Campaigners are seeking to stop the EU counting wood as a renewable energy source, in a lawsuit which has been filed at the Court of Justice.

Plaintiffs from six European countries and the US argue that burning biomass for heat and power is a false solution to climate change. The EU Renewable Energy Directive promotes logging of ancient forests, according to the brief, contravening the bloc’s higher principles and individuals’ rights.

The suit challenges a major plank of efforts to generate 32 percent of EU energy from renewable sources by 2030. Nearly two thirds of EU renewables come from various forms of bioenergy, with more projects in planning.

Carbon sinks

“We are burning up our forest carbon sink and injecting it into the atmosphere,” said Mary Booth, lead science advisor to the case and president of the US-based Partnership for Policy Integrity.

“There is forest biomass being shipped thousands of miles to meet biomass demand in the EU. We think that needs to stop.”

At the point where it is burned, wood emits more carbon dioxide than coal. However, the EU treats wood burning as carbon neutral, on the basis trees will grow back, absorbing carbon dioxide from the air.

A spokesperson for the European Commission climate change division would not comment on the legal merits of the case.

The commission’s policy framework aimed to guarantee “sustainable development of bioenergy, while at the same time enhancing the role of land and forests as carbon sinks,” she said.

Renewables

That was endorsed by member states and the European Parliament when they adopted the directive last year.

Carbon accounting of forest management has long been fraught with controversy, as scientists like Booth warn it does not reflect the true climate impact. Instead of being harvested, she said in a press call, trees should be allowed to mature and store carbon.

The plaintiffs will also raise concerns about damage to biodiversity, cultural heritage and human health in their regions. These range from the deterioration of peat bogs in Ireland to threats to Estonia’s pagan religious traditions.

From a legal perspective, counsel Peter Lockley explained, the case needed to demonstrate the renewables directive clashes with higher law –  enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – in a way that directly concerned individuals.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

Brazil witnessed its worst ever mining disaster earlier this year, after Vale’s tailing dam in the Brazilian town of Brumadinho in Minas Gerais collapsed without warning.

Estimates tag the number of deaths at 142, while nearly 200 remain missing. Hundreds were evacuated this week near the dam area of another mine in Minas Gerais as a precaution. 

This tailings dam collapse comes less than four years after another devastating tailings mine disaster destroyed the town of Samarco, also in Brazil, also managed by Vale (though in a joint partnership with BHP). The Samarco tailings dam failure killed 19, and caused widespread environmental destruction through the state of Minas Gerais. 

Tailings technology 

Tailings dam disasters have not been limited to Brazil. The Samarco incident came only a year after the tailing dam at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley copper and gold mine in British Columbia breached. Though no deaths were recorded, the tailings spill was one of the largest ever recorded in history.

Since 1970, there have been over 70 major incidents of tailings dam breaches and collapses. Despite this, there is very little indication that future tailing spills will be averted, due to the nature of the industry and the technical difficulties in finding viable alternatives to storing mine waste.

The Mount Polley independent engineering review panel, released in January 2015, found that incremental changes to the design and implementation of tailings ponds would not be sufficient in preventing another such disaster. The report said: “Without exception, dam breaches produce tailings releases. This is why best practices can only go so far in improving the safety of tailings technology that has not fundamentally changed in the past hundred years.”

Instead, the panel called for the use of alternative methods, including storing mine waste underground, or using the process of dry stacking, which calls for the dewatering and compacting of mine waste for storage.

The report also called for the increased use of dry soil covers for tailings ponds, which can help reduce infiltration and keep oxygen out to prevent sulfide oxidation of mining waste.

Technological change

Four years later, these alternative technologies have yet to make much headway in the industry, though Anglo American did release its vision for its waterless mine last month.

One reason for the delayed uptake in disaster-avoidance strategies is that the mining industry has a reputation for being slower than other industries in embracing technological change.

Though the hot-button word in the industry has been ‘transformation’ for the past 10 years, mining companies have taken only the smallest of steps to incorporate new technologies and reconsider problematic processes, including but not limited to mine waste storage.

Though there is some appetite for change, market realities have made it near impossible to move forward on these plans. The bottom line of mining companies took a sustained hit in the years of the downturn of the supercycle, and companies were forced to significantly pare down their businesses to survive.

R&D departments were gutted, leaving mining companies with fewer resources now to come up with innovative, effective means of preventing future tailings disasters. Though the industry has recovered somewhat, many of these departments are at minimum staffing levels, if they exist at all.

Cutting costs

Another obstacle to taking more preventative measures to prevent another Brumadinho is the continued disconnect between executives and on-the-ground operators involved in mine planning and closure.

Top-level managers are driven to cut costs wherever possible because of the mining industry’s tight margins, which discourages long-term thinking and responsible budget estimates for extended stage in the life of a mine, such as mine closure and land rehabilitation.

Mine closure is still too often an afterthought in the project plans, and is more often than not seen as a non-essential ‘nice to have’ element in the mine design.

The scale and the human cost of latest Brazil tragedy may change this mode of thinking – but it won’t be overnight, and it’s likely that mine planners will still be butting their heads against budget constraints as they try to create closure plans which do not endanger the local population and environment.

