12 percent of the funding for Friends of the Earth International comes from the membership dues paid by the member groups, and 0.7 percent comes from sales and donations. Member groups contribute a percentage of their income on the basis of their revenue from two years ago to the international network. This core funding is used to cover the

operational costs of the Secretariat.

subsidies

86.5 percent of our income is subsidies received from government agencies and foundations. These funds are granted 

to us for specific projects and campaigns and for our Membership Support Fund.

membership support fund

Our Membership Support Fund seeks to pool resources and share them across FoE member groups for the following 

objectives: network development, program coordination, capacity building, strengthening national campaigns, and increasing participation in international campaigns.

In 2009, we distributed 995,266 Euros to 32 of our members: Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, El Salvador, England, Wales & Northern Ireland, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Malawi,Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestina, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Togo, Tunesia, Uganda and Uruguay.

We also distributed 106,142 Euros to the our regional groupings for regional meetings and capacity building.

our funders

Friends of the Earth International gratefully acknowledges financial support from:

• HIVOS
• NOVIB/Oxfam Netherlands
• The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS-TMF/MFS)
• The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Matra)
• The European Union (joint grant with IPS)
• The Sigrid Rausing Trust
• The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation
• The Netherlands Committee for Sustainable Development (NCDO)
• The Isvara Foundation
• The C.S. Mott Foundation
• The Wallace Global Fund
• The Rockefeller Brothers Fund
• The V. Kahn-Rasmussen Foundation

Their financial support has been crucial in strengthening our campaigns and our network.

The first Sustainability School took place in 2007, and was organized by Friends of the Earth Colombia/CENSAT. It set the scene for the School’s future activities by considering the theoretical and conceptual perspectives of the environmental movement, and its actions and development within the economic, political and social contexts of the region. Friends of the Earth Uruguay/REDES then hosted the second Sustainability School in 2008, focusing on Friends of the Earth International’s programs and campaigns, and ATALC’s involvement in them.

what happened

In 2009, the Sustainability School moved to Costa Rica. 35 participants joined FoE Costa Rica/COECOCeiba in the community of Juanilama, a rural settlement in the Northern Zone that is home to some 124 campesinos, who grow grains and manage a small forest reserve. The participants - who came from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay - enjoyed the generous hospitality of the community, staying with peasant families for the duration of their visit.

The Sustainability School’s activities were developed collectively and the central theme was the defense of land. In this way, the five-day School aimed to integrate the realities - faced by communities across the region - in to ATALC’s fights and campaigns, including on plantations, forests, biodiversity, food sovereignty, mining, climate change and free trade.

A detailed and colorful report of the meeting was subsequently published, to ensure that the results of the school were accurately recorded and can be shared with others.

what changed

ATALC’s member groups and its allies were enriched by the learning and information exchange that took place at the Sustainability School: 35 personnel have deepened their understanding about the social and environmental concerns prevalent in the continent and associated political implications. They now have a much greater understanding of the complex realities of rural life in the region, including its challenges and opportunities.

The strong friendships built during the Sustainability School will also help these new links between member groups to flourish and endure.

what next?

The Sustainability School will take place again in 2010, with a new focus, building on and developing its important work to date.

Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, which invited a Costa Rican youth group to participate in the School, is now developing a political partnership and common activities with them.

• Read the report from the school (in spanish)
  

with thanks to our funders: the isvara foundation

The scope of FoEI’s strategic alliance with La Via Campesina (LVC) has expanded dramatically. The cooperation extends from the leadership of both organizations to the national and local levels, where member groups of both organizations campaign side by side. Working to establish a similar relationship with the World March of Women (WMW), FoEI has increased cooperation at the level of actions and campaigns.

Today, FoEI programs work closely together with LVC at the level of strategy development and the organization of joint activities. FoEI’s Food Sovereignty program strategy meeting relied on the critical participation of members of LVC and WMW, to help develop its overall strategy and coordinate specific joint activities planned for the next few years.

We also worked together through the Climate Justice and Energy program, and the Economic Justice-Resisting Neoliberalism program. FoEI’s gender experts are working closely with the gender people from LVC and WMW to coordinate our gender justice work, and to increase our overall effectiveness in securing a gender sensitive approach to all FoEI's programs and operations. 

Finally and importantly, our organizations have agreed to increase our cooperation at the most fundamental level of the political development taking place within each organization. FoEI campaigners were invited to share their experiences with the board of LVC. LVC and WMW activists will also join key strategy meetings of FoEI in 2010.

