to phase out industrial livestock farming, which relies on imported protein crops like soya to feed animals. 

This will inevitably lead to lower livestock numbers in Europe. In order to reduce the pressure on land resources so as to protect forests and natural ecosystems, people need to eat fewer animal proteins and more plant proteins.

“The LOCOMOTION model will include the global picture of land competition among uses: energy, food, urban, natural spaces and forests,” explains Mediavilla. “This module will enable us to explore how dietary changes would influence climate change mitigation.”

Many will regard such lifestyle changes as sacrifices, but reducing meat consumption will actually improve our health and wellbeing. In addition, well-managed pastures can help us achieve our climate and biodiversity objectives, explains Nyssens.

“The key is to help our farmers transition to this new system through government support and consumer choices,” she adds.

This Author

Khaled Diab is an award-winning journalist and the author of two books, Islam for the Politically Incorrrect(2017) and Intimate Enemies(2014). He is a senior communications officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). Follow him on Twitter: @DiabolicalIdea

This article was first published at Meta, the news channel of the European Environmental Bureau and is republished exclusively with The Ecologist.

Police officers intervened yesterday after a group of protesters blocked a road outside of one of the world’s largest arms fairs.

Around 200 protesters have held a seventh consecutive day of protest outside the Excel exhibition centre in East London in protest against the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair, which is set to open next week.

Shortly after 2.40pm on Sunday, a group of protesters from groups including Campaign Against Arms Trade and Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants blocked one of the roads near the exhibition centre, prompting officers from the Metropolitan Police to surround the demonstrators.

Exhibition

Officers were seen surrounding the activists as they stood in the road and physically moving two of the protesters from the highway, but no arrests were made.

Over the last week of protest, which is thought to have involved around 2,000 people, 113 people have been arrested for offences including aggravated trespass and obstruction of the highway.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told the PA news agency: “The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) proportionately responds to any protest activity, balancing the rights of those protesting, with the rights of others to go about their normal business unaffected.

“While the MPS always aims to work with organisers to facilitate the right to protests, we also have a duty to minimise disruption so that other members of the public and local community can go about their day-to-day lives.”

Activists have called for the end of the arms fair, which officially opens on Tuesday, and have blocked equipment from entering the exhibition centre.

Prevent

Sam Bjorn, from Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, told PA: “The arms companies arriving in London right now are not only fuelling conflicts around the world that are forcing people to flee, they are also selling the equipment that is militarising our borders and is killing people as they seek safety.

“We are here to defend the right of all people to seek sanctuary, or a better life, without fear of violence, detention and racist borders. We’re here to say that migrants and refugees are welcome, arms dealers and oppressive regimes are not.”

The four-day event is supported by the Ministry of Defence and includes the dealing of equipment such as warships, tanks and weaponry as part of one of the largest arms fairs in the world.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has told DSEI organisers that he would try and prevent the return of the event to east London in future years, in a letter seen by The Independent.

This Author

Jess Glass is a reporter with  PA.

Mighty oaks, a “twisted conifer” and a sycamore growing on top of a castle are among the contenders vying to be named England’s Tree of the Year 2019.

Ten trees have been shortlisted, and now members of the public are being invited to vote for their top specimen.

Old oaks dominate the finalists in the competition run by the Woodland Trust.

Celebrating

They include Liverpool’s Allerton Oak in Calderstones Park, which may have been growing since the times of the Norman Conquest; the Isle of Wight’s Dragon Tree, which a myth claims was once a dragon slain by a Crusading knight; and Fallen Tree in London’s Richmond Park, which has continued to grow after falling over in a storm.

Along with the oaks, a London plane which is almost as tall as Nelson’s Column; an ancient yew; a sycamore that has been growing on a castle’s walls for 200 years; and a naturally twisted Scots pine have also made it on to the list.

The Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year competition runs in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with a public vote in each country selecting a champion to go forward to the 2020 European Tree of the Year contest.

The awards aim to raise awareness of the importance of trees, and also provide a £1,000 tree care award for each winner, which could be spent on work to benefit the tree’s health, signage, or a community celebration.

Adam Cormack, head of campaigning at the Woodland Trust, said: “The Tree of the Year competition is all about highlighting and celebrating the nation’s most remarkable and special trees.

Favourite

“We have a fantastic number of ancient and veteran trees and many notable urban trees. Trees across the country are constantly under threat of felling due to inappropriate developments.