Meanwhile, tailings dams are getting bigger and bigger across the world. Untapped mineral deposits on the earth’s surface are increasingly rare, and finding a surface-level deposit is next to impossible. This means that mining operations must dig deep to extract mineral resources, which creates more mining waste – and substantially larger tailings ponds facilities.

Government regulation 

Governments have a role to play, though have been slow to respond to the threat posed by potentially unstable mine waste structures. Brazil’s government signaled that they would be toughening mining regulations in the wake of the disaster.

Following the Mount Polley incident, British Columbia reconfigured its mine approval process by requiring companies to fully consider the likelihood of a tailings disaster and the environmental and health impacts it would have.

But the reality is that more and more countries are increasingly economically dependent on mining revenues. According to a report put out by the International Council on Mining and Metals this year, low- and middle-income countries were found to depend most heavily on mining.

The report found that the top 50 countries with the highest dependence on the mining industry “are governed at levels below those considered satisfactory for good governance of natural resources.” 

The more a country relies on mining to reinforce its GDP, the less likely it will be to impose strict environmental and health and safety regulations on companies extracting local metals and minerals. Before Brumadinho, Brazil had been stripping away regulations on mining companies and how they managed mining waste. Only now are officials looking to put those regulations back in place.

Moving forward

Finally, it’s important to remember that because the mining industry has no direct consumers it’s very difficult for consumers to put any pressure on them by way of boycotts and public shaming campaigns.

It’s all very well and good to be publicly outraged about the poor working conditions of those working in cobalt mines in the Congo – but who among us is willing to forfeit the smartphones that use that cobalt? The same goes for other base metals (iron ore, nickel, lead, copper).

We may be dismayed at the environmental cost of poorly managed tailings dams, but it is very difficult to protest the use of these metals when they’re used to build bridges, cars, and other necessities of modern living.

So, what’s the way forward?

First, industry organisations – including, but not limited to ICMM – must push harder on the industry to meet environmental and sustainability goals, and ensure that these companies follow best practices at every stage. 

Secondly, our generation needs to invest in mining and metals companies. Shareholders have power, and it is to the shareholders that these companies are beholden.

Investors in natural resources firms have traditionally seemed older and more conservative, but as this generation passes into retirement, new shareholders are needed. If new investors demand higher safety and environmental standards, mining companies will have to respond and comply.

This Author 

Jax Jacobsen is a mining and energy journalist, and a regular contributor to Mining Magazine. She has also written for Canadian Institute of Mining Magazine, Natural Resources Magazine, the Montreal Gazette, and other publications. In 2013-2016, she was S&P Global’s Canadian mining correspondent.

Image: Bento Rodrigues dam disaster, Wikimedia. 

Grassroots activist group Foil Vedanta recently facilitated a demonstration outside the UK Supreme Court, during the case of Dominic Liswaniso Lungowe and others v Vedanta Resources PLC and Konkola Copper Mines. 

Campaigners provided information to the public outside the courts throughout the hearing in solidarity with Zambian and the estimated 38,274 others directly affected by the poisoning of the 990 mile long Kafue River.

The hearing came after a 13-year struggle to decide whether the case as a legal right to be heard in the UK. 

Copper colonialism 

Konkola Copper Mines, or KCM, are the largest copper producers in Zambia, with Vedanta Resources holding a controlling 79.4 percent share.

Prior to the construction of KCM’s smelter in Chingola on the Copperbelt, residents of 1st street, which runs directly parallel to the smelter, report being assured that this was a “modern” construction and the waste would have little effect.

Foil Vedanta’s extensive Copper Colonialism report prompted an audit which found levels of arsenic, cobalt, copper and lead all well above international limits. 

The effect of the pollution are numerous: residents are suffering from ill-health, tin roofs are eroding at alarming rates, while farming and fishing yields are dwindling alongside the disappearance of hippos at the famous Hippo Pool. 

This hearing will not determine how the pollution should be addressed or whether there is to be compensation for the claimants. Given the barriers to justice within the Zambian legal system, the UK is the ‘natural forum’ to hear the case.

Barriers to justice

Vedanta Resources PLC was delisted from the London Stock Exchange amidst accusations of human rights abuses in October of last year, but the UK-domicied company is still headquartered in London. 

Vedanta denies a ‘duty of care’ to those the operations of its foreign subsidiary KCM. This looks to be a landmark case in the future of UK-domiciled multinationals and their level of legal responsibility regarding foreign subsidiaries.

Opponents argue that taking the case to the UK is damaging and patronising to the Zambian court system. We must acknowledge that many of the barriers to justice within Zambia are a symptom of historical systematic exploitation.

Evidence of prior knowledge of potential damages and the mutually beneficial relationship between mining companies and the Crown are in disclosed in part in documents from the 1930’s held at the National Archives:

“In the event of any such legal proceedings being taken or threatened against the Mining Company it will forthwith make every practicable endeavour to eliminate the cause of the damage complained of and in the event of it being decided after consultation between the Crown and the Mining Company to defend the legal proceedings the Mining Company will render every assistance in its power to the Crown in the defence and generally will act under the direction of the Crown in the conduct of the proceedings.”