FoEI also hosts solidarity missions. In July 2009, for example, following the coup by Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, FoEI also sent an international mission to Honduras, together with Via Campesina. The mission consisted of a delegation of Central American peasants and representatives of several international social organizations. They visited Honduras to offer their support and solidarity to national social organizations calling for the return of the democratically elected president; many of these organizations have been key players in the Movement of Victims Affected by Climate Change in Central America.

The strength of the organization, and our capacity to learn, adapt, innovate and mobilize people to act in solidarity with each other collectively determine the level of FoEI’s overall effectiveness in the world.

In 2009, FoEI’s organizational development process focused on ensuring FoEI’s contribution to the social movements. During the 2009 BGM in Honduras, the federation endorsed the proposal to focus our work on acting in solidarity with local struggles. We also decided to use existing international spaces but build our own space for achieving change as well. 

FoEI agreed that we need to bring the struggles of people most affected by unsustainable development in the South closer to people's hearts, so that those people will take action and make a difference. By expanding FoEI’s solidarity mechanisms FoEI is able to generate a greater sense of solidarity between groups and people from different parts of the world.

The communications strategy has been created in order to provide clear and synchronized messages about the federation and our campaigns so that we can better harness the power of all of our groups and campaigns and move to a higher level in terms of our credibility and impact as a global federation. The strategy includes a goal, objectives, main messages, key audiences, and important tools.

As with other areas of the FoEI strategic plan, we hope that groups will work to align their own communications strategies with the federation’s strategy. The idea is that national communications strategies, regional communications strategies, and the FoEI communications strategy are mutually supportive. Groups are of course free to use the elements of the strategy that work best in their national context, and also to adapt other elements to fit their specific realities.

The strategy will be implemented by a new team, the Communications Integration Team (CIT), which includes representation from each region, as well as from the programs and membership areas of our work. 

Each program and campaign also worked throughout 2009 to draft key communications messages that will be integrated into the overall communications strategy.

In order to fulfil its mandate effectively, the PIT team met all program and campaign coordinators at a meeting in Oxford, UK, in 2009.

The PIT meeting itself was preceded by an international campaigns skillshare, during which 35 FoEI campaigners came together over four days to share skills, experiences, and ideas regarding national campaigns and their links to FoEI’s programs and campaigns. The skillshare was convened by the PIT to address several important issues that have emerged in our international programs, including: member group involvement in international programs; strengthening the links between local/national campaigns and international programs; and team-building amongst international program and campaign coordinators.

The skillshare increased our understanding of similarities in the way we work in different countries and regions. It also deepened our understanding of the complexity of our international campaigns – breaking through the myths of North-South divides to understand the nuances of political positions, and effective campaigning with communities. We also learned more about the links between local and international struggles, particularly the practical implications of bringing our mission and vision to the national level.

The PIT meeting that followed shared developments in programs and regions, and addressed a number of other important areas including: evaluation processes and outcomes; developing FoEI’s strategic alliances; creating a framework for discussion of our cross-cutting transformation agenda; addressing the integration of gender concerns throughout the programs and campaigns; and links with membership development.

We concluded that the Program Information Team is developing into a productive space for reflection on strategic issues for our programs and for the federation. It is a place where we can help to build FoEI’s strategic action agenda, as a contribution towards achieving FoEI’s mission and vision.  

• In January 2009, FoE Indonesia sent a complaint to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, following the Australian government’s failure to fulfil a promise to respond directly to Indonesian organizations challenging the activities of Australian mining companies. FoE Indonesia has compiled a dossier detailing the involvement of numerous Australian mining companies in environmental destruction and human rights violations.

• In February 2009, communities in Guatemala asked the legislature and the Ministry of Energy and Mines to issue a moratorium on mining licenses of all types, until reforms to the Mining Act are agreed with them. Social organizations in the affected municipalities claim that current amendments to the document do not provide for community interests. 

• Also in February, and after years of being marginalized in relation to decisions about their ancestral lands, the Subanon people on Mindanao island came another step closer to asserting control over their territory. Their lands are currently being exploited by TVI Resource Development Phils (TVIRDI), a subsidiary of Canadian mining company TVI Pacific. Around 20 Subanon Indigenous People and farmers living within the TVIRDI mining area in Mount Canatuan, the Subanon tribe’s sacred site, halted blasting and drilling activities at the Canadian company’s open-pit mining operation, after a successful occupation of the site. 

• In March 2009, the Ghana National Coalition on Mining, a group of communities affected by mining in Ghana and civil society organizations including FoE Ghana, opposed the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency, which had granted environmental permits to Newmont Ghana Gold Limited and Adamus Resources to conduct surface gold mining activities. 