“The Tree of the Year competition is all about helping to raise the profile of trees in order to offer them better protection.

“All of our shortlisted trees look amazing and each of them has a wonderful story to tell. We’re sure that the public will show their passion and get behind their favourite.”

The awards are being supported by the People’s Postcode Lottery and by horticulturalist and TV personality David Domoney, who said: “The Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year celebrates the marvel and beauty of trees in our country.

“They are such an important part of our cities and countryside, not only for their beauty, but also for the health benefits they offer to all living creatures.”

People can find out more about the shortlist and vote for their favourite tree at woodlandtrust.org.uk/treeoftheyear from 9am on Monday September 9 until voting closes at noon on September 27.

The 10 shortlisted trees are:

– Allerton Oak, Liverpool, Merseyside

Standing in Calderstones Park in Allerton, which is mentioned in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book of 1086, it is possible this ancient tree was already growing by then, and, according to legend, the local court would meet under its branches in medieval times as they had no courthouse.

– Dragon Tree, Brighstone, Isle of Wight

This oak has huge snaking boughs, one of which forms a bridge over the brook below. It is thought it took on its unique shape after it was blown down in a storm and managed to re-root, though legend suggests it was a dragon slain by a knight before turning to wood.

– Kingley Vale Great Yew, Chichester, West Sussex

Tis tree is one of the yews that have graced the South Downs for thousands of years, and are some of the oldest living things in the UK. Its large, arching boughs form an impressive canopy.

– Addison’s Oak, Bristol

This tree was planted to commemorate the launch of Bristol’s city-wide public housing scheme by Dr Christopher Addison MP, who was responsible for the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act which led to the first council houses to be built to provide “homes fit for heroes” returning from the First World War.

– Fallen Tree, Richmond Park, south-west London

Blown over in a storm, this oak clung on to life with its last remaining roots and has flourished in an unusual position. All of its branches grow from one side of the trunk, each reaching up like a small tree, and its bark has been worn smooth by children using it as a climbing frame over the years.

– London Plane, Bryanston, Dorset

The central of three trees at Bryanston School, this specimen stands nearly 164ft (50m) tall, just a little shorter than Nelson’s Column, making it the tallest broadleaf tree in the UK and one of the tallest in Europe. The tree’s height was confirmed in 2015 when school pupils – with the help of professional climbing equipment – scaled it to measure it.

– Twisted, Thetford, Norfolk

This Scots pine has, as it has grown, bent round in a loop. It is thought that the tree, in a small area of woodland south of Thetford, has performed this feat entirely naturally, bent down by wind or snow and then reaching towards the light once the pressure was lifted.

– North Circular Cork Oak, London

The last surviving cork oak from a plantation planted by the Cork Manufacturing Company more than a century ago, this tree flourishes at a major junction on London’s North Circular road despite being surrounded by retail warehouses and buffeted by road pollution, showing how nature and trees can thrive even in adverse urban environments.

– The Colchester Castle Sycamore, Colchester, Essex

The story of this sycamore, growing on top of Colchester Castle’s south-east tower for around 200 years, is that it was planted by the mayor’s daughter to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. It had to be removed in 1985 for wall repairs but it survived and was put back into its original position in 1987.

– The Drive Oak, Gloucester, Gloucestershire

This tree has guarded the entrance to Wick Court farm for hundreds of years and may have been there when Elizabeth I came from Berkeley Castle having been reprimanded for killing too many stags. Now children come to stay from inner-city primary schools, and study the oak as part of a bird survey.

More young people around the world will be able to join the fight against plastic pollution after the UK Government announced an extension of a global Scout and Girl Guides badge. The scheme works to create the next generation of international leaders to protect our oceans.

The badge not only encourages young people to take action to reduce plastic waste in their own lives, but also helps them become leaders in their communities.

Overseen by UN Environment, the badge is being supported by partners at the World Organisation of the Scout Movement, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

Tide Turners

International Marine Minister Zac Goldsmith said: “The UK is already committed to leaving the environment in a better state for the next generation, which is why it’s so important that we inspire a new generation of leaders to change behaviour towards single-use plastics.

“The extension of the Tide Turners Challenge Badge will help nurture these leaders in more countries around the world as we all work to turn the tide on single-use plastic in our ocean.”

The extension of the badge will see it reach nearly 300,000 young people in countries around the world, including Belize where the Commonwealth Litter Programme conference is currently taking place.

