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Reporting by Roddy Scheer

Unilever’s decision to go sustainable could benefit millions of tea growers.

© Getty Images

International consumer products conglomerate Unilever, which owns and operates the world’s two leading tea brands (Lipton in the U.S. and PG Tips in Great Britain), announced last week that it plans to shift sourcing of its entire tea supply to sustainable producers. The companies will certify the process according to standards set by the Rainforest Alliance, a leading nonprofit engaged in using market-based tools to preserve biodiversity across the world’s vanishing tropical rainforest ecosystems.

Unilever will kick-off the initiative by seeking certification for its tea producers in East Africa, and expects to start offering certified tea in Europe within a few months. By 2015, all tea the company sells will come from certified sustainable tea farms.

“We are delighted to be working with a company that understands the value of putting sustainability at the heart of its business,” says Tensie Whelan, the executive director of the Rainforest Alliance, which was instrumental in crafting the agreement. “By bringing Rainforest Alliance certification to its tea supply, Unilever has taken an unprecedented step that could eventually benefit millions of tea growers globally,” she says.

While the Unilever announcement represents a first for the tea industry, the Rainforest Alliance has been instrumental in setting up similar certification programs for coffee, cocoa, bananas and other crops, as well as in forestry and tourism. Whelan adds that certified producers in all of these other product sectors have been able to charge higher prices and improve their communities’ standards of living accordingly.

Sources: Rainforest Alliance: Planet Ark/Sustainable Teas

Who is the most significant environmental figure of our time?

Certainly not any politicians that I know of. According to the media, the most significant environmental figures are actors. I personally believe that the honey bee is the most significant environmental symbol of our time. Their disappearing numbers are sending us the sternest and most dire warning ever although few are paying attention.

Are you a vegetarian? Why or why not?

 

Running fuel and diesel-burning ships like the Farley Mowat is Watson’s biggest environmental no-no, but by sinking whaling and poaching boats, he engages in “carbon trading.”

© www.indymedia.org

You cannot be an environmentalist and a conservationist if you support the meat and fishing industry. My ships are run as vegetarian/vegan vessels. We take campaigns to the coast of Antarctica to fight Japanese whalers and we do so without meat, fish, or dairy products and everyone is healthy and strong. The meat industry is a major consumer of fish meal and because of this we have turned the cow into the largest aquatic predator on the planet. The amount of water and resources utilized to raise domestic animals for food is irresponsibly high. Yes I am a vegetarian and I think vegetarianism is an essential requirement of anyone calling him or herself an environmentalist.

What non-planet-friendly thing do you continue to do?

I am a major offender because we operate large ocean-going ships to chase down whalers, sealers and poachers. This means that we use probably 500 tons of diesel fuel and 50 barrels of oil a year. Unfortunately it is the only way that I can catch the poachers. There are tens of thousands of fishing vessels consuming vast quantities of fuel in pursuit of plundering the oceans. We admit to using fuel in our efforts to stop them. However we have sunk and disabled a number of ships. That ended their careers, meaning they do not burn fuel anymore. This is our way of doing carbon trading. We are burning the fuel that the whalers and poachers are no longer burning because we shut them down. Overall it’s a net positive gain as we are using less fuel than they collectively did.

Who could be the environmental movement’s most unlikely allies?

Corporations and governments usually become allies when it is in their economic interest to do so. Even Chevron and Shell give out environmental awards. However, corporations and governments never solve social problems. They never have and they never will. They cause the problems. The solutions come from the passion and the dedicated courage of individuals and small grassroots organizations.

Which environmental group do you most admire?

I’m not a big fan of large environmental organizations. As a co-founder of Greenpeace, I feel like Dr. Frankenstein having helped to create that big green feel-good machine. As a former director of the Sierra Club I saw firsthand the insanity of bureaucratic environmentalism. Personally, I like the Wildlands Project, Rainforest Action Network, Earth Island Institute and of course the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. But more importantly I respect and admire all those free-floating individual activists who walk the walk, sit in the trees, obstruct whaling boats and blockade roads.

What is your greatest environmental fear?

No species can survive on this planet without respecting the three basic laws of ecology. (1) The law of biodiversity—that the strength of an eco-system is dependent upon the diversity of species within it. (2) The law of interdependence—that these species must be interdependent to support a strong eco-system and (3) the law of finite resources—that there is a limit to growth. Growing human numbers utilized vast amounts of resources and steal carrying capacity from other species resulting in the collapse of diversity. The greatest fear is not something in the future but something happening now. We are in the midst of a mass extinction event and thus in danger of radically altering the entire biosphere.

Which green trend do you most distrust?