• In September 2009, FoE Hungary published their first annual alternative report on the Hungarian Oil Company (MOL). The report held a mirror up to the company’s annual report and assessed the company’s activities in 2008. After examining company data, the authors gave examples showing that the company’s practices do not actually match up to its rhetoric. 

• Also in September, FoE Costa Rica, together with and as part of Costa Rica’s popular movement, participated in a visit to mining company Crucitas, organized by the Supreme Court of Costa Rica, which had suspended Crucitas’s mining permit. There is a risk that the Supreme Court will favor the mining company, in which case FoE Costa Rica plans more mobilizations across the country, to stop this mining company restarting its activities.

• Again in September, FoE Guatemala organized an international mission to verify violations of human, environmental and economic rights by mining transnational corporations operating in Guatemala, such as GoldCorp. The aim of the mission was to ensure that the voices of victims, who are criminalized in Guatemala, can be heard at the international level. Participants included FoE Uruguay, FoE El Salvador, and FoE Costa Rica, together with people from Amnesty International and others. 

Building strong networks and alliances against the mining and extractive industries is also a priority for the RMOG Program. For example, a new network in Colombia, the Colombian Network Against Mining, has been established to challenge transnational corporations operating in Colombia with the support of the Colombian government. One of the first acts of this network was to support the demands of workers and the population struggling against British Petroleum in Tauramena, Colombia.

Many other critical activities were also undertaken by the Federation in 2009. For example:

• In Nigeria, the Second National Consultation on the Environment, 25 - 26 November 2009, saw civil society leaders, community-based organizations, civil society organizations, development experts, academia, legal practitioners, the media and representatives of government agencies come together to consider a post-petroleum Nigeria. The event was organized by FoE Nigeria in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment.

• FoE Philippines and Alyansa Tigil Mina co-hosted a discussion on "Tracing the Gold, Tracing the Money," in Cagayan de Oro City on 29 June. The event was designed to give participants the knowledge and skills they need to find out how mining companies finance their activities and where they sell their products. This kind of research often reveals excellent intervention points for advocates wanting to stop mining operations in their localities.

• A new report from FoE Netherlands, "Mining Matters," which was published in June 2009, reviewed practices used in mining tin (in Indonesia, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burma), bauxite (Guinea and Jamaica), and copper (Chile, Peru, Zambia and Indonesia (Grasberg)). It also examined the policies of seven companies using imported metals in the Netherlands.

• Security forces arrested the director of FoE Indonesia and the Head of FoE Indonesia's Regional Department during a peaceful protest organized by FoE Indonesia and other NGOs together with fisherfolk organizations. The groups organized an event parallel to the World Ocean Conference (WOC) and Coal Triangle Summit 2009 which was held in Manado, Indonesia, 11-14 May. The peoples’ gathering was to draw the attention of WOC to small fisherfolks’ concerns – especially their call to ban the dumping of tailing minings into the sea - and to demand that these concerns be put on the WOC’s agenda.

• In 2009 Young FoE Norway’s priority campaign was against oil drilling off the beautiful Lofoten Islands, home to the world’s largest stock of cod and biggest cold water coral reef. They started several local groups in a network called "O`olkaction against oil drilling outside the Lofoten Islands." They also took a group of representatives from political youth parties out to the Lofoten Islands for one week, to highlight the fact that there are other possibilities besides drilling for oil in Northern Norway. 

• FoE France has published a synthesis report "Public subsidies to fossil fuels in France and the European Union," which reveals that the wealthy oil industry benefited from French subsidies of over €400 million between 2004 and 2008, mainly in the form of export guarantees. FoE’s research also shows that €6 billion of European money has been given to the fossil fuel industry over the past five years. 

The main areas of work of the program are:

• Community Resistance
• Campaign Against Corporations
• Policies and Mechanisms that Promote Mining, Oil and Gas
• Decreasing Consumption to Stop Demand for Mining, Oil and Gas

coordinators and participants

Co-coordinator: Natalia Atz Sunuc, FoE Guatemala
Co-coordinator: Romel Cardenas de Vera, FoE Philippines

The RMOG steering group includes:

• For Africa, Chima Williams, FoE Nigeria
• For APac, Natalie Lowrey, Australia
• For ATALC, Andres Idarraga, Colombia
• For Europe, Geert Ritsema, Netherlands
• For North America, Adina Matisoff, FoE USA

This is a new FoEI program and the co-coordinators and steering group are still in the processing of developing and implementing a fully-fledged strategy and workplan. Groups that have expressed an interest in participating include: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curacao, El Salvador, FoE Europe, EWNI, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Togo and the US.

in which people on the ground tell about their struggles and successes in their own words.

Throughout 2009 we continued to build our online library of testimonies from community residents fighting for sustainable livelihoods and environmental protection, with original productions and by editing existing footage.

