The police have failed to complete an investigation into the alleged illegal killing of 118 badgers by a farmer in a badger cull zone.

The alleged crimes were reported to an executive agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) by an employee.

However, evidence suggests that the government did not refer the matter to police – even though the killing of just one badger is so serious a crime that it can lead to a fine of up to £50,000 or a prison sentence.

Farmer’s admission

The confusion caused by the significant delays led to the alleged crimes remaining unsolved – but who is to blame for this failure? Police or government?

The police are supposed to have a neutral role as regards the badger cull, but recently it was alleged that a Devon cull liaison officer had been acting partially.

So what further light does the ‘118 badgers incident’ shed on the role of the police in relation to the badger cull? Badger culling began six years ago in the autumn of 2013 in two pilot cull zones: West Gloucestershire and West Somerset. West Gloucestershire’s cull began on 3 September.

In August 2013 the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA), an executive agency of Defra, received a report from a Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) field worker who was surveying setts before the cull.

The report said that a farmer had admitted to the field worker and his colleague that they would “not find any badger setts that are active on his land” and that “he had got rid of 118 badgers”.

The field worker wrote his report on 19 August and said in the report that he had notified AHVLA’s field office (in Gloucester).

Knock-on effect

The pilot culls were due to start in 2012 but were delayed. Culls were only licensed by Natural England if the percentage of participating land in a cull area was at least 70 percent. In 2013 participating land in West Gloucestershire was 70.17 percent. The 0.17 percent equated to about half a km².

If the alleged crimes had been reported to police it is possible that the farmer (a cull participant) would have had to withdraw from the cull during the investigation and that if his land was over half a km², the whole licence for West Gloucestershire would have had to be revoked.

118 is a huge number of badgers. Badgers are territorial and rely on suitable habitat and an abundant food supply to subsist. These factors suggest that the farmer’s landholding was considerably larger than half a km².

Defra’s denials

In October 2013 it was revealed that badger population estimates in both cull counties had fallen dramatically in the course of one year. Some experts suggested that illegal killing may have had a part to play in the substantial drop.

At the time a Defra spokesperson said that the department had not received any allegations of illegal killing in the cull areas and that if anyone had any information about suspected wildlife crime they should contact police.

Replying to a Freedom of Information request submitted in the same month Defra said: “No evidence has been received by Defra about any illegal culling. Defra does not hold this information as it is not the department’s responsibility to arrest or prosecute individuals undertaking illegal activity. This is the role of the police.”

This denial was disputed by the requester, who asked Defra to conduct “adequate and properly directed searches to confirm whether information about illegal badger killing [in England in 2013] is held.” Defra reiterated that it did not hold the information. But it did.

Error admitted

Two years later, as part of preparations for a hearing in the First-tier Tribunal, this Freedom of Information request was re-examined.

In August 2015 Defra admitted that it did hold the requested information and disclosed the field worker’s report with the name of the farm and the farmer blotted out.

Defra confirmed that the farm was in Gloucestershire and that the farmer was a cull participant in the Gloucestershire cull zone.

When asked if they had reported the alleged crimes to police, Defra said: “We do not know whether this information was referred to the police.”

Considerable confusion

In 2015, once the field worker’s report had been disclosed, the alleged incident was reported to Gloucestershire police by a member of the public. A wildlife crime officer undertook the investigation and said that he was unaware of the incident being reported previously.

Although it was well over six months since the alleged offence had occurred (and therefore a prosecution could not be brought) the officer acknowledged the seriousness of the alleged crimes and wanted to speak to those involved and to investigate why it had not been reported to police by Defra, if that was the case.

Progress was slow, but by September 2016 the officer had been supplied with the report that identified the farm and the farmer. He contacted the Animal and Plant Health Agency (formerly AHVLA) to request the contact details of the field workers and the farmer, the farm’s location, the details of the AHVLA manager to whom the incident was reported, the police force to which the matter was forwarded and a reference number or an explanation as to why it was not reported to police.

Early on in the investigation the officer was removed from his post as wildlife crime officer and by the end of 2016 he had retired. After he had left the force and enquiries were made as to the investigation’s progress there was considerable confusion.