This builds on the work that the World Organisation of the Scout Movement is already doing as part of its A Million Hands programme which gives young people the chance to take action on issues they care about.  

Platform to lead

Susan Gardner, Director of the Ecosystems Division from the United Nations Environment Programme, said: “Harnessing the energy and brilliance of youth is one of the best solutions we have in the fight against the super-sized plastic pollution crisis that we face.

“We are delighted to have the support of the UK and the Scouts, Guides and Junior Achievement to scale-up the Plastic Tide Turners badge.”

Hany Abdulmonem, Global Director of Scouting Development, said: “The Challenge badge is a strong contribution to Scouting’s environmental programming and our ongoing youth-led effort to engage young people in making our communities and planet more sustainable.”

Sarah Nancollas, Chief Executive of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, said: “Girl Guides and Girl Scouts all over the world are calling for action to protect their planet and shape a sustainable future.

“The extension of the Tide Turner Challenge badge will give even more girls the platform to lead, speak out and take action in the fight against plastic pollution.”

The announcement is the latest step in the UK Government’s ongoing fight against plastic both at home and abroad.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Defra. 

The fires in the lowlands of Bolivia have burnt more than 1 million hectares, affecting forest reserves, protected areas and national parks.

These fires represent the environmental tensions generated by the agricultural extractivism that the drives the Bolivian government, which in recent years has favoured the agribusiness and livestock sectors, through laws and political agreements and, generating an agro-state alliance based around land occupation as a source of wealth.

This article was first published on OpenDemocracy.

Given the fall in price of hydrocarbons and minerals in 2013, the government then saw it as appropriate to promote the increase of exportation of monocultures (3rd highest export product), in order to raise its contribution to Bolivia’s GDP, which in the past 10 years has seen an average growth of 4.5 percent, data which the government boasts about.

Agricultural industries

So, in 2015 agricultural industries and the government organised an agricultural summit, where the details of the new plans for agricultural expansion were discussed, consolidating the political relationship between agriculture and the state. 

One of the goals of the agricultural summit is to extend the agricultural frontier by 10 million hectares by 2025. Expanding in the east, over the Bolivian Chiquitania (the area that is currently affected by fires) and to the north-eastern lands neighbouring the Beni province in order to increase monoculture exports (soy, sorghum and corn), livestock, ethanol production and biofuels.

This has meant promoting and strengthening partnerships with the countries landowning elite and transnational food companies (Monsanto, Cargill, Bayern Syngenta), who are in charge of the monoculture production chain, by giving transgenic seeds and chemical inputs to the farmers, being involved in the transformation of products in commodities (cake, flour) and the commercialisation them to the international markets.

All this, through the agricultural cluster established in Santa Cruz in the nineties.

In this context, you can see how agricultural policies in Bolivia are designed to prioritize monocultures which has led to an obsession with increasing productivity and cultivation areas, with a purpose of increasing the income that this type of agriculture brings.

This has put the modern agricultural development model in tension with the preservation of the environment. It also highlights the governments contractions between its commitment to agrarian capitalism and its rhetorical discourse about respect for mother earth. 

Deforestation

Another key actor in understanding these fires and the deforestation, is the peasant’s unions who are linked to the governing party and play a key role in this conflict.

Firstly, they benefit from the government provision of land to farming communities in protected areas that are unfit for cultivation. The government does this on purpose as it has positive consequences for them.

The farmers take part in land clearing (deforestation) and establish a territorial presence for the governing party in the East. The land they are given is also dependent on them becoming part of the monoculture circuit and becoming small and medium producers.

Finally, large parts of the land that is initially endowed to famers and peasants is subsequently sold on and/ or rented to agricultural or livestock owners due to the land trafficking that occurs in the area. 

This disaster shows how policies relating to land, the environment and indigenous people are considered inferior to the model of extractive development, that threatens the country’s natural and cultural heritage.

Uncontrolled fires 

As well as facing social stigma for their land clearing practises the farmers are unable to plant anything other than soy, sorghum or other monocultures given that their land and financial credits are tied to monoculture cultivation.

They have to pay for machinery and chemical inputs (herbicides and pesticides such as glyphosate that cause desertification of the soil), and also try to avoid floods, droughts or pests affecting their crop and thereby ruining their investment.

This generates an unequal agriculture that enriches large companies, impoverishes small families and destroys the environment.

