Victories

Iceland to stop whaling!

Result! One country down, two to go. Norway and Japan are the only two countries left flying in the face of world opinion, after Iceland's fisheries minister, Einar K. Guofinnsson was quoted by Reuters as saying

"The whaling industry, like any other industry, has to obey the market. If there is no profitability there is no foundation for resuming with the killing of whales".

Guofinnsson said he won't issue a new quota until the "market conditions for whale meat improve" and permission to export whale products to Japan is secured. Presumably, the 5,000 tonnes of whalemeat currently sitting in Japan's coldrooms will need to get sold first.

I had a sense this might happen - while I was at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Anchorage this year, the newly elected Icelandic foreign minister, Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, practically disowned her country's pro-whaling commissioner, saying "we are sacrificing greater interests for lesser ones in this issue". She was referring, of course, to Iceland losing tourism revenue for the sake of a ridiculous whale hunt.

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Posted by Dave at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Trademark vs free speech victory

Last year, the government here in the Netherlands ran TV adds showing banners that read, "Disasters can’t be planned, preparations can. Think ahead".

But of course some disasters can be prevented by good planning. For example, if the Netherlands chooses clean energy instead of building nuclear power plants - then obviously there can't be any nuclear disasters. So we thought it was ironic that some in the same government also want nuclear power.

And of course, we're kind of big on banners ourselves. So we hung this one on Ministry of the Environment building. Then we got hauled into court.

Jasper (our Senior Legal Council) on the outcome of the case:

The Dutch State filed an injunction against Greenpeace Netherlands and Greenpeace International based on trademark and copyright infringement. We argued that it was a parody (copyright defence) and that the freedom of speech provided a valid reason to use the trademark.

On 22 December the Amsterdam Court fully honoured our defences, denied the injunction and ordered the State to pay Greenpeace EUR 18,000 in costs.

That the action by the State may have been politically motivated was evidenced by the fact that it only acquired the copyright in the logo from the designer after it had summoned Greenpeace to cease the campaign. The intellectual property argument was used in an attempt to stifle an undesirable Greenpeace campaign.

This judgement acknowledges the right to parody logos and use trademarks in our campaigns.

Three cheers for all the lawyers out there defending free speech!

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Posted by Andrew at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Cyberactivists help save Amazon Rainforest

After a lot of pressure from Greenpeace supporters who sent e.mails and letters, McDonald's has decided not use to chickens that have been fed on soy grown in the deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest. Well this is really great news! Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of environmentalist to go all soft on a corporation like McDonald's just because they did something good for a change. The factory farming industry is one big environmental crime and McDonald's isn't likely to start selling organic burgers anytime soon. So I'm not rushing into my nearest McDonald's to place my order (and that has nothing to do with the fact that it is over 650 miles away!).

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Posted by Lisa at 4:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)