The new investigating officer said she had not been made aware of the final outcome. She could not find the unredacted report or government emails and could not contact the retired officer. When she approached APHA, she said that they could not locate the report and could not find anyone who had spoken with the original investigating officer.

Bombshell

When pressed – and after more time had elapsed – the officer obtained the report. Then she dropped the bombshell that the farm was not in Gloucestershire’s policing area but in Avon and Somerset’s policing area and that consequently Gloucestershire police would no longer be involved in the investigation.

She said that she had contacted ‘the relevant person’ in Avon and Somerset police who turned out to be the cull liaison officer. He drew attention to the fact that a prosecution needed to be brought within six months of the offence and expressed regret that his force were not notified of the incident at the time.

Three and a half years had elapsed since the field worker wrote his report and one and a quarter years had passed since the incident was reported to police.

It cannot be confirmed whether anyone working within Defra or AHVLA had deliberately withheld the field worker’s report and chose not to inform police. However, there is evidence to suggest that they did not inform police (while there is none to suggest that they did).

The original investigating officer and the Avon and Somerset cull liaison officer both indicated that the alleged crimes had not been reported to their forces at the time. If they had been reported in August 2013 – or even in October when the requester sought the information – a full investigation could have been carried out and a prosecution brought.

Did Defra fear that a police investigation would create negative publicity for its controversial badger control policy – or that it would delay the pilot culls for another year? We will never know.

Police impartiality

The original investigating officer was impartial and concerned with the truth. However, once this officer left, the investigation faltered.

Did the Gloucestershire farmer live in an Avon and Somerset policing area?  This claim is not wholly convincing. If it is true, it is odd that the original investigating officer did not realise this when he received the report disclosing the names of the farm and the farmer.

Was the investigation transferred in order to close it down?

It is alleged that a high-ranking officer from Devon and Cornwall police suggested to government that the badger protection law should be suspended in cull areas (‘legalising’ illegal killing). Do other senior officers share his views?

‘Idiots’

Why was the investigation referred to a cull liaison officer?

It has recently been alleged that a cull liaison officer in Devon police referred to badger cull protestors as “idiots” while he was advising cull operatives. There are claims that he also said that he would confiscate cameras set up to monitor cage traps. Devon police has said that appropriate action would be taken against the officer who had not acted impartially.

Whether the two cull liaison officers share the same attitude is unknown. However, it is logical to assume that it would be more appropriate for wildlife crimes to be investigated by a specially trained wildlife crime officer rather than an officer with a close relationship to badger cull participants and marksmen.

What happened to those 118 badgers? Were they killed illegally? Sadly, it is likely that the mystery – and the investigation – will remain unsolved.

Were the badgers’ corpses disposed of  below ground? If they were, then – thanks to the government and police – the truth was buried with them.

This Author

Anna Dale campaigns against the English badger cull. 

The latest State of Nature report makes for sobering reading. Many species are in serious trouble, falling in numbers and drawing back into ever-smaller strongholds as we close in around them, a pattern of decline going back hundreds of years.

In the rest of Europe, the story is frequently similar. In Germany, more than three quarters of flying insects have disappeared in just 27 years. Farmland birds across Europe have lost over half their populations since 1980. This is a crisis.

It is clear that something has to change. We can no longer pretend that existing conservation approaches are working. It is time for an ambitious, optimistic, forward-thinking programme to bring nature back to Europe.

Embrace forests

The challenge is significant and the stakes are high, but we have a chance now to restore our ecosystems, keep carbon out of the atmosphere, and bring wildlife conservation into the twenty-first century on our continent.

The first step is to embrace forests again – once familiar, now almost entirely lost – and restore them to their rightful place in our landscapes.

Forests are the among the best solutions to climate breakdown, and changes to our land use, agriculture and forestry practices globally would take us around 37 percent of the way to keeping warming below catastrophic levels.

It will be impossibly difficult to engineer a system more efficient at taking carbon out of the atmosphere, holding together the hills and supporting wildlife. Even better, allowing forests to re-establish themselves costs next to nothing.

So why, in most European countries, and particularly the UK, are we so unconcerned about having no real forests left?

Ancient woodlands

Forest cover in the UK is around 13 percent, one of the lowest levels in Europe. If you were to exclude plantation forests, grown only for timber and which suffocate biodiversity, this figure would fall still further.