The uncontrolled fires that are affecting the dry forests of Chiquitano are thanks the irresponsibility of the government in offering land in protected areas and due to the ignorance of the farmers, who have practised land clearing in the area.

The Chiquitano dry forest is a transitional ecoregion, that sits somewhere in between the humidity of the Brazilian and the aridity of the Paraguayan Chaco and, due to the characteristics of the found there vegetation it houses more than 200 species of wood many of the flammable, particularly in dry seasons, such as right now.

Biodiversity loss

The loss of biodiversity and natural wealth is incalculable; the Otuquis National Park, the Tucabaca Valley, the San Matias Area of Integrated Management, the Chiquitana mountain range, among others, are natural areas that give the area an ecological balance.

It is estimated that between 50 and 170 years will have to pass before the natural wealth of the forest is recovered. Preliminary data suggests that around 500 different animal species are in a vulnerable position and more than 50 farming communities have seen their crops and pastures turn to ash.

The fire has also damaged the Ñembi Guazú Nature Reserve, home of the Ayoreo indigenous people who are some of the very few uncontacted people that are now threatened by the dispossession of their land. 

This disaster shows how policies relating to land, the environment and indigenous people are considered inferior to the model of extractive development, that threatens the country’s natural and cultural heritage. The destruction of the environment in exchange for economic growth and modern agriculture is also a consequence of the lack of agricultural policies that promote sustainable and diversified agriculture, which would take advantage of current cultivation areas and whose products would be intended for internal consumption and therefore do not obey the pressures of international market. 

Despite this, the agricultural model that the government is promoting is successful for their political aims. It fulfils the promise of giving land to their peasant bases; increases its territorial and political presence in the East; satisfies the interests of the agro-industrial elites by expanding monoculture production and securing international markets (china) which will aid future production; and in turn, multiplys income from agriculture. 

National emergency

However, it is not only agricultural policy that is being used as a political tool, the uncontrolled fires are also being exploited by the president particularly since the Bolivian presidential elections take place on 20 October.

This can be seen in the fact that the government have refused to declare a national emergency, there has been a lack of coordination between the different levels of government and a delayed response to international aid.

The fires have also revealed the government’s inability and lack of political will to deal with a disaster of magnitude.

In this light, we can see that the fires and deforestation that is occurring within Bolivia is matching up with global agricultural trends, where the agro-state alliance obeys the demands of the multinational food companies, who dictate that monocultures should be grown in the Southern Cone countries.

At the same time, the model is used politically by the government who can give land to farmers in protected areas, ignoring the significance of the land and the irreparable ecological damage.

This Author 

Carlos Guzmán Vedia has a degree in Political Science and Public Administration (UAGRM), A master’s in Critical Development Studies (CIDES-UMSA). He now works as a social researcher and independent consultant focusing on trends in development, state and environment, Lowlands of Bolivia.

This article was first published on OpenDemocracy.

Celebs, MPs, animal protection organisations and Number 10’s Larry the Cat  have joined forces to call on the Prime Minister to prioritise legislation that recognises animals as sentient beings and enacts a duty to protect them when formulating and implementing policy, before the UK departs the EU.

Celebrity video messages of support for the #BetterDealforAnimals campaign were played at a Parliament event yesterday attended by 28 MPs and Peers. Videos can be watched here.

Read ‘Animal sentience after Brexit’ by Alex Mcdonald here. 

Larry the cat tweeted in support of the campaign: “I was delighted to receive more than 100,000 signatures from my friends at #BetterDealForAnimals as part of their campaign for animal sentience to be recognised; perhaps it could be called #LarrysLaw #BetterDealForAnimals.”

Vital protections

In his first speech as PM, Mr Johnson said: “Let’s promote the welfare of animals that has always been so close to the hearts of the British people.”

Yet as it stands, deal or no deal, animals will lose vital legal protections on 31st October because EU laws recognising that they are sentient will no longer apply.

The #BetterDealForAnimals campaign is supported by forty of Britain’s largest and most effective animal charities including the RSPCA, Humane Society International, World Animal Protection and Compassion in World Farming.

Campaigners stress that failure to bring forward the ‘sentience’ law would make animals vulnerable to the government creating new laws, policies or trade deals that don’t take animals’ welfare needs into account.

