VOLUME 44, NUMBER 2 | SUMMER 2014

The Price of PalmTHE FIGHT FOR INDONESIAN

FORESTS AND COMMUNITIES

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2 Summer 2014 Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine WWW.FOE.ORG

Friends,

“I love it” is not the trademark saying for McDonald’s, it is my 2.5 year old son Zander’s latest refrain when he sees something or experiences something new or old. A fresh peach from our wild peach tree… “I love it;” jumping in an hole full of water… “I love it;” watching me juggle balls… “I love it;” eating his favorite ice cream… “I love it.” Everything is new, fresh, joyous and pure.

Over the past several months, the world has seen toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, a mysterious crater in Siberia formed from methane gas expansion and explosion, record wildfires in the Western United States, the spread of ebola in Africa, growing income disparities, the ongoing humanitarian crises in the Israel and the Gaza Strip, as well as child refugees coming to the United States from Central America and wars in the Ukraine, Iraq and Syria.

From Friends of the Earth’s perspective, it is easy to bury our heads into the purely environmental issues I listed above. After all, don’t we have enough to do in trying to ameliorate the worst impacts of global warming? Unfortunately, I wish it were that easy. The deeper issues fueling the environmental catastrophes around the global are also fueling the humanitarian and geopolitical conflicts that are making headlines and destroying our Earth and its people. Simply, if naively put, we are fighting against inequity, injustice, greed (individual and corporate) and the failure to treat each other and the planet as we would treat ourselves and our home.

Our mission at Friends of the Earth is to champion a just and healthy world. At our fundamental core is an expressed desire to not only protect the Earth, but to create a more equitable and just society. Many of our campaigns reflect this, from the fight against global trade agreements, to working with and empowering communities in Indonesia to fight palm oil expansion, to our work to promote new democracy reform in the United States or highlighting the tragic human rights and environmental abuses that occurred during Brazil’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup. We constantly seek to work at the intersection of environmental protection, social and economic justice and human rights. These are the pillars that will allow us to build a better future.

This brings me back to Zander. “I love it” is a pure expression of innocence, joy and above all else love. The love of living, of learning, of seeing things for the first time, of being present in the now. There is a lot to relearn from Zander and children everywhere. After all, if we are only borrowing the use of this wonderful planet from our children and generations after them, maybe we should manage it and ourselves in a way that allows future generations of children to experience the same joy and love I witness Zander feeling and seeing on a daily basis.

Regards,

Erich Pica, President, Friends of the Earth

LESSONS FROM A CHILD

Erich Pica

president’s message

Image credit: Project Survival Media

Get involved in issues and debates affecting human health and the planet by signing up for Friends of the Earth action alerts. Visit www.foe.org today!

LEADING THE ISSUESFriends of the Earth continues to lead through action and evidence, producing studies and reports that advance issues. Released in April, “Follow the honey: 7 ways pesticide companies are spinning the bee crisis to protect profits” exposed misleading public relations tactics employed by massive chemical companies Bayer, Syngenta and others to cast doubt on the link between bee deaths and their pesticide products.“Tiny ingredients, big risks: Nanomaterials rapidly entering food and farming” documented the rise of unregulated, microscopic ingredients in common processed food items. In total, unlabeled nanomaterials were found in 76 foods and beverages. Lastly, “Gardeners Beware 2014,” a follow-up to Friends of the Earth’s 2013 pilot study, found more than half of the 71 garden plant samples purchased at top garden retailers in 18 cities across the U.S. and Canada contain bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. To read these reports, please visit www.foe.org/publications/reports.

YOUNG VOICES FOR THE PLANET FILM SERIES“If the adults don’t do enough, we have to do it because we will live on Earth for another 80 or 90 years, and our children will live even longer.” —Felix Finkbeiner, 11 years old

Felix launched the Plant for the Planet campaign, which has helped plant more than one million trees around the world to fight global warming. He is one of the many dynamic young people featured in the Young Voices for the Planet film

series, which shows how youth are combating climate change by developing their own CO2 reduction projects. Produced by nonprofit Young Voices on Climate Change, the films feature young people greening their schools, banning plastic bags, planting trees, advocating for renewable energy, creating change through art, and getting local fresh food into their school cafeteria. The films have already inspired youth and adults across the world to establish their own carbon reduction projects. Young Voices for the Planet show just how much of a vital role young people can play in fighting global warming.

Visit www.youngvoicesfortheplanet.com to watch the films and find additional resources, such as teacher companion guides and information on student projects.

IN THE HEADLINESIn past months, Friends of the Earth has kept up its visibility, helping drive and augment issues from climate change to bees. When President Obama released his long-awaited rules for reducing carbon emissions, the Associated Press covered Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica, who said “…this rule simply doesn’t go far enough to put us on the right path.” Our Gardeners Beware 2014 report garnered considerable coverage from outlets such as Reuters and the National Journal. Friends of the Earth made news on international issues, too, as VICE covered the ongoing conflicts over palm oil in Indonesia featuring forests campaigner Jeff Conant. Lastly, media on both sides of the Atlantic (MartketWatch and Le Monde), covered our objections to trade deals that prioritize corporations over nations, and which promote fossil fuels and genetically modified foods.

Read more: www.foe.org/news/foe-in-the-news.

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VOLUME 44, NUMBER 2 SUMMER 2014LESSONS FROM A CHILD

2 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Lessons from a child

3 ECOBITES Bite-sized campaign updates.

4 PALM OIL Campaigner Jeff Conant reports from

Indonesia on the destructive impacts of palm oil plantations

8 DIABLO CANYON Friends of the Earth returns to a

decades-long fight to make California nuclear-reactor free

9 BEE ACTION New science and progress on the fight to

save pollinators

10 GOOD FOOD, HEALTHY PLANET The impacts behind our burgers, and

what we can do to improve our food system

13 45TH ANNIVERSARY Reflecting on 45 years of making good

14 WORLD CUP FOR WHOM? Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup and

Olympics carries environmental and social costs

16 KEYSTONE XL The status of the Keystone XL tar sands

pipeline, by the numbers

17 BOOK REVIEWS Hives in the City and War of the Whales

19 WHO’S INSPIRING US? A look at activists inspiring us

ecobites

contents

ON THE COVER: Oil palm fruit in Borneo, Indonesia. Photo by Jason Taylor, The Source Project, www.thesourceimage.com

A s our small plane from Jakarta descended over the tropical

hills and twisting brown rivers of Sumatra, Indonesia, the green grids of oil palm plantations were easy to discern from the darker, more variegated canopy of natural rain forest. From horizon to horizon, there was far more oil palm than jungle.

On the flight, my host Zenzi Suhadi, a slim thirty-year old campaigner with Walhi (Friends of the Earth Indonesia) shared stories of growing up in Bengkulu, the province we were about to visit. To people of an ecological bent, Bengkulu is best known for the Rafflesia orchid, the world’s largest flower. But Suhadi is quick to point out that the famous Rafflesia is just one of 178 orchid varieties here.

“The ecology of most orchids is very fragile,” he told me. “But if you examine the areas around oil palm plantations, you find two or three species in great abun-dance, like an infestation.”

Suhadi’s father, a traditional healer,

showed him that the same species that thrive in industrial oil palm plantations have the unique quality of neutralizing poison in the body.

“Those orchids eat poison,” Suhadi said disarmingly. “So they love oil palm.”

