Greenpeace establishes Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra
In the lead up to the UN Climate Conference in Bali in December, Greenpeace has established a Forest Defenders Camp in the jungles of Sumatra to draw attention to forest destruction. Deforestation is responsible for 20% of global greenhouse emissions and means that Indonesia is the third biggest greenhouse emitting country, after the US and China. It is also resulting in the loss of livelihoods for many millions of people and loss of habitat for many species.
It is vital that the meeting in Bali establishes some kind of economic incentive for the retention of the last of the great tropical forests. The countries with these forests are effectively storing a vast amount of carbon on behalf of all of us and if they were to deforest, like the rest of us have deforested, then it would add substantially to climate change. They effectively need to be paid some kind of resource rental for protecting the global climate system. Otherwise all the economic incentives are to clear it for timber, pulp and palm oil plantations.
We have also been running a campaign in NZ about tropical forests.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
“Forest Defender’s Camp” in oversea’s jungle, sounds a liiiiiiitle dodgy to me, given the recent arrests. Had to move your opperation oversea’s Russel?
October 17th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Well at very least you acknowledge that economic incentives are the answer…
October 17th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
You’re obviously not very familiar with GP policy then Nick, there are many many examples of GP policies that seek to use market forces to effect change.
http://www.greens.org.nz/docs/policy/
http://www.greens.org.nz/election2005/policies.asp
oh and the camp was set up by Greenpeace not the Green Party so it is nothing to do with Russel - while we obviously agree with Greenpeace on most issues, the GP and Greenpeace are not related in any way and in fact Greenpeace strive to be apolitical so that they appeal to supporters of all political parties and so they make sure they have little to do with us.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Stuey, i must say my knowledge of specific green party policy is not great. But i wouldn’t call caps on GP maximum fee’s limit an economic incentive, if that is your policy.
The party may not be connected with greenpeace but the people arrested on firearms charges could be.