For example, new trade deals could be agreed that would permit imports of lower welfare animal products – such as chicken carcasses washed in chlorine to mask low welfare standards, and meat and dairy produced from hormone-treated animals. See more examples of potential post-Brexit animal harm here. 

Animal welfare

Despite one of the most fraught days in Parliament’s history, 28 MPs and Peers from 5 political parties prioritised animals and attended the event, sponsored by Shadow Secretary of State for Environment Sue Hayman MP, Alistair Carmichael MP of the Lib Dems and Deidre Brock MP from SNP, to show their support for the new animal protection law.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Zac Goldsmith MP gave the keynote address and pressed that he would find the earliest possible opportunity to introduce animal sentience legislation adding it’s hard to exaggerate how important animal welfare issues are to me, and as long as I am Minister for Animal Welfare, I’ll use every opportunity I can to advance this agenda.”

A Parliamentary e-petition, signed by more than 100,000 UK animal lovers, which calls for sentience to be recognised in law before we leave the EU closed on 27th August and was handed in to Number 10 Downing Street yesterday.

The petition had already prompted a Parliamentary debate on animal sentience, but due to the chaos in parliament the debate has now been knocked down the priorities list and rescheduled to November.

Sonul Badiani-Hamment from World Animal Protection, a #BetterDealForAnimals campaign partner, said “It’s been over 18 months since the government declared that it would recognise in law that animals can think and feel, and afford them legal protection accordingly after Brexit.”

Prioritising legislation 

Badiani-Hamment continued: “May’s government left this languishing and despite encouraging words from Mr Johnson, we’re now just weeks from leaving the EU with no legislation or parliamentary time in sight.

“With government and parliament fighting between themselves, animals are being entirely forgotten.

“Mr Johnson should listen to Larry the Cat, celebrities, MPs and the millions of animal lovers across the country and ensure animal sentience legislation is prioritised at the first opportunity.”

Claire Bass, Executive Director of Humane Society International UK, a #BetterDealForAnimals campaign partner, said: “Rescue puppy Dilyn has landed on his paws taking up residence at Number 11 this week, and Larry the cat looks relaxed on his window ledge, but the welfare of millions of other animals hangs in the balance.

“Mr Johnson has made promising proclamations about the importance of animal welfare but the clock is ticking to turn words into laws.

“The Prime Minister must listen to the public, MPs, celebrities and, of course, his in-house feline and canine special advisers, and prioritise legislation to ensure that animals don’t lose legal protections as a result of Brexit.”

This Article

This article is based on a press release from Wold Animal Protection. 

The #BetterDealForAnimals campaign has already been backed by over 100 MPs and peers across all parties.

Nearly 5,000 harbour porpoises, dolphins and whales have been left stranded on UK shores in the last decade, a study has revealed.

The Government said 4,896 cetaceans were reported washed up between January 1 2011 and December 31 2017.

The findings are part of a seven-year review published by the Government and led by the international conservation charity ZSL (the Zoological Society of London).

Infectious

Researchers recorded 21 different cetacean species – nearly one quarter of the total currently known to science – as well as six species of marine turtle and several species of large bodied sharks.

The highest number of strandings in a single year was also recorded in 2017, with more than 1,000 noted.

The team also investigated several large-scale mass stranding events involving multiple animals, including one in July 2011, in the Kyle of Durness, Scotland where 70 long-finned pilot whales stranded together.

They also conducted 1,030 post-mortem examinations to identify why individual animals had died.

Infectious disease and incidental entanglement in fishing gear – also known as bycatch – were two of the most common findings.

Deaths

Bycatch accounted for 23 percent of common dolphin deaths and 14 percent of harbour porpoise deaths.

Others caused directly by humans included 25 animals killed by ship-strike and a single Cuvier’s beaked whale that suffered a gastric impaction following the ingestion of marine litter in 2015.

Cetologist Rob Deaville, who led the study, said: “It’s difficult to say conclusively what’s driven this rise, but it’s potentially associated with multiple causes – including increases in local reporting effort and seasonal variation in the population density of some species.

“As both nets and propellers can cause characteristic injuries, we can readily diagnose causes of death which are directly related to human activity, such as bycatch and ship-strike.

“However, the total proportion of deaths linked to the impact of humans is actually likely to be higher over the period covered by this report.

Habitats

“For example, cases of infectious disease may be associated with exposure to chemical pollution, including legacy pollutants such as PCBs, which can have immuno-suppressive effects.”