In the last decade, high demand for palm oil, largely for food and fuel produc-tion, has driven a rapid expansion of the industry—and the cheap supply has in turn driven further expansion. Illegal palm oil plantations in Indonesia and other tropical countries have become major drivers of rain forest destruction, which constitutes 15 percent of the total annual carbon pollution. And big yields come with big human costs: profits never find their way from the large, multinational corpo-rations to the villages displaced by palm plantations through forced evictions.

Over the next several days, driving with Suhadi to the villages where Walhi works, I saw roads lined with oil palm trees, trucks carting the spiny red-yellow bunches

of palm fruits from plantation to mill, ramshackle yards littered with picked-over palm-fruit remains. Traveling to Indonesia to tackle the palm oil problem, I real-ized, is like traveling to Iowa to tackle the corn problem: in this stretch of Sumatra, whether you are a small-scale farmer or a plantation manager, a truck-driver or a school teacher, your life and your livelihood, in one way or another, hinges on this crop.

Some see this as a good thing: many parrot the notion that palm oil is lifting developing countries out of poverty. Other groups, like Walhi, question the idea of basing an entire economy on an industrial monoculture that feeds on huge inputs of agrochemicals and water; that engenders ecosystem disruption and land takeovers; and that relies on corruption and violence to turn a profit.

Over the next several days, I visited subsistence farmers in several villages—those whom the industry claims to lift out of poverty—to get their perspectives.

BY JEFF CONANT, INTERNATIONAL FORESTS CAMPAIGNER

FORCED FROM THE FORESTS

The Human Cost of Palm Oil

“IN A NATION SOLD TO INDUSTRY, WHERE IS THE ROOM FOR PEOPLE?”

BENGKULU, iNDONESIA

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The iron sands of Penaago VillageOn the shores of the Indian Ocean just south of Penaago Village, the sand is streaked with veins of iron sand like black ribbons running down the beach.

Penaago Village is made up of people with local roots and “transmigrants,” moved here by a government effort to relieve population stress on nearby Java. Muslim, Catholic and Protestant, they live in dim wooden huts and feed themselves on what they grow. Despite religious differences and the challenges of blending newcomers with natives, an outspoken villager named Jayan told me, things were always relatively peaceful—until the mining company came.

“There was an iron sand mine run by a Chinese company,” Jayan recounted. “They started cutting forest along the ocean to dig out the iron. That forest is our only defense against tsunamis. So in 2008, we kicked them out.”

Fighting off the mining company had the positive effect of uniting the

community. Since then, the villagers were determined to survive on what they grow, despite the fact that a government-built irrigation systems had failed decades ago. But when a palm plantation company called Agri Andulas came, it took what was left of their irrigation water.

“When we had good irrigation we were able to grow rice, corn, green beans, vegeta-bles,” Jayan said. “Now, nothing grows but oil palm.”

And, day by day, the oil palm company was taking more land.

Earlier, Suhadi had cited a figure: 85 percent of the forest area in Indonesia is controlled by timber, paper, palm and mining companies. In a nation entirely sold off to industry, he asked pointedly, where is there room for people?

Villagers pointed out that most of the large trees in their forest reserve had been girdled—a ring of bark cut around the trunks to cut off circulation and kill the trees. Next to each girdled tree was a palm oil seedling,

innocently perking up from the forest floor. “This is how the company takes land for

its palm plantations,” Jayan said. “What’s worse is, they pay the villagers to do it, driving a wedge between friends and neighbors.”

Driving through seemingly endless stretches of plantation, we stopped periodi-cally to examine the problems: oil palms planted right into waterways, disrupting the flow of creeks; drainage canals dug in carbon-rich peat soils to dry them out; abandoned homes where the company took over family farms by force.

“The company makes no attempt to bring us benefits,” Jayan said. “The company never gives a penny to the community.”

I asked Jayan what he wants for the village, if not the wealth that palm oil supposedly brings.

“To live in peace and prosperity,” he said. “I want to stop struggling against these companies.” He reflected a moment and added, “The most important thing is to keep the community united.”

LEFT: An oil palm bearing the beginnings of its prized fruit. TOP LEFT: Pahan points out the caution tape police have placed on trees to claim the land for palm oil plantations. MIDDLE: A local boy scales a coconut palm to retrieve coconuts for our group. TOP RIGHT: The palm oil company has marked this tree for removal with an “X” cut into its bark. RIGHT: Iron ore in the black-streaked sands of Penaago attracts mining interests to the area.

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The farmers of Lunjuk VillageThe land grab in Penaago Village is being carried out in ways that slowly erode the villagers’ ability to maintain their liveli-hoods, and the land’s ability to maintain the villagers. In contrast, Lunjuk Village, a day’s drive to the east, faces a more acute threat.

We were welcomed by three dozen farmers representing the local farmers’ union. A forthright, muscular man named Osian Pak Pahan, head of the union, imme-diately launched into the threats facing the village.

“The first palm company here was charged with fraud. The Bank of Indonesia seized their assets and sold their license to a company called Sandabi Indal Lestari, or SIL. Now SIL is taking our land. The fact is, they have this license to operate, but the land they operate on is ours. They use police to intimidate us and take more land. Now there is oil palm everywhere.”

Pahan said SIL sells its oil to Wilmar Group, the big palm oil trader that recently burnished its image with a comprehensive new sustainability policy. I was pleased to learn this—it meant we could hold the company accountable. But Pahan wasn’t impressed.

“Wilmar’s is not the only broken

commitment here,” he said. “Based on national law, the company cannot produce without a land permit. SIL is selling to Wilmar, which makes it illegal. But sadly, the government will always side with the company. SIL knows the government will never resolve the conflict. The company’s been here four years, and we want them to go.”

In past years, activist groups such as Walhi and international NGOs have taken a variety of steps to pressure Wilmar and other palm oil companies responsible for these human rights violations, as well as the investors behind the industry, and the efforts are gaining ground and attention. One palm oil activist, Rudi Putra, won the 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize, for his efforts to stop illegal plantations and restore the delicate ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

I asked if we could visit the planta-tions, and before I knew it the three dozen farmers were on their feet, mounting motorbikes, and revving their engines to go.

After kicking up dust for miles, we stopped and Pahan lead me to an oil palm with yellow caution tape wrapped around the trunk, with the words in Indonesian,

“Police line, do not cross.”“These are our trees,” he said. “They

are claiming our trees for the company, and forcing us off the land.” He nodded toward the police checkpoint. “They are BRIMOB, the military police.”

The BRIMOB, or mobile brigade, is notorious for engaging in violence in the service of the palm oil industry. In the neighboring province of Jambi last year a village called Sungai Beruang was ransacked by 700 armed BRIMOB soldiers, working with Wilmar Group’s security forces. Hundreds of men, women and chil-dren fled in panic into the forest to escape the guns and bulldozers. One man was confirmed killed and 40 are still missing. Other villages have suffered the same fate.

The farmers of Lunjuk Village know the same fate could befall them. They know, too, that Wilmar’s connections to the BRIMOB run all the way to the top. A recent article in the German magazine Der Spiegel notes that the family that owns Wilmar maintains a former general, a former attorney general and a former police chief on the boards of Wilmar’s sister companies.

“Sometimes the police go out into the

TOP LEFT: Touring the palm oil plantation on motorbikes. TOP RIGHT: Villagers from Penaago Village gathered at the shore of the Indian Ocean. BOTTOM LEFT: Plantation workers load a truck with oil palm fruits near Penaago village. BOTTOM RIGHT: Villagers show our group an oil palm plantation near Penaago Village, beside an iron-ore pit they have reclaimed for raising fish. Faces have been blurred to protect their identitites.