Across Europe, the situation is much the same, although not to such a dramatic extent. Majestic, species-rich, carbon-absorbing ancient woodlands have largely been forgotten in favour of sparse, monocultural, neat rows of trees. This cannot carry on.

The good news is that doubling tree cover in the UK can be achieved with little or even no effect on food production, by prioritising land which is low-quality farmland but perfect for woods to flourish.

It’s not enough to simply have more trees, however, reforestation must take the form of restoring natural forests, not lining up further industrial woodlands.

One particularly strong reason for this is that over the same area, natural forests store 40 times the carbon of plantations.

Primeval lessons

True forests would provide a home for many of our declining species, enlarging and reconnecting the small fragments of remaining woodland in which they currently cling to life. More species are usually found in larger patches, and connecting separate islands of habitat means if a species is threatened in one area it has an escape route for establishing populations elsewhere.

The primeval forest of Białowieża National Park, in Poland, provides a blueprint for what more European forests could – and should – look like.

To a visitor accustomed to UK woodlands, this forest is at times a confusing experience; fallen trees are left to return to the soil, the forest hums with the noise of birds, bison, deer and wolves, and more species of tree, shrub and mushroom can be seen on a single visit than a lifetime spent in the UK’s woodlands. This forest teaches us that if we let forests manage their own affairs, they will thrive.

Dr Tomasz Samojlik from the Mammal Research Institute at the Polish Academy of Sciences said: “Until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century [Białowieża Primeval Forest] was not touched by ‘modern’, ‘rational’ forestry. It is an invaluable reference point for all European forest research, but only as long as we do not turn it into managed treestand.

“Any attempt at rewilding and restoring ancient woodlands should take the example of Białowieża and aim at including as little human intervention as possible.” 

Forest engineers

Of course, part of the reason Białowieża is so diverse is because it is a more balanced ecosystem. Without wolves and lynx, deer populations explode. This results in trees being stripped of their bark and dying, and the rate of survival for smaller trees is massively reduced or entirely cut off.

Once wolves were allowed to return to Yellowstone National Park in the USA, the populations of tree species which were dying out have rebounded strongly, as have many species of birds and mammals as the wolves reshape their environment.

Beavers are another essential ‘ecosystem engineer’. They create small patches of wetland which boost biodiversity and lock up more carbon.

The benefits even extend to dealing with the biggest problems facing wildlife today, like climate change, invasive species and disease – the more biodiverse a given area is, the more able it is to withstand external shocks that would demolish a less resilient ecosystem. As these threats grow in number and significance, bringing back nature to our forests will be essential for ‘future-proofing’ them to ensure they survive.

To restore our forests to their natural state, we must look for the species which once kept them fully functioning and bustling with life, and bring them back to do so again. This – not the idea of returning to a species mix which existed at some arbitrary point in the past – is why rewilding our landscapes is crucial.

Crossroads

We are at a crossroads in forest management in the UK and Europe. Subsidised overgrazing, over-management, and simply counting the number of trees as a measure of success are demonstrably not working, and we are passing up golden opportunities for natural solutions to climate change and the biodiversity crisis.

The resurgence of the rainforests, wildwoods, conifer forests and temperate broadleaved woodlands which would naturally exist in Britain, over at least double the area they currently cover, would begin to redress this imbalance.

This Author 

Steve Trent is the executive director of Environmental Justice Foundation. 

Image: Environmental Justice Foundation

The Size of Wales Mbale programme has passed its ten million milestone as climate change activist Leah Namugerwa and first minister Mark Drakeford plant trees on two continents.

The ambitious Mbale tree planting scheme, which is funded by the Welsh government’s Wales for Africa programme, plants trees in the heavily-deforested region of Mount Elgon region in eastern Uganda.

It is also supported by the Welsh government’s Plant! scheme, which plants two trees for every child born or adopted in Wales – one in Wales and one in Uganda.

Soil erosion 

Ms Namugerwa, 15, planted the 10 millionth tree in a special ceremony in Uganda. 

At the same time, Mr Drakeford planted a “twin tree” in Bute Park, Cardiff. He will be joined by children from Cwmcarn Primary School’s Eco team.

