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Newsletter
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A bowler-hatted business man was exposed outside Barclays Bank in Milsom Street on Saturday 16 February in protest at Barclays Group's finance of rainforest destruction.
This followed an investigation by FOE which revealed that Barclays Bank Group used customers money to finance Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the most destructive pulp and paper companies in the world. APP is responsible for clearing a large area of Indonesian rainforest, home to the tiger and elephant, both endangered species.
Research by Friends of the Earth shows that between 1990 and 1996 Barclays arranged and participated in loans of more than £400 million to APP, and that the bank now holds £8 million of APP shares on behalf of its clients.
APP is responsible for clearing over 280,000 hectares of rainforest during the last 10 years and is planning to clear-cut another 300,000 hectares over the next 5 years. This means that in total APP will have cleared an area of wildlife rich rainforest four times the size of Greater London.
More than 50 per cent of Indonesian rainforest has already been destroyed, and the remaining area is under threat. An area of two million hectares, the size of Belgium, is being lost each year, ranking along side Brazil as the highest rate of national deforestation in the world. An estimated 73% of all the logging in Indonesia is illegal.
Our action on Saturday (thanks to Chris, Dave, Will, Dan and Terry), provoked a good response from the public. Some even took the photo opportunity to pose as the naked business man.
We handed in a letter asking that Barclays Group:
1) use its influence as a creditor to help persuade APP to stop damaging more forests.
2) adopt a Forests Policy which clearly states that it will not provide financial services to companies that destroy high conservation value forests or disrespect the rights of local communities.
To date we have had no response from Barclays!
Terry
A safe, efficient,
reliable and affordable rail system is a cornerstone of any policy to encourage
people to use their cars less, and thereby reduce the environmental impact
of travel.
To achieve this vision, the structure of the rail industry must be developed and passenger rights improved, but the key to delivering the railway of the future is more money. In January this year the Strategic Rail Authority published its £64.5 billion 10 year plan for the railways. Approximately half this money will come from the public sector. Impressive though this sounds, it will not be sufficient to build the railway the country needs to provide a real alternative to the car and lorry.
Friends of the Earth estimates that the Government could increase public investment in the railways by 75%. This money would be made available by cutting spending on unnecessary road-building and keeping motoring costs constant by raising fuel tax (rather than letting it fall, as is currently projected).
The Transport Select Committee recently acknowledged that "the economy of the UK depends on an efficient railway. This will not be achieved without investment on a scale which dwarfs the figures proposed in the first [Strategic Rail Authority] 10 Year Plan". They went on to say "there is no simple solution to the conundrum of how to upgrade railways infrastructure..........the fundamental problem is that the modernisation work requires continuing large sums of public money over a period of many years, which cannot be funded from the farebox alone. The Treasury must accept this reality and provide the money needed to pay for these projects'.
Over the next couple of months, the Treasury will be deciding the Government's spending plans for the next few years (in their Comprehensive Spending Review). It is vital that rail passengers are made aware of the opportunity the Spending Review brings. It is an opportunity for Gordon Brown and the Treasury to start to find the extra money the rail industry needs - another similar chance will not arise for several years.
The rail week of action is timed to put pressure on Gordon Brown to make the most of this opportunity, if he fails to do so he will be robbing the country of the railway it needs and deserves.
For more information on the Rail Campaign see FOE briefings on funding and building the railway of the future: Changing Trains and Paying for Rail. (I have copies).
We will be at Bath Spa station during the morning rush-hour on Monday 15th April handing out leaflets to as many rail passengers as possible urging them to text or write to Gordon Brown. We would like to cover other mornings if possible during the week 15 to 19 April. Please let me know if you can help.
Terry
This is all the more important since the government is continuing to back the global biotech companies against the wish of 70% of British voters not to eat GM food. It is important when the government's competition report on supermarkets failed to recognise their stranglehold on British food and thus farmers and consumer choice. The Curry Report recommended that the supermarket code of conduct should be monitored by the Institute of Grocery Distribution, which represents the supermarkets. FoE wants an independent watchdog. The Report leaves the notion of the international trade in food as a desirable goal, the implication being that it is the key to profitability and being modern. Food is needed everywhere in the world, including here, and British farming is as viable as any other if the government and supermarkets will let it be.
