Sunday 31 August 2008

Victoria's Dirty Secret

Since my last blog post, I had the good fortune to listen to a lady called Tzeporah Berman who is an amazing activist on behalf of the trees and forests of the world. She founded her own organisation, Forest Ethics and has also worked for Amnesty on tree-related things and is on the board at Hollyhock. She is one of Cortes island's 900 residents. It's amazing how so many influential people are on one wee bit of land. Proof that you don't need to be in a big city to move and shake the world.

Her organisation has saved around 7 milion acres of ancient forest in Canada and Chile. Through finding out who the logging companies are selling to, she is able to then go in at the corporate level and persuade newspapers, stationery suppliers and other large consumers of wood to source more ethically. To date, she's had huge success with Staples and Home Depot among others. Forest Ethics is currently campaigning against Victoria's Secret www.victoriasdirtysecret.net, who are using ancient forest to make their catalogues - many of which arrive on people's doorsteps as unwanted direct marketing. I say, get incensed now and write Victoria's Secret a letter and pass this info on far and wide!! Activism can make a difference.

Tzeporah had some stark statistics for us .. by 2020, we'll have only 50 per cent of the amount of fresh drinking water available to us now. Time to get water conscious! I've started turning the shower off while I shampoo. What can you do to be more water resourceful?? And global warming is expected to create 150 million climatic refugees by 2020 - compared to 30 million or so at present. To get this into perspective, Hurricane Katrina created 1 million climatic refugees.

So please everyone, get savvy about sustainability and support groups like Forest Ethics, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Write letters, sign petitions, give charity money to organisations supporting green causes, hold corporations accountable for their actions, invest in alternative energy. There are all sorts of solutions. Complacency is not one of them. www.victoriasdirtysecret.net

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