Illegal logging: a campaign update

I thought I’d start blogging about logging! That’s probably the worst and only gag I’m going to make this time. A few people have been asking how the latest action (to MEPs) fits with the others we’ve been pushing this summer. It’s a good opportunity to give a bit of an overview.

The logging campaign can be a bit confusing because while it’s all about the same thing, it’s also multi-phase. Before now, we’ve tended to have one action and push it all year. But people have been emailing saying that they’ve already taken the latest email action, without realising that the latest email action is different from the one they took a few weeks ago.

I suppose that’s a risk of this kind of approach – one European email action looks much like another despite best efforts to write things like ‘one last time’, or ‘finally’. That’s a learning point for next time.

Our campaign has been following the European legislative process and for the record, this has been  threefold. Here is the anatomy of the campaign (so far):

Phase 1. European Parliament Environment Committee email action (April)

Aim: get the Environment  Committee of the European Parliament to agree strong recommendations (read: prohibition on those who import illegal timber and those who trade it).
Target: Caroline Lucas MEP as special rapporteur to the Committee (she ‘held the pen’ i.e. drafted the recommendations) and MEPs on the Environment Committee.
Method: email action to Caroline Lucas from those on Progressio’s PROactive campaigner list.

The first phase happened immediately before I got here, but the results came on my first day. A stunning victory for campaigners and strong legislation which was exactly what we needed to go into the next round of negotiations with a decent hand. It will probably turn out to be my biggest success and I had nothing to do with it! About a third of the people we emailed took the action (and all got an email back from Caroline Lucas). A really good average.

Phase 2. Letters of support to Caroline Spelmen MP at DEFRA (May)

Aim: get the UK to take a strong lead within the Council of Ministers in the Negotiations with the Environment Committee. Now that strong recommendations had been agreed, we didn’t want them to be watered down.
Target: Caroline Spelman MP, the new DEFRA Minister.
Method: PROactive post action to all Progressio Members and those campaigners for whom we have addresses. She’s new to the post and to us, it’s only polite to write – plus no-one writes letters these days, do they?

We spent a couple of days stuffing envelopes and then we waited. It took a while to get the news we were waiting for. The initial prohibition stood, but those who were found trading in illegal timber once it was in the EU wouldn’t face criminal sanctions. From my perspective, a decent compromise, especially considering the opposition in some parts of Europe (we’re looking at you, Sweden.)

As chance would have it, our email ask to have the Avaaz behemoth push logging paid off. Avaaz is an international online campaigning organisation. 80,000 people took the action, which was pretty awesome and gave it a serious kick. Hats off to Alice at Avaaz!

And there was more good news. We got invited to a meeting with the Minister care of WWF who we’ve been working with a bit on this. The Minister underlined the Government’s commitment to logging (it made it in to the Coalition Agreement). Progressio were the only UK development agency there, though there were greens and even people from the timber trade (they want a level playing field).

Phase 3. Email action to MEP to pass the proposed legislation (June)

Aim: get MEPs to vote for the proposed legislation.
Target: UK MEPs. Now we have some legislation we can deal with, it’s time to seal the deal. MEPs vote the week beginning the 5th July but we’re not sure when. There’s some decent support on all sides of the European Parliament so we’re hopeful, but we need one last push.
Method: email action from Progressio campaigners to their MEPs, and for those who want to, letters.

So here we are. All our contacts emailed, the Catholic and Christian development and green networks buzzing, even Friends of the Earth retweeted our action to 21,000 people on their front page (thanks FoE!) and now we wait again.

We’re currently doing press (faith-based and secular) with a letter from our Regional Manager Xiomara Ventura in Honduras to press and MEPs ahead of the Big Vote and a mailing of our members’ magazine Interact so hopefully some more people will take the action.

We’re doing what we can, now it’s up to you and our MEPs to take the final step.

If you haven’t already, please take action now, we really need your support if we are going to prevent illegally logged wood entering the EU.

Photo: Progressio campaigns officer Daniel Hale stuffing envelopes for the latest campaign