Organic food has won over British consumers, but not the government, not so far. Curry suggested there should be an action plan for organic farming but did not adopt the target of 30% of farmland in England and Wales to be farmed organically by 2010. Nor did he propose that farmers should be given subsidies to farm organically in addition to the meagre subsidies offered for organic conversion. This would have placed British farmers on the same footing as their counterparts in other EU countries. Why do our governments insist on disadvantaging our farmers?
Our MP Don Foster supports the Organic Food and Farming Bill, but following the success of the Organic Targets Rally and Lobby of Parliament on 23 January in London, the Organic Targets Campaign (which includes FoE and Sustain) has some extra questions for MPs. So we need to write a letter to Don and ask him if he supports the adoption of an action plan, with specific targets, to ensure the production of organic food develops up to and beyond 2010. Also will he please write to Margaret Beckett asking her to adopt the 30% target by 2010 and the action plan. And will he please send us Margaret Beckett's response.
The Campaign coordinators in London would like feedback, so please send photocopies of the replies to The Organic Targets Campaign, c/o Sustain, 94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF.
Susan
This is a bad time
of year, the start of a new round of GM field trials. Of the 35 new trials
announced recently, there are 13 sites in Dorset and several in Gloucestershire.
These are the nearest to us and I am sure any support for the protest there
will be welcomed by the local FoE and angry non-GM farmers, whose crops
will be polluted. There is increasing evidence that these trials are a
complete farce, but the joke is a very sick one.
The first official results of farm scale trials are due to be reviewed in summer 2003, but commercial approval by the government is happening now, without full safety checks, without good science. In February FoE presented evidence to a public inquiry into the safety of GM fodder maize produced by Aventis, the first GM crop to gain commercial approval. The hearing was convened by a government advisory committee ACRE who has doubts about the crop. This would be a major breakthrough if the government was really interested in science, consumer and environment safety, and consumer demands.
Environment Minister Michael Meacher has promised that the government will take public concern into account before allowing commercialisation of GM crops, but will it? The government has planned a public consultation on GM for this summer. It would be worth writing to Michael Meacher and to his boss Margaret Beckett to remind them that we do not want GM, that the safety is not proven, that there is no discernible need for it apart from fattening the already fat profits of global corporations, that we want an end to farm trials to stop contamination and that we want strict labelling laws on food to keep out imported GM.
In early March a House of Lords committee into EU labelling laws heard submissions by the British Food Standards Agency chief Sir John Krebs and the US Embassy that there should not be strict labelling of GM foods. The FSA, which was set up to give greater credibility to food safety laws following MAFF's 10-year BSE scandal, has already sold out to the almighty dollar.
GM contamination is an increasing problem from farm trials here and from imported food, especially from North America where grain traders keep non-GM and GM grain in the same silos and where the separation between GM and non-GM crops is just 400 metres. This is twice as much as the British government is recommending this year (up from the paltry 50 metres of previous years), but well below the 5 km the EU says is necessary to keep contamination to 0.3%.
The Royal Society, the most venerable scientific institution in the land, recently condemned the safety criteria for GM crops set out in EU law which cancels the need for testing if GM crops can be considered as "substantially equivalent" to non-GM counterparts. Some years ago Aventis' fodder maize was deemed by a government scientific committee to be "substantially equivalent" to non-GM fodder maize. So Aventis tested a fodder for cattle on chickens and then presented no evidence in its own defence in the first public inquiry in autumn 2000.
The claim is still touted that GM is necessary to feed the world and the Financial Times was anxious recently that Europe will be left behind in the world food trade by GM-friendly countries such as China and Brazil. Yet subsistence farmers are being thrown off the land in their millions in Asia and Latin America so that commercial growers can plant these expensive crops. Britain supports such a scheme in India with development aid. Millions will be destitute as a result.