Neo-colonial extractive industries continue a legacy. In March 2014, Foil Vedanta released a clip of executive chairman Anil Agarwal bragging about Vedanta’s deception of Zambian government and great profits from KCM. The video garnered thousands of views and reached headlines in Zambia and Liberia. 

Duty of care

Judges Lady Justice Black, Lord Justice Briggs, Lady Justice Hale, Lord Justice Hodge, and Lord Justice Wilson heard the appeal at the Supreme Court and will hand down a judgement in the forthcoming months. 

The claimants were represented Richard Hermer QC, instructed by Leigh Day, who previously acted on behalf of the Bodo community of Nigeria in the pollution case against Shell.

Hermer argued that lack of funding to support a fairly represented case presented a major barrier to justice within Zambia. Further than that, one of the twelve claimants who won the right to compensation in the Zambia courts has yet to be informed.

Hermer noted that while relationships between parent companies and subsidiaries will differ, Vedanta’s own documents state: “[we] measure our sustainability framework at an operational level”.

Gibson, representing appellant Vedanta, continued to argue that there is “no conceivable basis on which the law can ascribe responsibility” stating that Vedanta lacks the necessary proximity and level of control. 

Recent precedents 

In 2011 in the case of Nyasulu v Konkola Copper Mines Plc, Zambian High Court Justice Musonda not only sided with claimants, for damage to health and livelihood, but drew attention to the that fact KCM “had been shielded from criminal prosecution by political connections and financial influence, which put them beyond the pale of criminal justice.” 

Despite this, when the case moved to the Zambian Supereme Court not one person was able to actually claim compensation, due to a lack of medical records. 

In October 2017 at the UK Court of Appeal, Vedanta Resources’ lawyer Charles Gibson QC of Henderson Chambers – who has represented multinationals such as BP and Unilever, argued that this is not a social justice issue to be paraded, but that the focus should be legislation. Gibson claimed that Vedanta resources simply did not have a ‘duty of care’.

The name of the court in which Gibson argued seemed to be lost only on him as the three judges took the side of the claimants, supporting the decision of Justice Musonda and upholding the verdict that had come from the UK’s High Court in April 2016.

A swell in media attention around the anthropocene and climate tipping points seem to have given UK audiences a new-found yet crucial sense environmental urgency. Cases such as this demonstrate that for many this urgency is a daily reality.

Extractive industries

Climate justice is racial justice and multinationals such as Vedanta are a neo-colonial Hydra.

As expressed by Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, in the 1970s: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This is often credited to Lilla Watson, Aboriginal elder and activist, but she attributes it to a collective process.

Extractive industries must transform if we are to have a future and we must collectively address this reality taking lead from those directly persecuted and resisting in the presentmoment.

Dominic Liswaniso Lungowe and the other 1,825 claimants demands are as follows:

• Stop polluting the rivers immediately. Close down the plant until pollution control measures are replaced andupgraded.
• Provide clean water to the villages immediately, by tankers orpipes.
• De-silt the Mushishima stream and Kafue River and remove contaminated waste.
• Remediate the entire polluted area to make it safe to live, farm and fish thereagain.
• Compensate the affected people for loss of health and livelihood. All medical costs should be paid by KCM/Vedanta infuture.

This Author

Laurèl Jayde is a member of Foil Vedanta, a grassroots organisation focused primarily on mining giant Vedanta Resources and working in solidarity and collaboration with struggles against corporate take-over, resource racism and neo-colonialism, as part of an ever widening global movement.

Image: Foil Vedanta.

Approval for a huge new coal mine that would leave 3,000 people in search of new homes is being challenged by ClientEarth’s lawyers in Poland.

The Zloczew open-cast mine would be Poland’s deepest ever and, for the first time, use explosives to access the lignite (the dirtiest form of coal) beneath the surface.

The process is set to displace seven billion tonnes of rock, putting the surrounding area at major risk of tremors – as well as serious water and air pollution.

Cone of depression

A project of state-owned energy company PGE, the Zloczew mine would result in the displacement and destruction of 33 villages, including highly specialised modern farms, homes, schools, shops, chapels and fire stations.

The coal from the mine is destined for Belchatow, the notorious mega-polluter and largest lignite-fired coal plant in the world. It burns a tonne of lignite every second and emits over 37 million tonnes of CO2 – the same as a small country – each year.

Ilona Jedrasik, the head of ClientEarth Poland’s energy team, said: “The damage this mine would cause, socially and environmentally, cannot be overstated.

“It is a catastrophe, not just for the thousands of people whose way of life would be bulldozed to make way for it, but for the landmass it will destroy – and all to feed a hugely polluting coal plant. From seismic tremors to chemical leakage, it is extremely hard to see how PGE can justify this project.”

While the pit itself is set to span an area of up to 14km2, the Zloczew mine’s impact on the ground structure – the ‘cone of depression’ – would spread over up to 800km2.