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plantations,” Pahan said, “and they prevent us from working. This is how the company has taken our rice paddy lands. This is how they took our peatlands, where the water comes from. This is how they made our rice paddies dry up.”

Several miles later we came to an area of low wooden houses set along the road. In the middle of a hamlet known as Minggir Sari a few dozen people had gathered in front of a rickety tin-roofed school building where I was introduced to the mayor, a slim, small man named Ruslan Hadi.

“There used to be 115 families here,” Hadi told me. “But SIL frightens people. Our wells have dried up; we have no more rice stores. People lost hope. More than half of us have left.”

Pahan chimed in. “For four years, we’ve protested to the regional government and the central government. They’ve made promises but they always break them. Now we’re worried they’ll answer our protests by giving the company a permit.”

A week earlier at a luxury hotel in Jakarta, our delegation had met with executives from Wilmar to raise concerns of illegality, and they gave proof to Pahan’s concern: don’t worry, they told us, we’re getting our permits. This is typical: if a company is caught in illegal activity, they don’t stop it – they get the government to legalize it.

Wilmar’s inattention to land grabbing

cases had left us disappointed, but Walhi and Indonesian activists have a multi-pronged plan to expose illegal plantations while empowering communities to protect their lands.

“We are farmers, not farmworkers,” Pahan continued. “We do not work for SIL. We work for ourselves. This company is destroying our lives. We will not let this go any further—if the government issues a permit to this company, there will be violence. We are ready to risk our lives if this land is threatened. This place is all we have.”

The oasis of Lasi MudinA few hours drive west of Lunjuk Village, Tungkal Satu is a small town of a few thousand residents where a handful of shops straddle a paved road. Suhadi grew up here, and the main objective of the visit was not to look further at the negative impacts of palm oil, but to talk to a man named Lasi Mudin—Zenzi’s father.

Mudin has the easy authority of a man who has earned his old age. His home, with thin walls and an enclosed dirt-floored patio housing a well, a washroom and an open-air kitchen, was small and humble. But the garden surrounding it was extraordinary.

I followed Zenzi and his father as they climbed over a small fence into the yard, and I saw a miracle of tropical flora: ginger, lemongrass, coffee, banana, coconut, hibiscus, and a dozen trees and plants I wasn’t familiar with. For the next hour, Lasi Mudin walked me from tree to tree and told me about each—mangosteen and durian for fruit, sugar palm for sugar, teak and pelawi—what Lasi Mudin called his “bank account” for its long term returns—for lumber. As we toured this paradise, the family water buffalo, an integral part of the farming system, lingered in the shade.

Our garden tour ended at a lone oil palm tree. Like everyone in the region, Lasi Mudin sells fresh fruit bunches of oil palm.

“They ripen reliably and they bring steady income,” he said. “But no need to just plant this one kind of tree.” He waved a hand across the garden. “This whole field used to be a coffee plantation. The coffee plants all got sick and died—this shows what happens if you rely on one crop. Now I have coffee, palm, sugar, durian, mango-steen, teak, you name it.”

The common sense of this—what’s called a mixed agroforestry system—is undeniable, both economically and ecologically. Like any crop, oil palm is not necessarily harmful, but massive mono-cultures covered in pesticides, grown on lands taken from communities, make it problematic. As Lasi Mudin taught me, it’s not the oil palm trees that ruin local subsistence economies, it’s the palm oil industry writ large. And the resistance across Bengkulu and other regions makes clear that palm oil is not the blessing the industry claims it is.

In response, Walhi is taking the fight to the Indonesian government to review every palm oil company, supporting land conflict arbitration in federal courts, mapping community lands, and promoting agroforestry as a viable alterna-tive to the industry.

Thousands of miles away, Friends of the Earth U.S. and the rest of the Friends of the Earth network are working with Walhi to build a campaign where the local meets the global. As we cut off the financial flows that drive this unsustainable industry, Walhi endeavors to redefine how a healthy agricultural economy can work in favor of biodiversity and human rights, not against them.

LEFT: Near Penaago, rice paddies are converted into oil palm plantations, replacing food crops with cash crops. BOTTOM: Our guides point out on a map where the palm oil company has been taking land from the community.

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In 1969, David Brower founded Friends of the Earth to be an organization that could advocate without compromise. An early focus was the quest to halt

the proposed construction of a pair of nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo County, California. An avid conservationist, Brower was alarmed by the dangers of nuclear reactors and their accompanying waste and objected to the power plant’s location on the hilly shores of central California. Brower later summed up nuclear energy in an interview with Mother Earth News, saying, “There’s no point in messing with that kind of risk…there just isn’t that much reward in it.” Decades later, the hazards of nuclear energy remain a key issue for Friends of the Earth U.S. and its international network.

Despite fierce environmental opposition, more than 20 years of delays and billions in cost overruns, the two Diablo Canyon reac-tors came online in 1985 and 1986.

In 2013, Friends of the Earth played a pivotal role in shutting down the San Onofre nuclear power plant. And now, exactly 45 years after David Brower first stood against Diablo Canyon’s reactors, Friends of the Earth is renewing its fight there for a nuclear-free California.

In the years since the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors were first proposed and constructed, more information has come to light about the active fault lines that surround the plant and the danger a nuclear disaster could pose for millions of Californians. At the beginning of construc-tion, regulators were only aware of the Rinoconada and San Andreas faults 20 and 45 miles inland from the reactors, respec-tively. With construction already underway, geologists revealed that a major new fault endangered the reactors—the Hosgri fault. Now, in recent years, three additional faults, including the newly discovered Shoreline fault just off the plant’s ocean water intake structure, have raised new concerns about the plant’s safety.

According to information from the plant’s owner Pacific Gas & Electric and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, these three faults are each capable of generating seismic activity of enough intensity to surpass what is called a “safe shutdown earthquake,” the earthquake level the plant can withstand while shutting down safely. In short, the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors were not constructed or tested to withstand these additional hazards.

The risk is great, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists in its 2013 report “Seismic Shift,” which details the challenges posed by the reactors’ place-ment. Should a strong earthquake cause an accident at Diablo Canyon, the resulting disaster could expose potentially hundreds of thousands of central Californians to radiation. As of the 2010 census, nearly half a million people live within 50 miles of the reactors. According to a Stanford University study a radioactive plume could travel by southerly winds to Southern California, endangering millions more in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego.

But the dangers are not limited to people. Along the coast in San Luis Obispo County, radioactive contamination could disrupt and destroy fragile marine ecosystems. Even operating normally, the plant damages marine life and destroys fish larvae by taking in 2.5 billion gallons of water per day for cooling and discharging it 20 degrees hotter. PG&E is currently fighting state policy intended to stop this cooling method.

In the coming months, Friends of the Earth will be mounting a full scale effort to close Diablo Canyon and replace any necessary energy from the plant with clean, safe renewable energy — working to make good on David Brower’s 45-year legacy.

THE DIABLO CANYON LEGACY

Credit: Flickr/emdot, Creative Commons

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diablo canyon

As the bounty of raspberries, blueberries, peaches, cherries and strawberries hits farmers’ markets this time of year, all

pollinated by threatened bees, new devel-opments are making clear the dangers they face.