The claim is still made that GM crops will provide higher yields and less use of pesticides and herbicides. A field trial in Scotland not only demonstrated the opposite, but that Monsanto deliberately wanted abundant weeds towering over its puny sugar beet so that it could spray them heavily with its chemical Roundup. Despite yield losses commercially damaging to farmers, in current trials British farmers are still advised to leave weeds to grow and spray them late in the season, thus necessitating more chemicals, not less.
FoE has had various successes in the GM campaign, not least the autumn 2000 inquiry into Aventis' maize fodder. Bath members joined with Bath Greenpeace last autumn to get public support to pressure Danepak, a leading producer of bacon, to stop its suppliers using GM soya feed for their pigs. Danepak has agreed.
There is a meeting at the Greenpeace offices in Central London for anti-GM campaigners on Saturday 18 May to coordinate a strategy to get the government to place a five-year moratorium on commercialisation of GM. You need to register if you want to attend. Lunch is provided and travel expenses are available. To register contact Enquiry@fiveyearfreeze.org
Tel: 0207 837 0642 Fax 0207 837 1141
Susan
The first draft law aims at traceability of GM food and feed from operator to operator, but it allows an unacceptable level of "technically unavoidable" contamination, 1% contamination will be allowed from GM crops which have not been authorised. Food and feed which is 99% GM free is not GM free.
The second, if adopted, will abolish the short-circuiting of safety tests currently allowed if a novel GM crop can be shown to be "substantially equivalent" to its non-GM counterparts. It is vital that this loophole, which makes nonsense of safety testing, is closed. This draft law will introduce the labelling of GM animal feed for the first time.
Please lobby Euro MPs to adopt stricter laws on GM safety.
Write individual letters/emails stating that you do not want GM food or animal feed and that your choice should be respected. You especially want her or him to abolish the notion of "substantial equivalence" currently in force since it allows biotech companies to not conduct thorough safety research. The new labelling law allowing 1% GM contamination in so-called GM free food and animal feed is unacceptable since it erodes your choice and presents unknown and unresearched risks.
Susan
Contact details for 3 of your SW MEPs:-
Glyn Ford (Labour)
South West Labour Party
1 Newfoundland Court, Newfoundland Street
Bristol BS2 9AP
Tel: 0117 924 6399, Fax: 0117 924 8599
penny_richardson@new.labour.org.ukDr Caroline Jackson (Conservative)
14 Bath Road, Swindon, Wiltshire SN1 4BA
Tel: 01793 422 663, Fax: 01793 422 664
cj@carolinejackson.demon.co.ukGraham Watson (Liberal Democrat)
Bagehot's FoundryBeard's Yard, Bow Street
Langport, Somerset TA10 9PS
Tel: 01458 259 176 / 252 265, Fax: 01458 253 430 / 259 174
euro_office@cix.co.uk
Susan
Terry
Bath FOE is a
member of the new local group of the Trade Justice Movement which has been
formed in Bath.
The group's first action was to focus on Fairtrade fortnight in early March. The Fairtrade movement has been around for over 20 years, with Traidcraft an early pioneer, injecting social and environmental considerations whilst still making a profit. Two years ago the Co-op set the standard for supermarket retailing of Fairtrade products - stocking own label bananas, chocolate, ground coffee and tea and last November, Sainsbury's launched an own-label Fairtrade range. The movement is growing rapidly - there are now more than 90 fairtrade products on sale. A local aim is to get Bath to become a Fairtrade City under the auspices of the Fairtrade Foundation.
A mass Trade Justice lobby will be held in London on 19th June. June 2002 is a pivotal moment for the world's poor and therefore for all of us. For the first time since September 11th, the leaders of the G8 countries will meet to negotiate about our future. This immediately follows a European Union Heads of Government summit. The mass lobby will come just before these two crucial events. It is our chance, at this most critical moment, to make the call for a fairer, safer world the loudest it has ever been.
By holding a mass lobby the Trade Justice Movement will ensure that every MP knows that there is a massive public mandate to rewrite international trade rules - and every MP will be asked to take action for trade justice in the run-up to these crucial international summits. There will be a fantastic programme of events all day long, including speakers, workshops and music, plus a church service for trade justice.
The final programme for the day and a full list of venues will be finalised nearer the date * this will be available in a Mass Lobby Registration Pack in May.
