"greenpeace" news and stories

Saving whales; closing BP service stations: Greenpeace accomplishes things many of us fainter environmentalists only dream of, and last week was no different. A courageous bunch snuck into a field of GMO corn to deactivate the crop's pollinating tassels -- by way of machete or delicate plucking, we cannot say, but we'd like to think they had some fun.

The event took place in -- where else? -- Italy, the heirloom-touting country responsible for constructing Slow Food's global umbrella in the '80s, from which all sustainable, green, local and such movements have sprung since. Specifically, the crop-beheading went down on a field in the northern region of Friuli, one of the country's 16 regions (out of 20) that were gradually designated as GMO-free zones starting in 2007.

Greenpeace Italia first took a sample from the field in question and brought it to a certified lab to confirm that it was, in fact, the patented Monsanto GE maize type MON810. Since pollen can quickly spread to other fields, further contaminating non-GMO land, Greenpeace decided to nip it in the bud and send a message to the Italian government to follow through. GMO-free zone or not, a landowner would still need to obtain a permit to grow GMO crop in Italy, which Greenpeace claims the owner had not done.

Using Facebook and Youtube, Greenpeace stared down Nestle, and Nestle blinked.

According to the London Independent newspaper, Nestle -- the giant, Swiss-based food conglomerate that operates in 86 countries around the world and employs hundreds of thousands of people -- had been under virtual fire for three months for its use of palm oil in many of its products, especially KitKat, Aero and Quality Street.

Greenpeace asserted that the palm oil was harvested unethically, at the expense of indigenous forests and the wildlife (like Orangutans) that live in them.

The palm oil controversy was not originally aimed solely at Nestle. Many food companies use it, of course, including Cadbury and Mars, competing confectioners to Nestle. But when certain methods of palm oil farming were exposed as unethical, those companies vowed to stick to sustainable farming practices.

But Nestle dragged its feet, promising only to meet the latest acceptable date of 2015 set by the World Wildlife Fund, reports the Independent, so Greenpeace grew impatient and waged a media campaign that some might term virtual guerrilla warfare (or gorilla warfare, as the case may be).

For a nice Catholic girl like moi, Lent means several weeks of fish-focused Fridays. Sometimes that means grabbing a fish sandwich on the run. While there's no shortage of fast-food spots ready to fill that need, it's not always clear what kind of whitefish is sandwiched between those seeded buns. Frequently it's made from swimmers like pollock, hake or, as Wendy's latest Lenten promotion brags, North Pacific cod. But plenty of fish sandwiches, fish sticks and fish-'n-chips are made with a fish you probably haven't even heard of: hoki.

Like many issues surrounding fish and sustainability, things are often complicated. Environmental groups like the Blue Ocean Institute and Greenpeace give New Zealand hoki (also known as blue grenadier, whiptail and blue hake) a poor rating.

"We're in the process of updating our hoki report now," says Alan Duckworth, research scientist for the Blue Ocean Institute, "but the biggest concern with hoki is very low abundance compared to what it used to be."

Photo: vegetarianfestival.jp.

There are loads of meat-this/meat-that festivals, but in honor of World Vegetarian Day, Slashfood would like to highlight international veggie gatherings.

Day Without Meat, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 3-4: To raise awareness for the benefits of a vegetarian/vegan diet, the Brazilian Vegetarian Society in partnership with Greenpeace, Instituto Nina Rosa and others will provide information on vegetarianism, screen films, hold workshops and offer food and wine tastings.

Greenpeace is targeting European McDonald's as a catalyst for the destruction of the rain forest half a world away.  According to a report entitled "Eating up the Amazon," the eco-watchdog organization says that the soybeans that European fast food restaurants use to feed their chickens are grown in illegally deforested areas of the rain forest.

In Brazil, soybean farming has become so profitable that ranchers are selling off their now-valuable pasture land to farmers. The reason that this is illegal, says the group, is that there are regulations in Brazil that require landowners to keep 80 percent of their land forested. Once the ranchers have sold their cleared pasture land, they simply clear new land. Selling of chunks of their property means that they are keeping themselves under the 80 percent margin set by the government, but it does mean that the rain forest is getting smaller. There is also talk of ranchers and farmers using near-slave labor to harvest and tend the crops and an insinuation that the fast food companies might be simply turning away from the problem, if not outright promoting it.

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