Transition plans

Operations at Zloczew would release five tonnes of mercury, 26 tonnes of cadmium and 168 tonnes of lead – all known neurotoxins and carcinogens – into the environment every year. Add to that its major predicted methane emissions and the project presents an inexcusable environmental and climate threat.

PGE is trying to start construction of the Zloczew mine via a ‘leapfrogging’ mechanism that skips the vital step of securing a final and binding environmental permit.

ClientEarth’s court case challenges the authority’s decision to grant immediate effect to the environmental permit, even though an appeal against the environmental permit is pending and it is not final and binding.

This immediate activation of the permit allows the investor to seek further permits and concessions required to excavate and operate the mine.

Jedrasik added: “While other EU countries announce coal phase-out dates and just transition plans, Poland ploughs ahead with mammoth projects like Zloczew.

“This is totally avoidable. Lignite is the dirtiest form of coal and yet state-owned PGE is pulling out all the stops to give it a free pass.”

This article

This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth. Image is Bełchatów lignite coal mine.

Shortly before violent protests broke out in the oil-producing city of Basra in Iraq, British government representatives visited an oilfield partially operated by BP, and praised the company’s “impressive” social and environmental performance.

Campaigners have criticised the visits for prioritising BP’s interests over those of local Iraqis.

According to documents seen by DeSmog, released in response to a Freedom of Information request from campaign group Culture Unstained, the British ambassador to Iraq, Jon Wilks, met with BP and Iraq’s Department for International Trade on 9 April 2018. The meeting took place at the Rumaila Oilfield, which is being developed by BP.

Electricity shortages

A summary of the event, sent to Wilks in the following week, states: “Broadly on the oil and gas companies we visited it was impressive hearing about their social outreach and the work they are doing to employ and professionalise local Iraqis – including a focus on those who lived in close proximity to the oil fields…

“The work of British companies was clearly having an impact on Basrawis, particularly the gas capturing which was improving the air pollution and increasing electricity coverage.”

Following the visit, Ambassador Wilks himself tweeted that he had “Toured the Rumeila [sic] oil field and saw for myself the huge commitment and success of BP, one of Iraq’s main oil operating partners. Some of the infrastructure dates back to the 1950s, but it is being upgraded even as production expands across the field.”

The praise of BP’s work came at a time of severe discontent among local Iraqis.

Around three months after the ambassador’s visit, citizens of Basra took to the streets to protest lack of basic public services in the region, including polluted water, electricity shortages and unemployment. The unrest resulted in the deaths of several protesters.

Regularly engage

While the government praised BP’s production expansion and social and environmental conduct, it appears not to have engaged with this nascent unrest: The Foreign Office denied holding any records relating directly to the protests.

In a response to DeSmog UK, the Foreign Office said:

“The comments the Ambassador made were in relation to BP and the good work they are doing to provide jobs and training for Iraqis, and help local communities.”

“We regularly engage with the Government of Iraq on the importance of addressing water, electricity, public services and job needs for the people of Basra.”

BP said it couldn’t respond as it wasn’t aware of the comments in question.

Directly responsible

In another email, the ambassador was told that the visit to British companies in Basra would be “an opportunity for us to understand their key concerns and demonstrate HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] support for these companies.”

BP is not the only oil company operating in the Basra region of Iraq. Lukoil and Exxon Mobil also operate major oilfields in the area, although Rumaila is the biggest.

In this region of Iraq, the wealth of the oil industry is in sharp contrast to the struggles of daily life in Basra. Protesters told media outlets at the time that they felt neglected as the money made by oil executives failed to trickle down into their own pockets, and higher paying jobs went to foreign workers.

“Extreme health and energy-poverty conditions have worsened as the activities of BP and other companies have expanded and as oil production and exports increased,” according to Iraqi economist Kamil Mahdi, in a briefing including Culture Unstained.

“It is not good enough for these companies to claim they are not directly responsible for the outcome,” he said.

Interlocutors

A fact-finding mission by the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative NGO found that the water in Basra was not safe for human consumption, due to the disposal of industrial and petrochemical waste, either from Iran or inside Basra.

Chris Garrard, co-director of Culture Unstained, criticised the Embassy’s friendly approach towards BP’s operations in Iraq.

“They pretty much give the impression that they understand their role is there to service the interests of the oil companies … whereas ideally they should be taking a much more critical approach, and also seeking to understand what civil society groups on the ground feel about those companies,” he told DeSmog.

He also questioned the need for redactions that appear throughout the released documents, including those made to protect the commercial interests of BP.

In a letter accompanying the documents, the FCO justified the redactions on the grounds that:

“Failure to protect such commercially sensitive information would limit the sources of information and interlocutors available to the FCO and limit the FCO’s ability to promote the British economy and lobby for the interests of British businesses overseas.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

The decision to host the UN’s annual climate change conference last year in the Polish coal city of Katowice drew mixed responses from the international environmental community, ranging from outrage to intrigue.

Like it or not, attendees commuting between Katowice and its neighbouring coal towns were forced to confront the likely impacts of swift decarbonisation on the people who live there.

It jump-started an international conversation around ‘just transition’ – the idea that ending fossil fuels should not mean punishing the working class communities that have historically relied on them for employment.