While bees continue to decline at unsustainable rates globally, an inter-national body of independent scientists recently examined 800 studies and confirmed neonicotinoid pesticides are a leading driver of bee declines. They also found that the chemicals are harming beneficial organisms, from earthworms to birds — putting food production and the environment in jeopardy.

The report authors found that neonicotinoids are 5,000-10,000 times more acutely toxic than DDT to bees and called for immediate regulatory action to suspend neonicotinoids to avoid a “second Silent Spring.” The New York Times editorial board wrote of bee deaths, “…the connection to neonicotinoids is indisput-able … Nothing less than the world’s ability to produce food, the report warns, is at risk from these chemicals.”

As our new report, “Gardeners Beware 2014,” found, these same toxic pesticides could be lurking in our own backyards. It shows that 51 percent of “bee-friendly” garden plants purchased at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart in 18 cities across the United States and Canada contain neonicotinoid pesticides at levels that have the potential to harm or even kill bees. Tragically, our gardens may be poisoning the very creatures we’re trying to help.

But there’s still good news: due to the efforts of Friends of the Earth, our allies and people across the country, bees are getting a fighting chance on several fronts.

Nearly a dozen nurseries, landscaping

companies and retailers are beginning to take steps to address the problem. BJ’s Wholesale Club, which has more than 200 locations in 15 states, is requiring its suppliers to remove neonicotinoids from plants by the end of 2014 and/or require warning labels for neonicotinoid-treated plants. Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, will label

all treated plants by the end of the year and work with suppliers to find alterna-tives. While we are making progress, we will continue our work to ensure retailers completely phase out neonicotinoids and shift to sustainable and safe alternatives.

Cities and states across the country are also working to eliminate the use of neonicotinoids. Eugene, Ore., Spokane, Wash., and Shorewood, Minn., have put into place policies to stop the use of neonicotinoids on city property, and a community in Boulder, Colo., deemed itself “bee-safe” when more than 200 families pledged to not use neonicotinoids or similar systemic pesticides. Oregon and Minnesota have passed bills to better

protect bees from exposure to bee-toxic pesticides, while seven other states have introduced similar measures.

In June, the Obama administration issued a federal strategy to protect pollina-tors and called on EPA to assess the effect of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bees and other pollinators within 180 days. This announcement followed a delivery of half a million petition signatures from Friends of the Earth and allies to the EPA and White House.

While this is good news for bees, as our recent report “Follow the Honey: 7 ways pesticide companies are spinning the bee crisis to protect profits” revealed, giant pesticide companies Bayer, Syngenta and

Monsanto are doubling down on their deceptive “tobacco science” public rela-tions tactics and lobbying efforts to deflect blame from their products’ contributions to bee declines and delay action.

In the coming months, we will also need to double our efforts to push EPA to do its job and listen to the scientific consensus: we must restrict neonicoti-noids to protect not only bees, but entire ecosystems essential for food production. While this will be a tough fight, with your help, we can win for the bees and for a sustainable and healthy food future.

Learn more and take action at BeeAction.org.

THE LATEST BUZZ: NEW SCIENCE AND BIG PROGRESS IN SAVING BEESBY TIFFANY FINCK-HAYNES, FOOD FUTURES CAMPAIGNER

Credit: Environmental Youth Council

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bee action

HIGH STEAKS:HIGH STEAKS:

good food, healthy planet

It’s that time of year, when Americans love to light up the grill, eat outdoors and enjoy their favorite side of beef. What you may not know is that there’s a high price to pay for that juicy T-Bone from Safeway.

The meat at the center of your plate is also at the center of some of our world’s greatest ecological and public health threats: deforestation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, climate change, water pollution, diet-related disease, antibiotic resistance, intolerable animal cruelty and more.

Unfortunately, much of this harm is exacerbated by agricultural policies and regulations that favor large-scale industrial feed and meat production with inadequate environmental or public health safeguards. This has led to a set of practices that harm consumers, animal welfare and the planet itself.

Most meat, poultry, eggs and dairy sold in restaurants and supermarkets in the U.S. comes from factory farms —where animals are often raised in cruel, cramped and unsanitary conditions. In order to prevent disease and promote faster growth, they are frequently pumped with doses of antibiotics. This practice has contributed to the rise of antibiotic-resistant diseases in human populations, which pose one of the greatest public health threats of our time.

Most beef cows are implanted with synthetic hormones, and pigs are often given drugs to speed their growth. Factory farmed animals are often fed a diet of genetically engineered grains, such as soy and corn, that have been drenched in Roundup and other pesticides.

Animals are then slaughtered, processed and brought to market by just a handful of powerful corporations

that control most of the nation’s meat industry. That’s bad news for consumer choice and for the majority of farmers and ranchers struggling to make a living.

The good news is that we can all be a part of the solution. We can dramati-cally change the face of factory farming by making different choices about what we put on our plates each and every day.

We can reject factory-farmed meat and request healthier, higher quality, humanely and sustainably raised prod-ucts from our grocers and our favorite restaurants. And by eating smaller quanti-ties of meat and cheese, and more plant-based proteins, we can improve our health and reduce our impact on the planet.

Feeding factory farms drives environmental destructionIt takes an enormous amount of feed to raise the 9 billion animals confined in our

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country’s feedlots — for every one pound of steak, a beef cow needs to eat 7-10 pounds of grain. Producing that feed requires massive amounts of fuel, fertil-izer, pesticide and land. Animal products also require significant amounts of water — as much as 1,500-2,000 gallons of water per pound of beef. In other words, producing an eight-ounce steak requires as much water as eight showers.

Vast amounts of land, chemical fertilizer and pesticidesIn the U.S., nearly half of all cropland is planted in genetically engineered monoculture crops for animal feed. Aside from a staggering amount of water and diesel fuel, conventional feed grain production requires the use of energy-intensive pesticides and fertilizers, which often end

up in our rivers, streams, and groundwater. They also impact our atmosphere: when fertilizer is applied to soil, it generates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas with 300 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide.

More beef and bacon means fewer bees and butterfliesThe planting of vast monocul-tures has led to the loss of critical habitat for many beneficial plants and pollinators, including honey bees, which are critical to our food supply. Between 2008 and 2011, more than 23 million acres of grasslands, shrub land and wetlands were converted to row crops, in part to supply biofuel plants and animal factory farms.

This destruction of these native prairie lands releases large amounts of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere while

destroying precious biodiversity and valuable habitat. Adding insult to injury, the rampant use of pesticides has also contrib-uted to the alarming decline of bees and butterflies in recent years. For instance, glyphosate, a key ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp weed killer, is a potent herbicide that has decimated milkweed, the only food monarch butterfly offspring will eat.

What’s worse, our taxes are incentivizing this destruction: between 2001 and 2009 more than more than $46 billion in subsidies were paid out for animal feed production alone.

Leaving a toxic messEventually, all of that subsidized animal feed will inevitably turn into mountains of toxic manure, which is spread back onto the fields or stored in big lagoon

THE CASE FOR LESS AND BETTER MEATTHE CASE FOR LESS AND BETTER MEAT

Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas emissions

Source: EWG/Clean Metrics

CLIMATE IMPACTS OF ANIMAL AGRICULTURE. According to the United Nations, animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The beef industry is the biggest culprit, accounting for 40 percent globally of all animals’ carbon footprint. That’s primarily because they release substantial amounts of methane through a digestive process called enteric fermentation. As noted in the adjacent chart, there is a wide variation in the carbon footprint of animal protein.