As well as fighting climate change – one of the biggest issues of our time – fast-growing trees protect local people in the Mount Elgon region from the effects of soil erosion, which can cause deadly landslides.

The trees also provide local communities with fresh fruit and shelter and an important source of income.

Trailblazer

The tree planting took place as Wales and the world celebrated the United Nations’ International Day of the Girl Child.

Leah Namugerwa is one of a new generation of young, female climate change activists, blazing a trail alongside fellow activist Greta Thunberg. Her work campaigning for tree planting and a ban on single use plastic has begun to have a significant impact across Uganda.

She was joined by 600 children from Makunda Primary School and the members of the Sunu Women’s Group, planted more trees to celebrate the project and its plans to plant 25 million trees by 2025. 

Mr Drakeford said: “The Mbale tree planting programme has been a great success, helping the most vulnerable Ugandan communities adapt to climate change.

“Tropical forests absorb nearly a fifth of all man-made CO2 emissions, making them crucial in stabilising the world’s climate.

“Planting trees in Wales and Uganda is vital in helping to tackle climate change, and helps the children of Wales feel a personal connection with their environment.”

enormous achievement

Elspeth Jones, director of Size of Wales, said: “The planting of the 10 millionth tree in Uganda is an enormous achievement.

“The programme has been working towards this point for many years and immense passion has been invested by a lot of people in both Wales and Uganda to make this happen.

“We are all extremely proud to see these trees being planted today to mark this amazing milestone. We hope that many people from all over Wales will visit our tree in stunning Bute Park and use it as an opportunity to learn about this wonderful project and the importance of trees in tackling the climate emergency. 

“We’re really excited about the next stage of the project, which is to plant 25 million trees by 2025 – anyone who wants to support this effort can donate to plant a tree in the project via the Size of Wales website.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Size of Wales. 

Image: Wikipeda. 

The UK Ivory Act – which introduces tough regulations on the buying and selling of ivory from, to and within the UK – received Royal Assent in December 2018 but will now be subject to Judicial Review at the High Court on 16 October.

John Stephenson, CEO of Stop Ivory, said: “To lose this law before it has even taken effect would be a tragedy for Africa’s elephants. The UK is one of the world’s leading exporters of antique ivory and sends more to China and Hong Kong than any other country.

“Any legal trade in ivory provides cover for the illegal trade because it is difficult to distinguish between antique and newly carved ivory. Moreover, it fuels a continued demand for ivory by perpetuating its perceived value in the eyes of consumers and making it a socially acceptable commodity.”

Lobbying

The antiques lobby group, a company of antiques dealers and collectors called the Friends of Antique Cultural Treasures Ltd (FACT), argues that the Ivory Act is incompatible with EU law, which allows trade in pre-1947 ‘antique’ ivory. The group also claims the act infringes antiques dealers’ human rights by not letting them buy or sell ivory.

However, the European Commission is currently considering new restrictions on ivory trade across Europe which are based in part on the UK Ivory Act and even use similar language. Other countries, such as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, have introduced, or are in the process of introducing, similar legislation also based on the Act.

Mary Rice, Executive Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which has campaigned against the ivory trade for decades, said: “The UK Ivory Act has been welcomed globally as an important step in stifling a demand for ivory which threatens elephants in the wild. So we’re extremely concerned about attempts by British antiques dealers to have the UK ban quashed.”

While the antiques trade claims the UK Ivory Act will result in “substantial economic damage” to the industry, ivory accounts for less than one per cent of annual sales in many UK auction houses.

The Act does not prevent individuals from owning ivory, from passing items on as family heirlooms or donating it to museums and includes a number of carefully crafted exemptions.

The UK Ivory Act also has the support of many African countries with significant elephant populations, which are calling for stricter controls on the sale of ivory abroad as they struggle to control poaching at home.

Poaching 

Thirteen African governments belonging to the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) signed a statement hailing the passing of the Act in 2018: “We believe the UK’s new law will … support and encourage enforcement efforts and initiatives to reduce ivory trafficking in Africa, and around the world.”

Approximately 55 African elephants are poached every day, an unsustainable rate of loss.