Oil

Despite the global climate sector’s growing interest in the issue of just transition (and the comprehensive but largely technical analyses of how to achieve it), there has been next to no empirical work done on what it might look like to successfully engage communities in the process.

When it comes to possibly the most politicised issue of our age, it is increasingly important to have open and constructive conversations with fossil fuel communities.

The resistance that can emerge if these communities aren’t brought into the conversation is evident, for example in the US rust belt communities supporting Trump’s pro-coal agenda or the coal mining regions of Europe from Spain to Germany.

Climate Outreach has spent years exploring and promoting effective public engagement with climate change, and last year turned our attention to Canada’s most oil-rich province.

In Alberta, almost everyone is involved with oil – either working with it, dependent on it, or knowing someone who is. Oil is part of what it means to be Albertan.

Activists

The Alberta Narratives Project saw over 500 Albertans talking openly with their peers about their beliefs, values, attitudes to climate change and relationships with oil.

The project pioneered a new form of citizen social science, training 75 community organisations in the methodology of robust research and co-designing both content and conclusions.

We have released an audience report, following up initial core findings with specific advice on language that works – and doesn’t work – with 8 key audiences in Alberta, including oil sands workers.

I spoke to George Marshall, co-founder of Climate Outreach and lead author of the report, about why we should be talking to oil sands workers about climate change.

He told me: “we don’t think anyone has really listened in this way to oil workers in Alberta. There is a tendency, especially among activists, to write them off.

Greedy suits

And that animosity is entirely mutual. But this is a mistake. Firstly because these are people with livelihoods to protect. Their needs should be respected. Alberta also plays a significant strategic position in Canadian politics. Who they vote for is important.”

In any democracy, what people think about climate change has serious implications for our ability to do something about it. Albertan oil sands are the poster child for a North American economy heavily reliant on extractive industries.

Learning how to talk about climate change in a community as politically divided on the issue as Alberta could hold far-reaching benefits for similar efforts continent wide, and even globally.

Effecting an energy transition in Alberta will have deep economic and social impacts, yet many environmental movements have a fairly monolithic view of the fossil fuels industry.

The Alberta Narratives Project shows there is more to oil than greedy suits in far-off boardrooms. Our attachment to fossil fuels is a diffuse and deeply human issue, and so should the solutions be.

Gratitude

Grounded in a uniquely participatory approach, this human focus runs to the heart of the project. The values, concerns and aspirations emerging from these discussions became the basis of tailored narratives, allowing climate change to be broached in ways that resonated with local audiences.

Despite its provincial scale, George says this is ‘global work’, with important lessons for non-Albertans everywhere.

The partnership methodology has been the signature format for an entire ‘Global Narratives Project’ series, bringing diverse constituencies into conversation not just in Alberta, but India, and soon the Middle East too.

“First of all, don’t assume there is one just transition,” says George. “Always recognise the distinctness of your audience. It’s about respect.” In Alberta, recognising the role that oil and gas has played in securing local livelihoods proved crucial.

Most environmentalists would balk at a narrative of “gratitude” towards oil, but co-producing an equitable path out of fossil fuel dependency means making oil sands workers feel valued, not attacked.

Political identities

Empathic language that acknowledges oil’s place in local history could therefore be the key to cultivating support for decarbonisation.

Canadian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe shared at a Climate Outreach event how she found this gratitude in a conversation with the leadership team of one of the biggest oil and gas companies.

“I started by talking about all the benefits that the industrial revolution brought us – a childhood accident means I would have died without the medical technology enabled by fossil fuels – and then I said ‘but we didn’t know back then, and we know now’”.

This project was also one of the first to test language specifically on energy transitions. While participants were generally receptive to the concept, the word ‘just’, with its social justice connotations, proved to be anything but politically neutral.

In an environment where attitudes towards climate are bound to political identities, many interviewees showed a resistance to the idea of government handouts, even where an unjust transition would likely put them out of a job. 

Political deadlock

The report recommends a narrative of ‘diversification’ rather than ‘transition’, stressing positive future opportunities instead of moving away from a negative past.

The Alberta Narratives Project shows that recognition of the human dimension of climate politics, though hard won, is only the start. To be just, a transition must be collaborative, but to be successful, it must consider what stories resonates with those involved.

The science is clear: the time for dirty energy is gone. More than ever then, that means breaking climate’s political deadlock and recognising the positive role everyone can play. It means that it’s time to start talking.

This Article

Karl Dudman works for Climate Outreach. This Article first appeared at Climate Home News.   

Globally renowned centre for botanical and mycological knowledge, Kew Gardens, and global forest management not-for-profit, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), have teamed up to use identification technologies that allow scientists to determine the species and origin of timber using only a small piece of the wood.

FSC started using these technologies in 2011, launched a pilot across North America in 2017, and are now expanding the project further.

To increase the number of database samples, which must first be recorded before a match can be established, FSC are now working with partners including Kew and the US Forest Service. The ultimate aim is to facilitate on-the-spot tests for timber across the globe and increase transparency across the supply chain.