By Kari Hamerschlag Senior program manager

Food and Technology Program

WWW.FOE.ORG Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine Summer 2014 11

pits, where it often leaches pollutants like antibiotics or nitrates into the groundwater or nearby streams. This waste also gener-ates large amounts of nitrous oxide and methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

Unlike human sewage, the treatment and disposal of animal waste is not well regu-lated. In the worst factory farms, animals are knee-deep in their own waste for days at a time, producing an intolerable stench and toxic air pollution in nearby communities.

Better, healthier alternatives: Organic and pasture-raised meat and dairyBy contrast, animals that are lucky to live their entire lives in humane conditions on pasture can become a solution to many of these environmental and public health problems.• Well-managed pastures can sink large

amounts of carbon and the animal waste becomes a potent source of organic nourishment for soils and crops — rather than a source of pollu-tion as it is on factory farms.

• Well-managed animals who eat grass and other vegetation contribute to healthy plant growth, healthy soils and healthy habitat for many beneficial crit-ters —including bees and butterflies.

• Healthy soil enables better water absorption and allows the land to with-stand the growing periods of drought and floods that climate change brings.

• Animals provide natural pest and weed control, reducing the need for pesticides. The health benefits of pasture-raised

meat are undeniable. Grass-fed beef and dairy provide far higher levels of Omega-3 fats, known to reduce inflammation and prevent heart disease. Grass-fed beef has less fat and higher levels of beta-carotene, conjugated linoleic acid and Vitamin E.

Organically certified meat and dairy are also good choices. Animals are fed a strictly organic diet and must have access to outdoor spaces, including pasture in the case of cows, sheep and goats. By choosing organic, you can avoid ingesting a plethora of risky chemi-cals including drug residues, heavy metals, growth hormones and feed additives. You will also avoid exposure to pesticides, which can bioaccumulate in the fatty tissues of animals that eat feed grown with pesticides.

While organic and well-managed

pasture-raised meat and dairy are better alternatives, they do require more land than factory-farmed meat — and still consume large amounts of resources, espe-cially compared to plant-based proteins. No matter what kind of meat you choose, eating less is key to a healthier planet.

Less meat leads to a healthier lifeNumerous studies have shown that people who eat less meat, especially red and processed meat, live longer and healthier lives and have lower risks of heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes. Reducing your meat consumption also reduces your exposure to the carcinogenic dioxins that are prevalent in meat and dairy products.

Join the movement for less and better meatIn the past five years, a growing move-ment advocating for less and better meat has flourished. The Meatless Mondays campaign has inspired millions to shift their diets and food companies are offering a wider array of plant-based protein options. Cafeterias in universities, hospi-tals and business campuses across the country are also offering more plant-based proteins and healthier meat options.

These trends are encouraging. But growth in sustainable and plant-based alternatives is not happening nearly fast enough at a price that most people feel they can afford.

You are key to a healthier food systemYou can be a catalyst for transforming the way our meat and dairy is produced. Make sure to share this article with your friends and family, and follow these simple steps: • Eat less and better meat and dairy.

When you eat less, you can afford better.• Buy local and direct whenever

possible. It’s often more affordable for you and more profitable for the farmer. Connect directly with farmers by shop-ping at your local farmers market, or visiting LocalHarvest.org or EatWild.com, where you can find products directly from farmers, community supported agriculture or quality meat suppliers.

• Ask your grocery stores to carry more lines of healthier meat and dairy, such as third-party certified grass-fed, organic,

humane and antibiotic and hormone-free. • Ask your local restaurants, even chains,

to offer more plant-based options and healthier meat and dairy products.

• Join us! Friends of the Earth’s Good Food, Healthy Planet campaign is just getting started — please join us to help shift the market and support policies and programs that reform industrial agriculture and invest in more sustain-able and organic food production.Through collective action in the market

place, as well as strong civic engagement, we can send a convincing message for less and better meat to Washington and to the food industry. We can also help to build an alternative, more just food system that increases opportunities for independent farmers and ranchers who produce healthy, more sustainable, humanely raised meat and dairy products. Learn more and take action at goodfoodcampaign.org.

Remember: what we put on our plates matters. Enjoy your summer and be aware that you are the key to better meat, a healthier planet and a healthier you.

good food, healthy planet

CLARIFYING LABEL CONFUSION. Many product labels at the supermarket such as “natural,” “no antibiotics,” “hormone-free,” “free-range” or “humanely raised,” may be misleading and have often not been verified by a third-party source. Besides looking for meaningful third-party certified labels, when possible, buy your meat locally and directly from farmers through community supported agriculture, farmers markets or online from quality meat suppliers. Here are some meaningful labels to look for:

®

12 Summer 2014 Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine WWW.FOE.ORG

45th anniversary45th anniversary

45 YEARS OFFRIENDS OF THE EARTHJuly 2014 marked the 45th anniversary of Friends of the Earth. In recognition of those four and a half decades, here’s a brief look at some of our growth, progress and achievements in that time.

Friends of the Earth launches its first newsletter, called Muir and Friends, as a cooperative effort with the John Muir Institute. The publication, the distant predecessor to this newsmagazine, would later run for many years as Not Man Apart.

The organization’s first lobbying office is established in a one-bedroom apartment in Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.

The first meeting of Friends of the Earth international groups, comprised of Great Britain, France, Italy, West Germany and the U.S., is held in Paris. The groups cite energy, especially opposition to nuclear reactors, as a key unifying issue.

Concerned with the potential for genetic contamination, Friends of the Earth launches early campaign efforts on genetic engineering by calling on NIH to perform an environmental impact state-ment for a research lab.

Friends of the Earth is officially formed in the New York City office of David Sive, a month after David Brower split from the Sierra Club. The first office is in San Francisco, but a New York City office is founded a year later.

After ten years of leading the organi-zation, David Brower steps down as president and becomes chairman of the Friends of the Earth board.

Friends of the Earth launches a campaign against the supersonic plane fleet and the dangers it posed to the ozone layer. A year later, Congress would vote to end the proposal.

A Friends of the Earth ad campaign plays a crucial role in stopping offshore drilling off the coast of central California.

In the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, Friends of the Earth takes the lead in championing the the Oil Spill Pollution Act, requiring double hulls on oil tankers and oil companies to write spill cleanup plans.

Friends of the Earth persuades President Clinton to require environmental assess-ments on future trade deals.

The Supreme Court, in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw, rules that citizens can sue to hold industrial polluters accountable under the Clean Water Act and other federal pollu-tion laws.

Friends of the Earth testing reveals that genetically modified corn, which had not been approved for human consumption, had entered the food supply, triggering the first recall of GMO food in the U.S.

Friends of the Earth helped draft and pass California’s Clean Cars Standards, the first law regulating carbon pollution from passenger vehicles.

Approximately 200 companies, repre-senting $4 billion in sales, join Friends of the Earth’s Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (formed the previous year), and pledge not to use chemicals associated with cancer, mutation or other harmful effects.

Friends of the Earth wins amendments that save taxpayers $10 billion and block an incentive allowing oil companies to drill for free in public waters.

In Friends of the Earth, Inc., et al. v. Spinelli, et al, Friends of the Earth success-fully pressures the federal Export-Import Bank to consider climate impacts before financing power plant projects.