According to a 2017 survey, 85 percent of the British public are in favour of the UK Ivory Act.

A decision from the High Court is expected before the end of the year.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Elephant Protection Initiative. 

In 2020, The Ecologist will be fifty. In 2022, it will be fifty years since our landmark publication of A Blueprint for Survival. As our team approaches these twin anniversaries we’ve been thinking about this early writing’s legacy, and about how to make better use of our capacious archive – a huge body of knowledge – at a time when we are reaching further and publishing more than ever. We have been thinking, too, about what a Blueprint for the twenty-first century might look like. 

Outside of my work as The Ecologist’s content editor, I also teach and research. In the classroom, there are two questions I like to pose to students who are encountering a difficult text for the first time: what does this writing make possible and what does it close down? These questions can help us to see what and who is at stake in a given argument. 

The promise that drives so much amazing work in the climate justice movement is that ‘Another World is Possible’. I believe that. But in the pursuit of possibility we must also ask, what might we be shutting down; who might we endanger; what’s the blueprint? 

Disingenuous and dangerous 

It’s timely, if unexpected, that the mass mobilization of Extinction Rebellion activists (XR) last week directed our attention to articles published in The Ecologist’s more recent history. 

When Rupert Read appeared on BBC Question Time as a spokesperson for XR, some online commentators turned to his stance on immigration. An article surfaced – published by The Ecologist in 2014 – that asked: ‘Can we love individual immigrants, while opposing mass migration?’. In it, Read argued: ‘We ought to accept the power of reasoning that shows that high level of immigration leads to significant problems.’ Readers are left to wonder: by whose ‘power of reasoning’, to what ends, why?  

I’ve worked for The Ecologist for a little shy of a year. Not too long, but long enough to have developed a pride in the platform and joy in the work. It is a great privilege to use my skills in a way that feels grounded and progressive, and to learn so many new things each day as writing comes in from activists and thinkers the world over, many of whom are on the frontlines of the struggle for climate justice.

Encountering Read’s article for the first time, I felt several shades of shame, rage and exasperation. The standfirst that introduces the piece – and which characterises migrants as ‘educated, needy, obeisant, low waged workers’ – was not Read’s responsibility but that of The Ecologist as an institution. As a member of the incumbent editorial team, the continued existence and recent republication though social media of those words are, in part, my responsibility. 

As a whole, the article feels to me to be dangerous. While it rails against growth-obsessed capitalism, its whole premise is bizarrely neo-liberal: “We Greens need to be absolutely and resolutely pro-immigrant – while turning against large-scale immigration”. It should be noted that this article was not endorsed by the Green Party UK. 

Whatever its author’s intention, the article’s individualising focus offers a stalking-horse from which one might more safely attack whole swathes of society; it focuses our attention on an undeserving scapegoat, rather than on the austerity-driven policies that are destroying our communities and the corporations that are destroying our planet. 

False equivalence

In arguing that migration ‘reduces social cohesion’ and ‘puts pressure on public services’, the article stokes counter-productive and harmful division between British and migrant workers. This is particularly concerning given the context of nascent eco-fascism. 

The article is right to criticise an obsession with GDP, but its argument is governed by a false equivalence between economic growth and population growth. 

Rather, economic growth is contingent on colonial conquest and extractivism. The challenges of resource distribution and finitude cannot be met by a fortress-like mentality that stands guard just as fiercely as it has plundered. I recall a line from a play about displacement and detention, written by members of the All African Women’s Group: ‘We are here’, they say, ‘because you are there.’ 

But there’s another important point of principle at stake here for me and for many others. Migration is crucial, desirable and enriching. An ecologically and socially just world is a world without borders. Extinction Rebellion wants to be inclusive – we are all crew it says – and therefore inclusion of migrants is central to its objectives and values. 

So, ‘Can we love individual immigrants, while opposing mass migration?’ Whatever our definition of ‘mass migration’, my answer is no. When we speak out against free movement, we speak out against those who have contributed the least to rising emissions but who are bearing the greatest burdens of global heating; we speak out too against our friends, colleagues and neighbours, our fellow activists, our history; we slice up our world not along arbitrary lines, but along lines that enshrine age-old oppressions and present-day inequalities. Borders are hypocritical, short-sighted and violent. 