To get involved come along to the next meeting of Bath TJM will be on
Monday 8th April at 7.30pm at Envolve.
The very good news is that B&NES revised proposal includes not only a contra-flow cycle lane along the whole of James Street West but also (in response to our suggestion) a turn left on red for cyclists into it from Charles Street. Puffins go in for pedestrians and some car parking spaces move from the south side of the street to the north side.
Brilliant! A small example of how campaigning can work - with a listening council!!
Terry
Hinkley Point has
been named as one of two sites where British Energy plan to build a new
reactor as part of a consortium with BNFL.
British Energy who owns Hinkley B nuclear power station and BNFL who own the decommissioning A station signed an agreement on 27th February to work together on a new nuclear reactor. The move follows the government's recently published Energy Review which left open the option for a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The joint project will examine the viability of producing up to ten versions of the BNFL owned design, Westinghouse AP1000. Hinkley was named as a planned first site for the new reactor together with Hunterston in Ayrshire.
Hugh Richards from Wales Anti-Nuclear Alliance described the reactor at a Stop Hinkley public meeting at Taunton on 21st February:
The Westinghouse AP1000 was designed fifteen years ago by the American company bearing its name but originally aimed as a smaller 600 megawatt reactor. This Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) has no operating experience and only scale models of parts of the reactor have functioned. The Finnish government recently rejected it as it was not considered to be aircraft-proof.
The "AP" or "Advanced Passive" design refers to a cost-saving simplification of the plant due to stripping out much of the pipework and valves but this leaves the reactor with less safety systems than the only previous PWR built in the UK at Sizewell in Suffolk. The passive coolant system features a large tank of water above the reactor core which cools by sending water cascading down, considered by observers as a relatively crude method.
British Energy have indicated that the reactor may be fuelled by Mixed Oxide or MOX fuel which is controversial as the new MOX plant in Cumbria was given the go-ahead this year after many legal battles with Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Irish Government. MOX burns plutonium as well as uranium oxides. The industry says it will help them reduce the enormous stockpile of plutonium which has accumulated at Sellafield.
For those who are concerned about health effects from the potential new reactor, radioactive tritium will be one of its main discharges. Tritium, or radioactive water, is considered by the government as one of the safer nuclear isotopes but Hugh has uncovered evidence linking it to birth-defects.
Should the reactors see light of day, the electricity they produce is expected to cost about 40 per cent more than at present and it will need to be subsidised by the tax-payer. On costs, British Energy last year announced the new reactors would be about £3 billion to build, which has now miraculously come down to £1 billion.
Even so any exemptions from the Climate Change Levy, which probably will only apply to new nuclear power stations will not be sufficient to pay for the high costs involved. So the industry will have to go with a begging bowl to the tax-payer. Current indications are that the Treasury is not very happy about subsidising a new generation of nuclear power plants.
Renewable sources can provide the UK with as much energy as nuclear power stations such as Hinkley, and without the problem of waste. That was the message given by former Stop Hinkley Expansion coordinator Crispin Aubrey, now editor of the international wind-power magazine, 'Wind Directions' and one of the speakers at the Taunton meeting. He told the audience how Britain, currently lagging behind other European countries in the renewables industry, could begin to catch up with some of the new incentives advised by the Energy Review.
A new target for 20 per cent of renewable energy to be produced by 2020 had been recommended by the Energy Review, with a 40 per cent increase in energy conservation by the same year. Although the goals were smaller than anticipated, Crispin felt they were a step in the right direction.
He gave figures linking wind-power capacity in Germany and nuclear capacity in the UK, which are already almost equal at 8.5 Gigawatts and 10 Gigawatts respectively. He felt it was an achievable goal to replace nuclear power stations, as they come to the end of their lives, with renewable power, especially as the UK has forty per cent more offshore wind resource than elsewhere in Europe.
Offshore wind power was seen as the major potential for the UK with huge advances in turbine technology meaning that energy prices will come down to 2.5 p per Kilowatt hour as opposed to 4.5 p from nuclear power. On-shore wind prices will be as low as 1.5 p per Kwh.
(Edited extract from Stop Hinkley Newsletter)