After years of advocacy from Friends of the Earth and others, the Green Climate Fund is created under the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change to transfer money to poor countries to help them cope with the impacts of climate change and move to climate-friendly development paths.

Friends of the Earth, working with local groups, successfully pressures Southern California Edison to shut down its aging San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Clemente, California.

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JULY 111969

David Brower:Reminiscences byBrent Blackwelder,Friends of the Earth president emeritus

David Brower founded Friends of the Earth in 1969, having previ-ously served as executive director of the Sierra Club. I first met David Brower in 1970 when I volun-teered to help on the country’s first nationwide campaign on ozone depletion. The supersonic airplane then proposed by the Nixon admin-istration would fly in the strato-sphere, and, according to Brower, a commercial fleet would pose a threat to the Earth’s ozone layer.

Brower was a both visionary thinker and a genuine outdoor activist. He knew how to zero in on politicians and was not afraid to criticize friends in political office, sometimes directly, sometimes with a touch of irony and humor. Concerned that the President Clinton wasn’t standing up to exploiters of the public lands, he recommended in a speech given near the Capitol that the audience put together a fish dinner, and that everyone mail the leftover backbones to the White House.

Brower did not compromise, but advocated what he saw as the policy needed to deal with the problem at hand. Former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall once said, “Thank God for David Brower; he makes all the rest of us seem reasonable.”

Brower’s effective messages are still useful today. He once characterized the current health of the Earth as a patient in the emergency room needing CPR: conservation, preser-vation and restoration.

Photo Credit: Earthjustice

WWW.FOE.ORG Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine Summer 2014 13

brazil

Football (soccer) is celebrated as a unifying force for people from all walks of life around the world. But the commercial-ization of the sport makes the World Cup a deplorable spectacle of money-grabbing, further afflicting already disenfranchised communities. The issues surrounding the World Cup are highly relevant to the work of Friends of the Earth, as they involve fights against systems that preserve the interests and greed of a few, at the expense of a healthy and just world for the many.

The 2014 World Cup was the most expensive and lucrative event in its 84-year history. While Brazil spent more than $14 billion in public funds to build stadiums, city infrastructure and provide security for visitors, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association—the sport’s nonprofit organizing body, headquartered in Switzerland—amassed $4 billion in revenue. As a nonprofit organization, FIFA pays no tax on commercial income from the World Cup and keeps billions in “reserve”

think I was in Kansas,” recounted Felipe Araujo, correspondent for German broad-caster ZDF.

In a country where the minimum wage is equivalent to $350 USD/month, and where economic wealth and political power is overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of white Brazilians, individual tickets prices of between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars made the games largely inaccessible to people of color. The games, much like other public resources, were unavailable to those in economic classes representing 85 percent of the population. While this significant segment of the population was the most affected by the high costs and negative consequences of the World Cup, it was invisible to the cameras of mainstream news media covering the games.

Over 250,000 people, many who live in favelas (urban slums) were forcibly removed from their homes to accommo-date new building and development for the World Cup. This was done largely without notice, legal protection, compensation or adequate relocation. Skyrocketing real estate prices have further segregated cities, compounding existing human rights abuses.

Preparations for the World Cup, and the 2016 Summer Olympics, added insult to the indignity of the realities of millions of Brazilians. Not uniquely, Brazil is a country characterized by acute inequality. São Paulo boasts more private helicopters than any city in the world. Meanwhile, the poor must make often hours-long commutes on a crowded, unreliable, dangerous and inadequate public trans-portation system. While the rich have access to some of the best private hospi-tals in the world, the poor die on public hospital floors awaiting medical attention. Education is similarly segregated along lines of class, and professors are often on strike over their dismal pay and working conditions. Indigenous groups continue

“World Cup for whom?”

funds, while host countries subsidize its events with money from strained public coffers. Such a conflict led World Cup protestors to chant “World Cup for whom?” as their slogan.

FIFA’s imperialist rules also under-mined existing national safeguards. As an example, FIFA refused to abide by Brazil’s law against selling beer in stadiums, a law implemented 11 years ago to protect fans after various incidents led to violence. FIFA argued that this would have affected the revenue of its for-profit sponsors, which were also exempt from paying taxes.

The World Cup was a spectacle of both sport and contradiction. The month-long event was responsible for more than three billion Facebook posts and 672 million tweets. During the final game, nearly 1 billion people tuned in, worldwide. In total, the event captured the attention of nearly half of all humanity. The global appetite for football has been co-opted by those in power and woven into a false narrative of universality that masks gross inequalities among football fans worldwide.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICEOver 60 percent of the Brazilian popula-

tion is black or of mixed race. Those who were able to attend the games, however, were predominantly white, and with means to buy expensive tickets, in advance, over the internet.

“Salvador is the most Afrocentric city in Brazil. At the Germany v Portugal game, however, if I didn’t know any better I would

This São Paulo mural by street artist Paulo Ito gained international attention in the weeks before the World Cup.

By Luisa Abbott Galvão, with contributions from Amigos da Terra (Friends of the Earth Brazil)

WWW.FOE.ORG

Photo © Paulo Ito, Flickr, Creative Commons

14 Summer 2014 Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine

to fight for the demarcation of their lands, while expanding agribusiness and large infrastructure projects—such as the proposed Belo Monte dam—threaten their very existence.

In 2013, “the giant woke up,” when over 2 million protestors took to the streets in cities across the country, and in satel-lite events around the world, demanding investment in public programs. Protestors called for “FIFA standard” hospitals, schools and transit systems. Anti-World Cup protests and strikes continued during the World Cup, but were largely quelled by police brutality and unwarranted arrests. The mainstream media was complicit by downplaying these actions and painting the World Cup as a joyous affair.

FALSE GREEN: AN AFRRONT TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS Twelve stadiums across the 3 million-square-mile country were built or upgraded, at the cost of hundreds of millions, each. Nine construction workers died due to lax safety regulations and a rushed schedule. The maintenance costs for these “white elephants” will continue to suck money from public funds long after the games are concluded. Meanwhile, organizers threw some solar panels on stadiums, promoted flawed carbon offset programs and hailed the 2014 World Cup as a green success.

According to Fernando Campos Costa, chair of Amigos da Terra Brasil, “The 2014 World Cup was presented as a sustainable event with the creation of false mechanisms of a green economy, such as, for example, the ‘green goal,’ ‘the parks of the Cup,’ the ‘organic Cup,’ and the ‘zero carbon’ initiatives; with the intent of camouflaging and rendering invisible

TOP: Manaus’ Arena da Amazonia under construction in December 2012. BOTTOM: Protests against the World Cup organized by the World Cup Popular Committee in Porto Alerge.

the violations of rights. FIFA equated the green economy with the mercantilization of nature.”

In June of 2012, just a few days before the international Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the govern-ment of Acre, in the Amazon, publically celebrated the formal registration of the “Purus Project.” The project would provide payments for carbon naturally captured by the forests. An American company sold its carbon credits to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Not destroying this forest land was intended to “neutralize” the environmental impacts caused by the World Cup.

In December of 2013, reports of serious rights violations of residents living in the area of carbon offset programs in the Amazon were published after Amigos da Terra Brasil and other organizations accompanied the Special Rapporteur on Human, Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights to Acre on a visit. It became evident that the traditional practices of small-scale farmers were being assaulted by the imposition of restrictions that justified the sale of carbon credits and with threats to their rights to land. FIFA and the culture of mega-events are vehicles for popularizing and justifying the logic of compensation for pollution and envi-ronmental degradation, for creating new financial asset markets, and for the finan-cialization of nature. These schemes hide socio-environmental conflicts associated with such events, promote false environ-mental solutions and create new business for the financial sector.