Corporate environmentalism. The co-opting of the movement by mega green organizations that spew out direct mail by the millions, operate large phone solicitation schemes, and pose as the saviors of our planet while collecting large salaries and benefits without taking risks as volunteers around the world scramble in the trenches without the benefit of the same resources.

What’s your favorite Earth-friendly mode of transportation?

Sails. I would like to see the seas return to the glory days of sailing, the return of the clippers, the most efficient, environmentally friendly ships ever built. We need to remove the engine-driven vessels from our seas and restore the peace and quiet for the whales.

CONTACTS: The Farley Mowat Institute; Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Demonstrations

Meanwhile, German police used water cannon and tear gas against demonstrators protesting against the G8 summit as leaders arrived for the meeting, a police spokesman says.

"Water cannon and tear gas were used after protesters began throwing stones," the spokesman said.

The demonstrators had approached the 12-kilometre-long fence around the luxury hotel on the Baltic Sea where the summit is being held.

Thousands of other protesters tried to block roads leading from the nearby city of Rostock to Heiligendamm in an effort to prevent officials from reaching the meeting.

Violence flared at a demonstration against the summit in Rostock on Saturday when hundreds of police were injured in clashes with masked and hooded protesters.

About 16,000 police were on duty for the summit.

The leaders of the G8 nations – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States – gathered in Heiligendamm for three days of talks focusing on climate change and development aid to Africa.

– AFP

An emotional issue: In the end there was a compromise because of the electricity saving and daylight saving was increased by three weeks at the beginning and by one week at the end of the original daylight saving period. If that is the case, and if that could be shown to be the case in Western Australia, it is the sort of thing that we need to know. Over the next two years we can gauge these things and assess them. Instead of being emotional about daylight saving, perhaps we can look at the facts. How does it help business? Does it save money? Are more people employed? I do not know the answers. Does it save energy? If it does, in the current climate, in which we are concerned about climate change and the environment, we need to know these things.

Hard data needed: I hope that government agencies will monitor the effects of daylight saving and will let us know the results. If the situation that applies in the US applies to Western Australia, it is a very good reason for us to have daylight saving. If we use more energy and electricity, that is a good reason not to have it. We do not know that. The daylight saving trial will come up with a lot of facts and statistics that will help the community make a sensible decision on daylight saving. We should not be listening to all this emotional nonsense that we hear over and over again. Let us throw that challenge up to the government and see whether the relevant agencies can come up with some good, hard data, which is what the agencies in the US did when Congress debated daylight saving. People will then be able to decide whether they support or do not support daylight saving.

Reference: Legislative Assembly of Western Australia Hansard for 16/05/2007.

According to D Roddan from Dalby in a letter to the editor in Queensland Country Life, (24/05/2007, p.20), a source of water in southern Queensland were the gas and coal fields having evaporation ponds, of about 200ha which could be used as giant stills, using the power of the sun and collecting the condensation from under the covers without any electricity being used to pump the water to where you want it.

Getting water from ‘roofs’: Another method of assisting in the supply of water would be the creation of ‘roofs’, or scaled areas in the catchment area of our dams.

100pc runoff even in drought: Ordinary timbered country only had about one percent runoff, and that would only start after a heavy downpour of 100mm-150mm of rain. A roof, on the other hand, would have an almost total runoff and even in light falls of 10mm-20mm or more under drought.

90,000L annually under 700mm rainfall: About 20ha of carefully-graded contoured and sealed, would equal the runoff from about 2000ha and could use some of the poorest least productive land. This, of course, would lead to households having their own water tanks. In a 700mm rainfall area, an average-sized roof would yield 90,000 litres a year.

Queensland Country Life, 24/5/2007, p. 20

Brisbane City Council (BCC) seeks to establish a regional carbon sink by the provision of associated carbon emission trading funded by individuals and businesses choosing to invest in Council sequestration projects, reports The Australian (19/5/2007, p. 44). The projects: These projects will primarily involve a million tree planting program throughout the Brisbane Metropolitan area. The purpose of this ROI is to seek interest in establishing the associated Carbon Emission reading via a link on the Council’s Website. Contact details : For further information the Sustainability Project Team, phone: 3403 9117 or email john.tunney@brisbane.qld.gov.au Closes 12 noon Friday 1 June 2007. How to obtain the tender documents: You must download the tender documents through http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/tenders and click on current tenders. Click on the relevant tender number (A70171-06/07), then click on Register Interest and follow prompts to download documents. If you are having trouble downloading the documents phone Karen on (07) 3403 9167. Responses must be lodged as specified in the relevant documentation. Council’s Procurement Manual issued pursuant to the City of Brisbane Act 1924 applies to the making of the above Contracts. The Australian, 19/5/2007, p. 44