We needn’t pick nor choose, pitting the ‘good migrant’ against the swarm. In this, we are for justice or we are against it.

Meaningful solidarity 

So yesterday’s news remains today’s problem. Our editorial team found itself in an invidious position, not least as we unearthed a handful of other old articles that put forward similarly anti-migrant arguments: Do we act on a call from some readers to delete Read’s article, fearful of harm to migrant communities, reputational damage, and the sense that each time this article was shared it was effectively republished and validated on our watch? Do we leave it up, wary of revisionism and loathe to conceal arguments that remain all too pervasive? Do we ask for Read’s article to be updated, hopeful that people grow, ideas change, and words don’t always reflect our intent? These are ongoing discussions.

The environmental movement is a broad church. I don’t much like the phrase, but the principles of inclusion and diversity are important. That must not come, though, at the expense of integrity, responsibility and meaningful solidarity. Our ‘power of reasoning’ is rarely neutral – we must be honest about that which mandates and motivates it, and about what and who is at stake in the stories we tell. These issues are not about a single article nor a single contributor. 

Racism – on the scale of everyday microaggressions to structural oppressions and institutional violence – remains the scourge of the environmental movement and society at large. The Wretched of the Earth have made that clear, as have Power Beyond Borders, Extinction Rebellion’s own Global Justice bloc, and many of our own valued contributors among others. 

I’m proud to work for a platform with a rich history, that publishes countless articles that document the legacies and present-day manifestations of imperialism and environmental destruction. The Ecologist seeks to amplify important new research, and celebrate the inspiring resistance and resilience of communities all over the world – people who are calling out injustice and developing innovative solutions to the crises we face. I want to focus on and act in the best interests of those stakeholders. 

Moving forward

It’s clear that it’s time to redraw our blueprint, and that means asking some hard questions and facing up to some hard truths, in the archive and beyond. In doing so, so much more becomes possible. 

At The Ecologist we want to acknowledge our own historic contradictions and shortcomings, as well as the present and future challenges of a changing world. We want to support diverse movements for climate justice that are themselves safe and equitable. Recently we have been developing a section of our website dedicated to international solidarity which you can explore here, and we will be further exploring best practice for holding our processes and platforms to account. 

We will be placing a link to this piece in a number of articles already published by The Ecologist. If you would like to suggest an article that we might need to revisit, or if you would like to discuss these issues, make recommendations for our processes, or contribute a story yourself, please get in touch. 

In moving forward, we must continue to ask, as Elia Koenig wrote recently in The Ecologist: ‘How do we revive ideas of mutual aid, cooperation and solidarity in circumstances of scarcity and trauma? What is our vision for justice?”

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor.

Image: BBC World Service, Flickr. 
 

Extinction Rebellion protesters have blocked a junction outside the Bank of England in a bid to disrupt the City of London.

Dozens of activists are sitting or standing in the road as City workers leave Bank tube station.

In some surrounding streets traffic has been brought to a standstill, with long queues of buses sat empty with their engines off.

Leave

Protesters, sheltering under umbrellas, are holding aloft flags bearing the Extinction Rebellion logo, while drummers play.

Others nearby are handing out leaflets which say “We’re sorry” and explain why they are protesting.

Activists have covered themselves in a large green tarpaulin to protect against the rain.

Many are holding banners and placards bearing messages targeting financial institutions, such as “divest from climate change” and “invest in soil not oil”.

Dave Evans, 32, an IT consultant from London, said he had taken two weeks unpaid leave to join the Extinction Rebellion protests. He said the finance sector needed to “stop funding the climate crisis”.

Extinct

“These huge corporations are financing fossil fuels and [are] being subsidised by the Government,” he added.

Iris Skipworth, who was handing out Extinction Rebellion leaflets to commuters at the obstructed crossroads at Bank, said she had received “death threats” from passers-by.

The 20-year-old, who was wearing a waterproof poncho, has been camping at Vauxhall with “some 400 others” for four days.

She said: “A lot of commuters are very annoyed, because they are trying to get to work quickly. I can understand, but it’s shortsighted.

“I have had people saying things like ‘Get a job’, ‘Get out of the road’, and ‘Why don’t you go extinct?’.”