OUR RESPONSIBILITYDespite some acknowledgement of

the problems that plague host countries and the scandal that is FIFA, the World Cup continues to be treated as sacrosanct. But people should not have to die or be displaced for our quadrennial dose of delightful games; nor should our environ-ment be wrecked in the process. In order for the World Cup to be an event truly for everyone, we must work to dismantle the unjust systems that keep it benefitting only the privileged. We can pressure systems in many ways, by informing our communities, pressuring our governments and making small, everyday choices like boycotting FIFA. In the same way that we must all eat less meat and reject products with palm oil, we must exercise restraint as a society if we are to ensure a sustainable and harmonious existence.

WWW.FOE.ORG Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine Summer 2014 15

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n recent months, the years-long campaign to halt the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has won small victories with the permitting delay and legal ruling. Each is another step toward stopping the construction of infrastructure that could endanger Midwest water resources and lock in further carbon pollution. Here are the latest developments, by the numbers.

8

KEYSTONE XL BY THE NUMBERS

16 Summer 2014 Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine WWW.FOE.ORG

keystone xl

The number of barrels of tar sands oil — the pipeline’s operating capacity — the Keystone XL pipeline would ship every day it oper-ates. Pipelines are essential for oil companies’ plans to expand tar sands extraction, and a lack of infrastructure has caused tar sands projects to be cancelled, slowing their overall extraction projections.

The number of agencies given extra time to comment on the pipeline route. In response to the Nebraska ruling, the U.S. Department of State announced in April it would push back the deadline for federal agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, to submit comments.

Despite these developments, President Obama has the authority to make the right decision for our environment, communities and climate by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline. For further updates, visit www.foe.org.

The number of miles of the Keystone XL pipeline route approved in Nebraska. The law had given power over route approval to the Nebraska governor’s office instead of the state’s Public Service Commission, which landowners argued was an unconstitutional shift in authority. The ruling eliminated the proposed route and casts uncertainty on the pipeline’s path and fate. It could be many months before the Nebraska Supreme Court resolves the appeal.

The number of times the houses of Congress have cumulatively voted to force a Keystone XL approval, at press time for this maga-zine. Despite having no legal route through Nebraska, pro-fossil fuel interests in Congress have continued to push legislation that would circumvent the Obama administration and

force an approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. An amendment attached to an energy efficiency bill was part of the death of the otherwise bipartisan energy bill.

0PIPELINE MILES

11times

830,000

400,000activists

barrels

The estimated number of people who participated in the People’s Climate March through New York City in September, including a block of thousands marching against the Keystone XL and tar sands oil. Taking place on the advent of the UN Climate Summit, the march brought together people from across the U.S. as they called for wide-spread action on climate change. Tens of thousands more participated across the world in other events.

In Hives in the City, author Alison Gillespie travels the mid-Atlantic United States to explore the passions of urban beekeepers and to discover their roles in the fight to

protect the increasingly threatened pollinators. Gillespie met with urban beekeepers to find out what drives their passion for these pollinators and how they are fighting to protect the dwindling bee populations. She shared her story with Friends of the Earth in the following interview.

Q: Do you think the growth of urban bee-keeping is affecting how people consider the intersection of nature and the city?A: I think our idea of cities is changing right in front of us. In each of the cities in the book, peoples’ ideas of what their city is and how they relate to it and their expec-tations for what the city holds for them are vastly different than what they were 20 years ago or 30 years ago.

What really fascinated me was how beekeeping often became symbolic of how people were also relating to the city around them. A lot of people who live in these cities see that living in the city is a great way to be an environmentalist, because you can live lightly in a lot of ways.

Q: How are people supporting bee health or fighting pesticides in their areas?A: I think beekeeping is forcing a lot of people to look holistically at their neigh-borhoods. The best example is Jeavonna

Chapman, in Baltimore — people have told me that it’s in the hundreds, the number of trees she’s helped plant. She looks at the city from an ecological lens that’s really interesting.

So once you begin keeping bees, there’s a connection between you and your bees; when that bee leaves you’re thinking about its journey to the flowers and all the hazards it might encounter on its way and back.

Q: What was the most interesting discov-ery, that you couldn’t fit into the book? A: In the same way the bees provide a unique filter on the landscape, they are a readily accessible gateway for everyone to the environment. I think a lot of people mistakenly assume that the way to help bees is to start beekeeping, but one of the things we learn the minute you start hanging out with beekeepers is that we couldn’t all be beekeepers. The environ-ment couldn’t support it. But every single

one of us can play a role in aiding and protecting those species doing pollination.

We can all avoid pesticides, particularly those used for cosmetic purposes. I think we can all put flowers, bee-friendly, nectar-rich native plants into the landscape. We can all advocate for green space, and we can all teach kids to like bees, the impor-tance of bees. That would be the biggest thing I hope people would understand: it’s not all about “Oh, we all need to become beekeepers.” No, we all need to become bee protectors, bee champions.

This interview has been edited for space.

HIVES IN THE CITY

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book reviews

WAR OF THE WHALES: A TRUE STORY

When sound waves used by whales to navigate and communicate are overpowered by artificial noise,

the mammals can suffer inner ear and brain damage and becoming disoriented. This in turn can cause mass beachings of living whales, normally a rare occurrence in nature.

The most likely source of the man-made noise and cause of the strandings: U.S Navy sonar exercises in remote parts of the ocean.

War of the Whales, by Joshua Horwitz, documents a stranding event that occurred off the coast of the Bahamas in March 2000. Aptly described as investigative journalism, the story uncovers the cause of this stranding and the ensuing battle to hold the culprits accountable.

Horwitz’s book follows the stories of a two key crusaders: Ken Balcomb, a marine biologist studying beaked whales for decades in the Bahamas, but with a classi-fied Navy background in sonar submarine detection; and Joel Reynolds, an NRDC lawyer who has taken on the behemoth legal case against the U.S. Navy’s use of sonar and lack of compliance with envi-ronmental due process.

Together, with the support of many environmental organizations, the two expose the consequences of sonar on marine mammals in the public, scientific and legal spheres, taking the battle as far up as the Supreme Court.

Despite continued legal action and growing public outcry, these strandings continue to occur around the world in the

vicinity of naval sonar exercises. War of the Whales brings to the forefront the impacts of human development on our neighbors in the oceans that have been so easy to ignore, until now.

A GREENER ’ZINEWant to help Friends of the Earth save trees and energy — not to mention campaign funds? Choose to receive the Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine online, and each season we will send you the new issue via email.

Visit www.foe.org/newsmag-online to make the switch.

18 Summer 2014 Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine WWW.FOE.ORG

book reviews

who’s inspiring us

Helen Holden Slottje. The New York-based lawyer Helen Slottje won a Goldman Environmental Prize this year for her work to keep fracking compa-nies out of small communities across her state. A former corporate lawyer, she and her husband David visited rural towns in the state and taught local councils how to employ land use zoning to effectively ban fracking.

“Typically the gas industry holds all the cards and is able to dictate to the local communities how it will operate. The victory in New York against fracking has empowered citizens in other states to stand up to industry threats, and the dynamic is shifting from an industry dictatorship to democracy,” Slottje told Friends of the Earth.