Identification techniques

Recent evidence and reports from the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF International) have shown that in Latin America shipments of illegally logged wood were being shipped alongside FSC-certified timber. By expanding the database of samples with credible partners, FSC will further build the credibility of their system and help mitigate against these risks. 

The project aims to collect over 200 samples from up to five commonly traded wood species in FSC-certified forests of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Peru. They will ultimately expand the work across the 1,900 FSC-certified forests across all the major and minor timber producing regions in the world. 

Michael Marus, Chief Knowledge Officer at the Forest Stewardship Council, said: “This project is not just about playing a critical role in strengthening FSC by increasing its sampling of wood and integrating this information by using digital technology support. It is also about contributing to science and the evolution of Wood Identification techniques and methods which are fundamental to addressing a host of major challenges our forests face today, including climate change.”

“Of equal or greater importance for FSC is the unique role we contribute to the collection of reference samples from the over 1,500 FSC certified forests found across the globe.

“Being able to work with the leading forensic labs such as The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the US Forest Service Forest Products Lab and Agroisolab is a unique opportunity to develop a library of geo-referenced wood samples that will be made available to qualified labs across the world.

Illegal trade

Marus continued: “This partnership will allow enforcement agencies and responsible corporations to use these new scientific techniques to rid supply chains of illegal wood and will go a long way towards fulfilling FSC’s mission to promote responsible forest management. It will be critical for combatting illegal logging and addressing climate change.”

Dr Peter Gasson, Research Leader, Wood and Timber, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has said that he is “delighted that we are working with FSC and the US Forest Service to improve our xylarium (wood collection).

“Kew has one of the largest and most extensive xylaria in the world, with worldwide coverage and c.42,000 named wood samples. There are plenty of gaps in our collection, and FSC is well-placed to help us fill some of them with georeferenced samples from their worldwide concessions. 

Ed Espinoza, Deputy Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory explained that the collaboration is effective “not just to combat illegal trading of timber but also to aid the trade of legal species. If we have abundant, reliable reference samples, we are able to facilitate the trade of legal species and keep in check the trade of illegal species.”

This article 

This article is based on a press release from the Forest Stewardship Council. Image: Working the punch to successfully collect wood samples from a FSC-certified Bozovich concession in Peru. © Marysol Jaime/Forest Stewardship Council.

A collaboration of indigenous groups fighting to save their Amazon environment, a grassroots project promoting community development through art and environmental education, and an organic food project supporting people with disabilities are among the entries shortlisted for the 2019 Lush Spring Prize.

Cosmetics company Lush and research and publishing co-operative Ethical Consumer established the Lush Spring Prize in 2017 to promote ‘regenerative’ projects – those that go beyond sustainability by taking holistic approaches to restoring degraded land and communities. It aims to inspire more individuals, groups and communities to start regenerative processes.

The judges noted interesting commons themes in this year’s entries. Climate Change was the most common issue being addressed, both in terms of preventing it but also adapting to and mitigating the effects that are already being felt by projects and their stakeholders.

Indigenous

Other issues addressed by entrants included ecosystem restoration, regenerative food production, building community, creating resilient housing and circular economies, whilst also supporting displaced people, protecting indigenous rights and access to land.

Examples from this year’s shortlist include:

Laboratorio Sicilia 2030. This project supports individuals and organisations in Sicily to regenerate and grow sustainably by uniting uncoordinated local initiatives under the aims of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Alianza Ceibo (Ceibo Alliance). Members from four indigenous nations in the western Amazon are together building a movement to prevent the destruction of their cultures and rainforest territories.

Winners

INUA (Instituto Nova União da Arte). A grassroots project based in the East Zone Favela of Sau Paulo, Brazil which promotes community development through art, culture, environmental education and generation of paid work. 

Karambi Group of People with Disabilities. This Ugandan group tackles the discrimination, isolation, and exclusion faced by people with disabilities. It has established a food forest, permaculture gardens and an irrigation system and now produces organic foods all year round. It also operates skill training and demonstration centres for primary school children.

Previous winners include the Malawi School Permaculture Clubs, which has used the prize money to expand its project. The full shortlist is available here. The winners will be announced on 22 May.

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.

This week Friends of the Earth will make an intervention at the Court of Appeal to support the right to peaceful protest.

The green group is supporting the appeals brought by Joe Corré, activist and fashion designer, and Joe Boyd, who are challenging a wide-ranging and draconian attempt from the UK’s biggest oil and gas company Ineos to stop so-called ‘unlawful’ protests at their sites.

The case has far-reaching implications for members of the public to protest oil and gas extraction and the appeal is the latest attempt by campaigners to stop a swathe of injunctions against peaceful protests: there are now court orders granted to five fossil fuel companies in force at sites spread across 10 counties.

Suppressing protest

Controversially, these injunctions apply to ‘persons unknown’ rather than specific, named individuals or groups, and their sanctions apply to activities which have been used for legal protest such as slow walking. For this reason, Corré and Boyd have put themselves forward as defendants to oppose Ineos’ injunction in the courts.

Friends of the Earth is intervening in their appeals to support the democratic right to peaceful protest. Having been granted by the High Court, the Court of Appeal will examine a number of important points of law to establish whether it has been granted lawfully. Friends of the Earth is represented in court by barristers from Garden Court Chambers.