Mr Deaville added: “Although in some respects the data paints a bleak picture, there are still positives to be drawn.

“Between 2011 and 2017 we recorded 21 cetacean species including one – the dwarf sperm whale – that had never been previously seen in the UK.

“That’s nearly a quarter of all currently known species, reflecting the range of diverse habitats around our coast.

Extraordinary

“It may be that, as the climate continues to change, the pattern of strandings around the UK may also change but we’ll have to wait to see what future reports find.

“That’s the value of monitoring programmes. We produce long-term, continuous data that picks up changes in the UK’s marine biodiversity that other approaches might miss.

“By investigating stranded cetaceans, we can also gain a real insight into the wider health of the marine environment and the frankly extraordinary wildlife that can be found around our shores.”

This Author

Rod Minchin is a reporter with PA.

The Philippines prides itself in being one of the most biodiverse places on earth.

It comprises some 7,000 islands in the tropical Western Pacific, so it comes as no surprise that environmentalist Gina Lopez was driven by an awe of her country’s many natural treasures. 

She told The Ecologist:“We are a country of beautiful volcanoes, mountains, rivers, and corals. It’s absolutely spectacular.” This was back in September 2017, when she won the Seacology Prize, a $10,000 annual conservation prize. After fifteen years of activism she certainly earned it. 

Planting saplings

Lopez died this month aged 65, following multiple organ failure after losing the battle against brain cancer. A public memorial service was held over two days in August in Manila.

She was mourned by many, not least the ABS-CBN Foundation, a social development organisation of which she was chairperson for many years.

The foundation described Lopez as “champion for environment, child protection and the disadvantaged.

“She exemplified a life of service to humanity with a deep desire to improve people’s lives, rallied for social justice, and sought to bring hope and change to poor communities.”

Instead of flowers, the organisation decided to bid her goodbye by planting 130 saplings at the La Mesa Eco Park, the reforestation of which was one of Lopez’s projects.

Mining ban

Prior to environmental activism Lopez worked with vulnerable children. On Valentine’s Day back in 1997, Lopez founded the country’s first child protection helpline Bantay Bata 163, which is still used today. 

But Lopez is perhaps most widely recognised for getting open-pit mining banned in 2016, when she briefly served as environment secretary. Despite her history as a radical activist, Lopez was appointed Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) when President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in June 2016. 

Bold actions indeed, inspired by witnessing the mines’ disruption to nearby people and nature, she explained when we spoke in September 2017. 

Lopez said: “Putting these open pits in a place a beautiful as the Philippines is disgustingly horrible. If you have any sense of aesthetics, how can you do that! And when you learn that there are communities there whose lives have been disadvantaged, your heart breaks.” 

Lopez ordered 23 mines to shut down and many others to delay or suspend their operations. She cancelled 75 contracts to mines which she said posed a threat to nearby water supply. 

Financial liability

The temporary ban also affected three planned major mining ventures worth a combined $8.9 billion. President Duterte has since warned the miningindustry that he is considering banning open pit mines permanently.

And the fight is far from over. More recently, Philippine copper and gold producer Philex Mining Corp announced in August that it is seeking strategic partners for a long-delayed $1.1 billion mine project – stopped so far by the ban – in the south of the country, that it hopes to fully develop by 2022.

The Philippines is the world’s top producer of nickel ore and the main exporter to China. 

But the open pit mines are wreaking havoc on the island ecosystems and have a terrible effect on the local communities. The mines resemble large man-made sinkholes, collecting water and becoming toxic over time unless managed correctly.

Lopez said: “And all of these open pit mines are near rivers and streams. All of them. They are going to be there for all eternity. They will have to be detoxified on a regular basis, otherwise they will turn acidic. And all of these open pits will be a financial liability to government for life.” 

Health impacts

Travelling from village to village, Lopez took it upon herself to document how mines destroy the environment, gathering evidence as she went. She also shared it with her 700,000 followers on Facebook.

She said: “I would go around with the media and take footage myself. People were shocked at the pictures.”

Money was the driving force: “There are just a few businesspeople that control politicians. That’s how it is.” 

And it is not just about crops. People at nearby villages are at risk of being poisoned. Mercury poisoning linked to an open-pit mine near the city of Puerto Princesa, Palawan, has already been detected, as revealed by a study by the Department of Health.

Exposure to even small amounts of mercury can cause kidney failure and neurological and behavioural disorders, according to the World Health Organization.