Protesters

Ms Skipworth, who has taken time off from her job as a garden centre assistant in Manchester, added: “I’m here because the 33 banks around the City of London gave £66 billion to the fossil fuel industry this year, and £0.9 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

“The government has declared a climate emergency, yet they’re not even scaling this back slightly … we’re here to hit the government in the wallet, hopefully.”

Twenty double-decker buses queuing down Lombard Street and King William Street were rendered stationary by the climate change protesters at Bank station.

The driver of the bus at the front of the queue said he had been stuck there for two hours – since 7am – and protesters showed no signs of moving.

This Article

This article is based on copy supplied by PA.

The National Theatre has declared a climate emergency and is ending its partnership with the oil company Shell.

In a statement quoted in The Stage, a spokesperson for the theatre said: “Shell have been valued and longstanding supporters of the National Theatre, most recently as corporate members – this membership will come to an end in June 2020.”

Shell had been a Corporate Gold member of the National Theatre, giving the oil company access to exclusive perks and facilities at the theatre in return for £15,000 per year.

Climate emergency 

The move comes after actors, artists and theatre professionals staged a walk-out of the National Theatre on September 20th, in support of the global climate strikes, and called on the National Theatre to step up to its responsibilities on the climate emergency and end its relationship with Shell.

This news came just two days after the Royal Shakespeare Company publicy announced the end of its long-running sponsorship deal with BP.

The RSC’s Artistic Director Gregory Doran and Executive Director Catherine Mallyon said: “Amidst the climate emergency, which we recognise, young people are now saying clearly to us that the BP sponsorship is putting a barrier between them and their wish to engage with the RSC. We cannot ignore that message.”

The ending of these two sponsorship deals in the space of three days increases the pressure on the shrinking number of UK arts institutions that still have promotional deals with fossil fuel companies.

Attention is turning in particular to the British Museum, where a BP-sponsored Troy exhibition is due to open on 21 November. Yesterday, activist theatre group BP or not BP? announced plans for a “mass creative takeover” of the British Museum on the exhibition’s opening weekend.

Toxic 

In a cheeky twist, the group are crowdfunding to build a Trojan Horse to bring to the event, which they believe will be the largest protest the museum has ever seen.

Sarah Horne of BP or not BP? said: “It’s deeply ironic that BP is sponsoring an exhibition called Troy: Myth and Reality, because this sponsorship deal is essentially a Trojan Horse for BP’s real activities. Just like in the myth, BP pretends that it’s giving us a gift, when in reality it’s trying to smuggle its deadly climate-wrecking business plans past the public’s defences.”

Speaking in response to the RSC’s decision to drop BP, Chris Garrard, co-director of Culture Unstained, which campaigns for an end to fossil fuel funding of culture, said: “The Royal Shakespeare Company’s decision to drop BP as a sponsor years before the partnership was due to end is a clear sign that – in a time of climate emergency – fossil fuel funding is just too toxic.

“This seismic shift is down to the actors, activists and school strikers who have powerfully shone a spotlight on BP’s destructive business and how, even now, the company is 97% invested in fossil fuels.”

Danny Chivers, from the activist theatre group BP or not BP?, said: “With both the RSC and the National Theatre ending their oil company partnerships, the remaining oil-sponsored institutions are looking increasingly isolated.

Rebel performance 

Chivers continued: “It is simply no longer acceptable for any cultural organisation to be promoting and supporting the fossil fuel industry in the middle of a climate crisis.

“It’s time the British Museum, Royal Opera House, Science Museum, National Portrait Gallery and Southbank Centre followed the ethical leadership of the National Theatre and the RSC – otherwise they seriously risk losing their legitimacy in the eyes of a public that is only becoming more concerned about the climate emergency.

“We’re looking forward to bringing a mass rebel performance and a Trojan Horse to the British Museum in November to continue this conversation.”

This Article 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from BP or not BP? 

Image: National Theatre, Wikimedia. 

Sustainability is the fashion buzzword of 2019 – with designers and retailers everywhere pledging to do more to protect the planet.