Joe Corré, said: “I’m quite used to going to court these days. We’re in this kind of war against a fracking industry that knows it’s on its way out but is clinging on as long as it can. What the industry has done is put the frighteners on people and curbed their right to peacefully protest.

“Ineos’s wide-ranging injunction has also been adopted by other fracking companies to shut down protest. They’ve all copied the ‘persons unknown’ thing.

“These local communities affected by fracking have spent god knows how many weeks, months, years, writing letters to their MPs, finding out information, talking to each other, fighting off all attempts by fracking companies at every opportunity. For years they have successfully held back fracking operations in this country and kept the gas in the ground”.

Legal challenge

Dave Timms, head of political affairs at Friends of the Earth, said: “Friends of the Earth intervened in this important case because private oil and gas companies want to limit the public’s hard-fought-for right to peaceful protest. We support Joe Corré and Joe Boyd in their legal challenge to stop Ineos stifling free speech among citizens who want to exercise their right to peacefully protest about the impact of fracking on their environment.

“These draconian injunctions create a climate of fear where people taking lawful protest are uncertain about whether their actions could breach an injunction with the risk of imprisonment or having their assets seized.  They put  decisions about public order policing  into the hands of the oil and gas industry with their army of corporate lawyers and private security firms.”

Debaleena Dasgupta, lawyer, Liberty, said: “The use of injunctions by private companies to criminalise peaceful protest is deeply concerning and a step towards the privatisation of justice.

“The granting of such broad orders to defend business interests undermines some of the most basic principles of a free and fair society and places a huge cost burden on the small number of individuals and organisations willing and able to defend them.

“If our fundamental right to protest is to mean anything, we must be able to peacefully express dissent even – especially – when it is inconvenient to those being protested against, no matter how powerful they are.”

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor at The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth. 

We need more, not less. The system of human needs must be extended, expanded and elevated if we are ever to escape climate breakdown and a more generalised ecological collapse.

Read our On The Nature of Change series here.

Capitalism is causing ecological crisis precisely because it limits human needs, and because the actual satisfaction of human needs would result in the collapse of capitalism itself.

This is the exact opposite of what many environmentalists claim today, and appears to be self contradictory or paradoxical. So what does it mean?

Wrapping paper

What we see all around us is an astonishing orgy of consumerism, with a bewildering variety of goods being bought every day. These goods are made from the earth’s depleted resources, and quickly become rubbish filling our gorged landfill sites.

The problem prima facie appears to be that people want too much, want too many things, and are buying too much rubbish. The needs and wants of these consumers are not legitimate, it seems, and are destructive. They need to buy less, and make better buying choices.

Environmentalism in recent decades has therefore focused a significant amount of its attention and efforts messaging to private individuals, acting as consumers.

The single use plastics campaign has been extraordinarily successful on its own terms in the last twelve months. We are told to consume less palm oil. To give up meat. To avoid avocados, less soya, less food.

The core claim in these campaigns remains, however, that needs as expressed by almost all people are not legitimate. They are wants, rather than needs. People want phones, they don’t need them. They want Firesticks and wrapping paper and coffee served in paper cups. We have to give up on these wants. Queue the Rolling Stones.

Consumer

This is a problem because the attack on consumer culture is – and will be experienced as – taking away something that is already enjoyed. It is difficult to hear, especially amid the constant din of advertising saying ‘you need this’, ‘you must have that’, ‘everyone else is enjoying everything you do not have’.

To tell one community that it will never enjoy the wealth or security currently enjoyed by another is highly likely to elicit only a negative response. To tell another community under stress that next year will be harder than today will also fail.

Even to tell the wealthiest community that the privileges and luxuries that it currently enjoys must be surrendered without resistance will – and has been – a recipe for failure.

Environmental campaigning that assumes that people’s acutely felt needs are not going to be met is in fact a barrier to people coming to appreciate the need for climate action.

Read our On The Nature of Change series here.

The decision taken that the environment movement should focus on the individual was made in part because challenging and confronting capitalism seemed too radical, both in terms of political positioning and scale.

Natural world

It seemed easier to attack the purchasing practices of a million individuals than the production practices of an entire world economic system. But if capitalism is too vast to challenge directly, how can it be outcompeted in messaging and behaviour change?

The problem is capitalism needs consumerism, more than any individual needs to consume. Capitalism as society, as economy, creates a system of needs of which the individual consumer is a small if necessary part. Capitalism in aggregate has significantly more resources to influence – and, through work, to coerce – individuals than any environmental organisation or cause.

Capitalism is a highly productive system which in parts of the world has created wealth for the majority of people that had only been enjoyed by very few. The crisis of capitalism is not underproduction (as it was in Adam Smith’s era) but is now overproduction.

The system of capitalism has already saturated people’s needs, and constantly needs to create new, artificial, needs. This is the mode and the function of the trillion dollar advertising industry, which has now subsumed the creatives industries, from music to high art. This is why we have Black Friday. This is why the profligacy and waste of our society is so acute, so apparent, that it is the primary target for many environmentalists.