Big business 

Taking on mining has been an uphill battle which arguably cost her the job in government. As Lopez herself put it: “You are stepping on very big business toes.”

But she was willing to take the consequences: “I’m going to do the right thing and let the dice fall where it may,” Lopez famously said after issuing the ban.

And so it was perhaps not that surprising that in May 2017, after just ten months as environment secretary, Lopez was voted out of office by the members of a congressional commission on appointments — some of whom had ties to the mining sector. 

Lopez said: “The resources of one land are destroyed for the business interests of a few… it is social injustice.”

But lobbying against the heavily polluting open-pit nickel mines was not her only triumph. 

Early life

Lopez established the first ever forum for consultations between the DENR and indigenous populations and shut down illegal fish pens in the country’s largest lake. 

Her efforts as chair of the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission led to the cleanup of at least 17 tributaries in the badly polluted Pasig River and nearby urban streams, and she was leader of the Save Palawan Island movement. 

However, while a defender of the under-privileged, Lopez herself grew up far from such disadvantages. Born on 27 December, 1953, Lopez was the second of seven children of a wealthy family who founded ABS-CBN, now the nation’s largest media conglomerate.

In later years, Lopez worked as the head of its philanthropic arm, the ABS-CBN Foundation.

Her early life looked very different to her campaigning years. Before going into politics and activism, she spent time at Indian ashrams, taught yoga and helped build orphanages in Africa, where she lived for eleven years as a yoga missionary in her twenties. This was also where she met her now ex-husband with whom she had two sons.

Philanthropic plans

Lopez described herself as “spiritual” and grasped the first opportunity to talk about things like love and the importance of community spirit.

She remained a keen yogi and said she used meditation to understand the suffering of others and connect with the environment. She said that through mindfulness: “You feel more. You can feel the pain of others. You can feel the destruction of the environment.” 

This includes acknowledging the critical need for resistance to climate change, she said, which is already “staring us in the face.” 

She was very worried about the future: “There’s nothing we can do about it. The typhoons are going to come. The storm surges are going to come”, she said as she spoke about how “crucial” protecting the mangrove and bamboo ecosystems is in preparing for the inevitable flooding.

Despite her worries, she was full of solutions and had big philanthropic plans for the coming years when we spoke in 2017. Perhaps she knew that time was running out not just with respect to climate change but also in her battle with cancer.

Economic potential 

In particular, Lopez saw a lot of potential for the economy beyond extracting the earth’s resources.

Through her organisation I LOVE (Investments in Loving Organizations for Village Economies), she worked to lift Filipinos out of poverty by building green businesses such as eco-tourism.

Lopez said: “I want to give hope by showing people working together…  I want to prove that economies based on a genuine empathy and concern for the other is actually very good for economic flow, peace and order.

“I’m very determined to make that happen.” 

This Author

Sophie Morlin-Yron is a freelance writer based in London. She writes about the environment, tech and innovation. She tweets @sophiemy.

What Remains is an 8-bit game, blending visual novel and adventure elements. The story translates real events from the 80’s into an epic quest to save the world.

The game lets you experience the fight against industry disinformation, showing you several ways to push back and regain agency by joining forces with others. 

The 80’s was the decade in which many of the problems we face today became painfully apparent. The collateral damage of industrial capitalism – acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, global warming – became visible at the same time as the rise of neoliberalism, with its push for deregulation.

Unsustainable technology

During the 80s, several industry disinformation campaigns have been successfully used in an attempt to delay regulation. The game is based on those campaigns, showing strategies that are still used today.

Digital technology, even though it is often portrayed as immaterial and clean, is inherently unsustainable. The mining for minerals needed to build microchips and Printed Circuit Boards is extremely polluting; planned obsolescence and eternal upgrading to a newer model results in an overload of e-waste which for a large part ends up in toxic waste dumps in for instance Ghana and India; the growing CO2 emissions of data centers, web traffic and home use of electronic devices.

So instead of going for the latest gadget, What Remains is developed on reused and repurposed old NES cartridges. 

The game has a female protagonist, Jennifer, who stumbles upon a NES cartridge which contains encrypted documents. She and her best friend Michael start to unravel a conspiracy threatening the whole planet. They start decoding the documents and spreading news about the information they discover.

The game allows the player to actively engage with the topic of disinformation, instead of read about it. Let’s proceed with a description of a few different strategies, and how they are translated in the game.

