P&G Adopts No-Deforestation

Another win for People Power and the planet.
Proctor and Gamble announced this month that, to stop further deforestation, it will cease using palm oil in its products. The world's largest consumer products company made the decision after receiving 400,000 emails from around the world.

The no-deforestation policy promises to remove forest destruction from its palm oil supply chain, by ensuring all its suppliers guarantee no conversion of peat lands, respect local communities and protect high carbon and high conservation value areas. It says all of its suppliers will be 100% forest-friendly by 2020.
Although this sounds encouraging, at this very moment there are 7,300 orangutans, and as few as 400 Sumatran tigers left, which are at risk of being homeless. Both species are on the endangered list and could become extinct if deforestation continues. Six years is a long time to wait when whole species could be lost forever.
P and G joins a group of other palm oil traders and consumers – Nestle, L'Oreal, Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever, Mars, Kellogg, Safeway, Delhaize, Ferrero, GAR and Wilmar – in their commitment to ending deforestation.

Although saving the habitat of wild animals is highly commendable, it would also be wonderful if they saved the animal themselves by no longer using them for product testing...

Pacific Whaling Begins

Japan began its annual Pacific whale hunt this week.
But - maybe due to its faceslap by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - it's targeting fewer whales. Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said the Pacific catch target was being slashed by nearly half, from the current 380 to about 210.
Japan also announced it will merely OBSERVE whales in the Antarctic next season, with the aim of later resuming full-fledged commercial whaling.

Last week's announcement shows Japan has NOT dumped plans to continue whaling in both oceans for research purposes AT ALL!
Last month, the ICJ ordered Japan to suspend Antarctic whaling because it was virtually commercial, not "scientific" as Japan claimed. The ICJ said Japan produced little actual research and failed to explain why it needed to kill so many whales in order to study them. The ruling left Japan the option of 'tweeking' its whaling to be more "scientific" (though any new Antarctic plan would face intense scrutiny). Experts said the ruling could be a convenient, face-saving solution for Japan to scale back the research whaling as it struggles with growing stockpiles of whale meat and escalating anti-whaling protests.
The annual spring hunt along Japan's northern coast started this week, the distant northern Pacific expedition rolls out in May, with another coastal hunt planned in the Northern autumn.
Minister Hayashi: "We will continue our research hunts aimed at collecting scientific data and seek to resume commercial whaling. We re-examined the content of our research programmes and came up with the plans that give the maximum consideration to the ruling, and we plan to fully explain that to other countries."
He says Japan will limit next season's Antarctic programme to whale observation, but plans to return to the southern seas with hunting plans under a new programme for the 2015-2016 season. Japan aims to submit new Antarctic and Pacific programmes to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) later this year.

Anzac Day: The First Hundred Years

Today we remember those who put their lives on the line and those who are currently doing the same.
It is a day for honouring those who fell, those who served and those who are serving now.
It is a day to put yourself in someone else's shoes – the wife, the mother, the daughter – and trying to imagine what they experienced when their husbands, sons, fathers went away and did not return... and for those serving now, always praying nothing bad will happen to those they love most.
It is a very emotional day for me. I cannot describe it.
How does one begin to understand...

Dad, 161 Bty., 16 Fld.Rgt., Royal NZ Artillery - Korea, 1950-1952