The economic system is fundamentally about creating profit from investment, the accumulation of capital, in money terms. It is about making numbers on spreadsheets even higher numbers. This money signal means all needs must be quantifiable and subsumed to profit making. Everything is reduced to its cost, and the cost is reduced to the labour it takes to make them. Human lives are reduced to hours worked, and pounds per hour.

Exponential

Capitalism is in crisis not because people want to consume too much, but the very opposite: because the productive capacity of the system now far outstrips the needs and desires of those who have the wealth to be active agents in this economic world. Asking for more will not make a difference.

Capitalism is not in crisis because individuals need too much, want too much. The very opposite is true: capitalism continues to destroy the natural environment, and what remains of our natural world, in an infinite pursuit of profit. This is its purpose and function as a system. To change or limit this purpose is to change capitalism so fundamentally that it no longer functions or takes the form of capitalism.

The investor, or owner, in capitalism is reduced to the need for profit, and all other needs in the capitalist system are subsumed by this single need. The need of the worker, any person who needs to earn a living, is simply to have enough to survive, for life to feel worthwhile. These needs are diametrically opposed, a contradiction that leads to crisis.

Read our On The Nature of Change series here.

Capitalism, like natural systems, will – for this reason – cause its own destruction. The emergence of the climate breakdown is one manifestation of this concept. Where capitalism once divided us into classes, into owners and workers, into consumers and producers, it now unites us. The human species as a whole needs fundamental change.

Necessary needs

There is no class, or sector, or nation of people that does not need to prevent climate change, and therefore needs a radical change in how our economic systems function. How well this need is understood or appreciated by any individual varies enormously, but as the crisis matures the variance will by necessity reduce.

People holding the anxiety of climate change may have greater needs than those who continue to deny its urgency. Those living in geographical areas most impacted by climate change will need more support, more resources. They may not respond well to messages that they need less, must use less, that what they feel as needs are unnecessary wants. Taking away what they feel they need will cause resistance.

But you cannot have your cake and eat it. This much is clear. We – or more precisely, capitalism – cannot continue to produce the goods that appear to satisfy consumer needs for much longer, and certainly not at rate that is increasing exponentially.

The capitalist system attempts to negate this restriction through economic growth – allowing for the accumulation of capital and valorisation of investments through profits for the one percent without reducing the quality of life for the 99 percent. But in reality the contradiction is exported into the developing world, and into increased appropriation of nature, stress on the environment, pollution of the skies.

So how can we encourage people to need more, to have richer more fulfilling lives without reinforcing the falsehoods of capitalism and destroying what is left of the natural habitats and spaces (or indeed fertile agricultural land) on our finite planet?

To resolve this contradiction, to solve the apparent paradox, we need to have a better understanding of human needs.

Brands

We need to transition from a capitalist to a post-capitalist economic system to prevent the compound ecological and social crises becoming all consuming and permanent. This by necessity involves evolving from the system of needs that sits within capitalism, and one that instead nests within the earth’s ecological system.

The transition beyond capitalism will only manifest when people need more than capitalism can provide. But this is not more of the same. We need to saturate people’s basic needs, meet their necessary needs, so they have the confidence and self value to move beyond them and demand more.

The solution to the ecological crisis is to encourage everyone to expand and enhance their needs, they deserve more and they deserve better. Expanding – rather than contracting – the human system of needs will not lead to even greater levels of material production.

Read our On The Nature of Change series here.

The highest needs of human beings are connection, community, learning, play, free time, freedom and security. These are non-material needs, easily produced and reproduced through relationships of reciprocity. They are carbon neutral. 

People with a relative level of wealth do not need bigger televisions, but may need better television, or entertainment that is better than television.

Transformed

Teenagers are constantly reprimanded for following celebrities on social media using smartphones, but  can this really be understood and characterised as having too much, rather than having too little when local live music venues and theatres have been replaced with Costas, where there is no local fame, and not much local community, few career opportunities, almost no places for creative and social activity, and where peer pressure is fuelled by brands?

You really do need a working smartphone to survive in school today. You need to be constantly engaged in the conversations that are taking place all around you. You need to avoid the stigma that comes – and which is actively manufactured by international corporates – with having outdated models.

And our children need to demand more. More enriching experiences. Safer and more engaging school experiences. More time with teachers, more time with family, more free, unpressured time, with each other. More fun, more games, more everything. If we can encourage these needs, and meet these needs, iPhones will slide into the background. The same applies to adults.

The environment movement can honestly and boldly proclaim that the vision we have for the future will be significantly better for every individual than the world being created by capitalism. People’s needs will be better understood and better met when the human system of needs is the purpose and limitation of the world’s intersecting economic systems.

This argument can be made, and can be defended, based on a better understanding of how each of our needs can be understood only as a complex system of needs, and that these systems have evolved and developed (and continues to evolve) within – and as an aspect of – wider economic and ecological systems.

In my next article I want to provide a sketch of what the human systems of needs looks like within capitalism and how this will be transformed in a post capitalist, needs-centred society.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague. Image copyright: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/472570. Read our On The Nature of Change series here.