Controlling the narrative  

The first strategy is controlling the narrative surrounding the industry in question. The most striking example of this strategy in the 80s is the use of PR agency Katzenstein Associates by both the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the Tobacco Institute.

EEI published an advertisement in the Washington Post in 1982 with a coupon to order the booklet “An Updated Perspective on Acid Rain” written by Allan Katzenstein. It contained falsehoods such as acid rain having a fertilizing effect and an explanation of pH values saying acidity is not all bad, since tomatoes and carrots are acid too: “All have pH values well in the range of the rain that is the subject of scare headlines in the popular media”.

In 1987 Katzenstein worked for theTobacco Institute, giving  62 TV, radio and newspaper interviews, posing as an air quality expert. 

In the game, you learn about Alan Kittenstein of PR agency Kittenstein Associates. He is hired by DNYcorp whose energy branch is worried about acid rain causing a panic among the public.

You also discover that the local newspaper, the Sunny Peaks Gazette, is owned by Fred Robafeller, who owns 80 percent of DNYcorp, the corporation wreaking havoc on the environment in your hometown. You gain the ability to spread the information you received by literally blowing the whistle.

When you do, you spread the information you just learned to other characters in the game. Some accuse you of being a doom-crying opponent of all progress. You need to find different ways to broadcast this story…

Astroturfing

The second strategy is appearing to be fighting for and with the people, by using front groups and astroturf campaigns. This creates the illusion of many people fighting for the same cause: usually corporate freedom – not getting regulated or taxed – made to look indistinguishable from individual freedom. 

Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), an anti-tax think tank dedicated to the promotion of free market economics, was co-founded in 1984 by David Koch, of Koch Industries. It was funded by the tobacco, oil, energy and sugar industries.

In 2002 CSE launched the Tea Party website. The Tea Party, which was meant to be a grass roots uprising for less taxes and less government regulation, turned out to be astroturf, hiding its sponsors until 2012, when internal documents leaked. 

Inspired by the Koch brothers’ efforts to bootstrap the tea-party protests, the game’s Sunny Peaks elections for a new mayor are hit by an anti-tax, pro-freedom, astroturf campaign organized by DNYcorp to get the industry friendly mayor John Donson elected.

You receive information about the scheme and need to convince as many people as possible not to fall for it. You try talking to them about the evidence you’ve uncovered, but the campaign uses slander against you.

You’ve lost trust. Even though you have evidence, you cannot win this battle. Only after infiltrating the secret headquarters of DNYcorp and uncovering a plan threatening the whole world, are you able to stop the spread of false information. DNYcorp defends itself with one last strategy.

Distraction

The last strategy is all about distracting the public’s attention by pointing to something even more concerning that is unrelated to the industry in question.

This strategy has three steps. First, all focus is put on a problem bigger than the one the industry causes. During the 80s this was still communism, which later turned into environmentalism, terrorism and other foreign threats.

Step two consists of offering a technological solution to the problem. Step three is there in case step one and two fail: you stress how people can adapt to the problem you caused.

During the 80’s the cold war was still used as a distraction to push through policies that were a direct threat to public safety, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Reagan’s thankfully never realized plan to protect the US against Soviet nuclear missiles with a laser defense shield in space. 

In the game DNYcorp is distracting people with an epic yet fake alien invasion. The solution they propose is to nuke the aliens. This will, not coincidentally, generate a nuclear winter, cooling the earth, neutralizing the effects of global warming so people can continue to burn the fossil fuels offered by DNYcorp.

A technical solution – geoengineering – using the theory of nuclear winter, while simultaneously distracting from the cause of the problem. 

Let’s play!

The game contains more strategies and lets players resist by collectively fighting for independent media, destroying the carefully constructed narrative of a harmful industry.

The game takes place in a pre-internet era yet the strategies used to influence public opinion and delay industry regulation have not evolved that much. The infrastructure used to execute those strategies has though, and this has made wielding influence much easier.

What Remains is a game that explores these issues and lets you experience the different parallels between disinformation campaigns in the 80s and today through the lens of a game console from that decade.

What Remains is a project by Arnaud Guillon, Chun Lee, Dustin Long, Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk. The game can be downloaded here. 

This Author

Marloes de Valk is a software artist and writer in the post-despair stage of coping with the threat of global warming and being spied on by the devices surrounding her.