Yet somehow, animal leather is still being used in allegedly “sustainable” and “eco-friendly” collections – and this does the ethical fashion movement a big disservice. The leather industry – like other forms of animal agriculture – is responsible for serious, far-reaching environmental damage.

Turning animal skins into leather requires the use of dozens of chemicals, including highly toxic mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and various oils, dyes, and finishes, some of which are cyanide-based. Tannery run-off contains large quantities of pollutants, such as lime sludge, sulphides, and acids. 

Pollution

Tanneries are far from the only problem with leather. The 2017 Kering Environmental Profit & Loss report found that 93 percent of all the environmental damage caused by leather occurs even before the tanning stage, while the 2017 Pulse of the Fashion Industry report ranks it as the most polluting material in fashion.

Indeed, animals on factory farms produce vast amounts of greenhouse gases and 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population – without the benefit of waste-treatment plants.

Farming animals for their skin or flesh also requires massive amounts of water and grain, both of which are scarce in much of the world, and 80 percent of all deforestation in the Amazon is linked to cattle ranching.

More than a billion animals are killed for the leather trade every year. Almost all leather – even if it’s labelled, “Made in Italy” or “Made in France” – originates in Bangladesh, China, or India, where animal welfare laws either are non-existent or go unenforced.

In India, the slaughter of cows is legal in only three states, so animals may be forced to walk hundreds of miles on “death marches”, during which many collapse and die by the side of the road out of sheer exhaustion. When the survivors arrive at the abattoir, their throats are cut while they’re still conscious.

Toxic chemicals

In China, the world’s leading exporter of leather, an estimated two million cats and dogs are killed each year for their skin.

A PETA exposé shows a processing-plant owner explaining that the facility identifies items made out of dog skin, which are exported around the globe, as “lambskin”. If you buy leather, there’s almost no way, short of conducting a DNA test, to tell what – or rather, whom – you’re wearing. 

Leather production also harms human health. People who work in or live near tanneries suffer as a result of exposure to the toxic chemicals that are used to process and dye animal hides. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the incidence of leukaemia among residents near one US tannery was five times the national average.

Arsenic, a common tannery chemical, has long been associated with lung cancer in workers who are exposed to it on a regular basis. Studies of tannery workers in Italy found cancer risks “between 20 percent and 50 percent above those expected”, while in developing nations where the industry is poorly regulated, the figures are even more alarming. In certain areas of Bangladesh, 90 percent of leather workers die before the age of 50. 

Innovative alternatives

But there is hope. Vegan materials crafted from natural, eco-friendly resources such as mushrooms, pineapples, cork, and apples are gaining in popularity with designers and consumers.

The launch of Vegea, or “wine leather” – made with grape residue from the Italian winemaking industry – made waves in the fabric world, earning it H&M’s Global Change Award in 2017.

Last year, Peruvian brand Le Qara won the same award for its vegan leather derived from flowers and fruits. And Piñatex, Ananas Anam’s pineapple leather, is rapidly becoming a household name, thanks to its use in H&M’s Conscious Exclusive collection and in ranges by other brands, like Hugo Boss. 

High-fashion events like Helsinki Fashion Week are banning leather from their catwalks, and Stella McCartney, Bruno Pieters, Vika Gazinskaya, and Faustine Steinmetz are among the top designers who have sworn off the use of skins in their collections. Even the likes of Givenchy and Versus Versace have prominently promoted vegan “eco-leather” items in order to attract ethically aware millennial consumers. 

Minimising impact 

The vegan leather market is predicted to be worth $85 billion by 2025 – and in the long run, the practice of raising and slaughtering animals for leather is likely to be made obsolete by the arrival of lab-grown leather, which is currently being developed by US-based company Modern Meadow.

Its “bio-leather”, Zoa, can be manufactured to look similar to cow leather or exotic skins – but without using any animals. This innovation will allow designers to use animal leather without harming living, feeling beings and with less impact on the environment.

Truly sustainable fashion seeks to minimise its impact on the natural world – and leather production is one of fashion’s biggest crimes against the living planet.

For brands to be able to proclaim their products “sustainable” with any credibility, they must distance themselves from animal skins and embrace natural, ethically produced vegan fabrics. 

This Author

Elisa Allen is the director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) UK.

Image: Tomascastelazo, Wikimedia.