As of June, more than 175 towns have banned fracking in New York, many thanks to Slottje’s efforts. A recent New York Court of Appeals ruling beat back gas companies’ attacks by upholding the ability of towns to ban fracking. http://www.cedclaw.org/

Boyan Slat. While his contemporaries cope with freshman year of college, 19-year-old Boyan Slat has developed a floating boom device to clean the world’s oceans. The device removes surface plastic for recycling, and could be easily dispatched to floating garbage patches around the globe.

Slat first encountered the problem while diving in Greece, when he noticed

that the dive sites contained “more plastic than fish.” “Now that there is a feasible way to get out what was already out there, it shows the problem is definitely not a lost cause,” said Slat in an email. “I hope it will serve as a motivation to make sure no more plastic enters the ocean in the first place.”

Having temporarily postponed his aerospace engineering studies to completely focus on The Ocean Cleanup, he now leads a team of 100 and — after recently completing a feasibility study — is working towards large-scale boom tests in the coming years. http://www.theoceancleanup.com/

WHO’S INSPIRING US

“Fracking is a symptom of a much

larger problem in our society,

an oligarchy, a complete separation

of people making decision and

those whose lives they affect.”

“Once there was the Stone Age,

then the Bronze Age, and now we are

in the middle of the Plastic Age.

Because every year, we produce

about 300 million tons of plastic.”PHOTO © GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE

THE OCEAN CLEANUP

WWW.FOE.ORG Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine Summer 2014 19

Volume 44, Number 2 ∙ Summer 20141100 15th Street NW, 11th FloorWashington, DC 20005

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Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine (ISSN: 1054-1829) is published quarterly by Friends of the Earth, 1100 15th St. NW, 11th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005, phone 202-783-7400, fax 202-783-0444, e-mail: foe@foe.org, website: www.foe.org. Annual membership dues are $25, which includes a subscription to the Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine. The words “Friends of the Earth” and the Friends of the Earth logo are exclusive trademarks of Friends of the Earth, all rights reserved. Requests to reprint articles should be submitted to Adam Russell at ARussell@foe.org. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, D.C.

A copy of the latest Financial Report and Registration filed by this organization may be obtained by contacting us at Friends of the Earth, 1100 15th St. NW, 11th Floor, Washington, DC 20005. Toll-free number: 877-843-8687. Or, for residents of the following states, by contacting any of the state agencies: CALIFORNIA - A copy of the Official Financial Statement may be obtained from the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, Department of Justice, PO Box 903447, Sacramento, CA 94203-4470 or by calling 916-445-2021. FLORIDA - A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE, WITHIN THE STATE, 1-800-435-7352. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE. Florida registration # CH960. KANSAS - Annual financial report is filed with Secretary of State #258-204-7. MARYLAND - For the cost of copies and postage: Office of the Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401. MICHIGAN - MICS 10926. MISSISSIPPI - The official registration and financial information of Friends of the Earth, Inc. may be obtained from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office by calling 1-888-236-6167. Registration by the Secretary of the State does not imply endorsement by the Secretary of State. NEW JERSEY - INFORMATION FILED WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL CONCERNING THIS CHARITABLE SOLICITATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY BY CALLING 973-504-6215. REGISTRATION WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT. NEW YORK - Office of the Attorney General, Department of Law, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. NORTH CAROLINA - FINANCIAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ORGANIZATION AND A COPY OF ITS LICENSE ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE STATE SOLICITATION LICENSING BRANCH AT 1-888-830-4989. THE LICENSE IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT BY THE STATE. PENNSYLVANIA - The official registration and financial information of Friends of the Earth may be obtained from Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll-free within the state 1-800-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement. UTAH - Permit #C495. VIRGINIA - State Division of Consumer Affairs, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PO Box 1163, Richmond, VA 23218; 1-800-552-9963. WASHINGTON - Charities Division, Office of the Secretary of the State, State of Washington, Olympia, WA 98504-0422; 1-800-332-4483. WEST VIRGINIA - West Virginia residents may obtain a summary of the registration and financial documents for the Secretary of State, State Capitol, Charleston, WV 25305. Registration does not imply endorsement. Postmaster: Send address changes to Friends of the Earth, 1100 15th St. NW, 11th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005.

OUR MISSION: Friends of the Earth defends the environment and champions a healthy and just world. CFC #12067

The Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine is printed on 100% recycled paper with 100% post-consumer content and processed without chlorine.

Board of DirectorsArlie Schardt, Chair; Soroush Shehabi, Vice chair; Jeffrey Glueck, Treasurer; Harriett Crosby, Secretary; Whitey Bluestein; Jayni Chase; Cecil D. Corbin-Mark, Clarence Ditlow; Dan Gabel; Jeffrey Glueck; Mike Herz; Russell Long; Avis Ogilvy Moore; Stephen Nemeth; Chris Paine; Doria Steedman; Peyton West, Chris Pabon; Brent Blackwelder, Advisor, President emeritus and ex-officio

StaffErich Pica, PresidentLisa Archer, Food and technology program directorCooky Bysura, Visual communications specialistMichelle Chan, Economic policy program directorJudith Bourzutschky, BookkeeperKate Colwell, Rapid response communications specialistJeff Conant, Senior international forests campaignerKate DeAngelis, Climate and energy campaignerJulie Dyer, Executive assistantEA Dyson, Communications directorTiffany Finck-Haynes, Food futures campaignerLuísa Abbott Galvão, Climate and energy associateKari Hamerschlag, Senior program managerJohn Kaltenstein, Marine policy analystMarcie Keever, Oceans and vessels program directorMarissa Knodel, Climate change campaignerKatharine Lu, China sustainable finance campaigner

Rachel Levine, Operations associateCarrie Mann, Digital membership coordinatorDamon Moglen, Senior strategic advisorDoug Norlen, Senior program managerKaren Orenstein, Senior international policy analystDana Perls, Food and technology campaignerLukas Ross, Climate and energy campaignerAdam Russell, Associate editor and content specialistMadelyn Rygg, Chief financial officerKathy Sawyer, Director of foundation relationsBen Schreiber, Climate and energy program directorSharon Smith, Senior accountantPeter Stocker, Director of developmentSemhal Tekeste, Senior digital communications strategist William Waren, Senior trade analyst

Consultants/AdvisorsAyres Law GroupBeehive Research, Inc.Capitol Nonprofit Solutions, LLCColin CarterCitrixCliftonLarsonAllenColleen CordesContent WorxDirect Mail Processors, Inc.

EarthJusticeJoanna ElliottSamuel EvansFairewinds Associates, IncFenton Communications, Inc.Fred Felleman, Wildlife & Visual Ent.Free Range StudiosDavid FreemanRobert GuildHarmon, Curran, Spielberg & EisenbergJoram HopenfeldHumanautIan IlluminatoKeyes, Fox & Wiedman ,LLPDoug Koplow, EarthTrackLarge and AssociatesLiberty ConceptsDevine Mulvey Longabaugh, Wild Bunch MediaStacy MalkanManagement Assistance GroupMcGuireWoods, LLPKate McMahonMellman GroupMovement Strategy CenterBrihannala MorganRichelle Morgan

Diane MossSteven Moss, M.CubedNetwork AlliancePalmer Group MediaPathar Communications, LLCPesticide Research InstitutePowers EngineeringProfundo BVSalsaLabs, Inc.Gary SteinbergThe Sharpe GroupBill Walker, dba Deadline Now