We also continued to support our 'community testimony' interns from Togo, Honduras, and Indonesia by providing training and finance to facilitate follow-up activities in their home countries after their 2008 internships in Amsterdam. These activities included the production of testimonies about climate-affected fisherpeople on the coasts of Togo and Ghana; a youth video training in Indonesia; and shooting footage of the Garifuna in Honduras, another climate-affected people.

During 2009, 140 new testimonies were uploaded to our website and to Youtube in our three languages (English, French and Spanish). Our radio team at Real World Radio also produced a series of testimonies in Spanish.

“Voices of the South for Climate Justice” was launched at the Heinrich Boell Foundation headquarters in Santiago de Chile, and was reviewed by Chile’s Environment Minister Ana Lya Uriarte and well-known foreign affairs journalist Raul Sohr, who also cited the book in his recent publication Chao Petroleo. It has also been sent to various international groups including the Climate Justice Now! network, and the Bolivian Government. 1,000 copies of the 158-page book have been distributed.

A second version of Voices of the South for Climate Justice has also been printed, this time adapted for use in Guatemala and throughout Central America. 1,000 copies were printed with support from the Danish organization Dan Church Aid. The book was launched in a packed auditorium at the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, and copies were also distributed to the peasant and Indigenous sector in various countries in Central America. The book has already been used as a student text with a group of 380 students, and has both shocked and motivated them.

with thanks to our funders: Dan Church Aid

membership support

"It wasn't an oil spill that made Nnimmo Bassey an environmentalist. It was a massacre — the 1990 assault by Nigeria's armed forces on the village of Umuechem, where residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta had accused the Shell Petroleum Development Company of environmental degradation and economic neglect."

TIME magazine feature about Friends of the Earth International Chair Nnimmo Bassey, who was nominated a 'Hero of the Environment 2009.'

"As chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) for the past six years, Syeda Rizwana Hasan has struggled to bring better environmental and labor regulation to Bangladesh's 36 shipbreaking yards, where, she says, "nobody is present" to ensure labor laws are followed or international guidelines against toxic waste-dumping are met."

TIME magazine feature about Friends of the Earth Bangladesh/BELA Chief Executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan who was nominated a 'Hero of the Environment 2009.'

"Other countries are using the US's [climate change negotiations] position as an opportunity to try and avoid stringent legally binding emissions cuts which they should implement at home."

BBC news, 9 October 2009, quoting Meena Raman, Honorary Secretary, Friends of the Earth Malaysia.

"It is a crisis of democracy when campaigning charities like Friends of the Earth are prevented from speaking up on behalf of communities around the globe within the [UN Climate Change] talks themselves. This draconian measure is completely unjustified - the Copenhagen conference is fast becoming an international shambles."

The Telegraph, 17 December 2009, quoting Andy Atkins, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

"The World Bank should be greening its energy portfolio. It's difficult to understand why the World Bank or Norway would be pouring money into an unproven [carbon capture and storage] technology ... rather than pour money into renewable technologies."
The New York Times, 14 October 2009, quoting Karen Orenstein, Friends of the Earth US International Policy Campaigner.

"Isaac Rojas, co-ordinator of the forest and biodiversity programme at Friends of the Earth International, said: "All over the world, plantations destroy the lands and livelihoods of local communities and indigenous peoples, as well as biodiversity and water resources. They also store less carbon than natural forests. Friends of the Earth International and the Global Forest Coalition want the UN's Committee on Forestry to stop promoting plantations and to urge governments immediately to halt the conversion of forests into biofuel plantations."
The Independent, 25 October 2009.

"We cannot allow carbon traders to damage the world. There is no such thing as clean coal or clean crude. Leave the oil in the soil, leave the coal in the hole. To those who want to pollute at home and plant a tree somewhere we say no."
Agence France Presse, December 12, 2009, quoting Nnimmo Bassey, Friends of the Earth International Chair.

"For non-governmental organisations like Madre Tierra [Friends of the Earth Honduras], the 2009 coup in Honduras represents the consolidation of historical exploitation - led by the country’s long-standing oligarchy that controls approximately 80 per cent of Honduran wealth - and a worsening of the situation for the poorest and most vulnerable people in Honduras."
Red Pepper magazine, 24 September 2009, published a story by Juan Almendares, director of Movimiento Madre Tierra/Friends of the Earth Honduras.

In 2009, the campaign focused on strengthening local communities’ defence of their territories, and exposing ‘false solutions’ to the climate and energy crisis. A prerequisite for this was compiling research, reports, and national and regional positions from the federation’s members, as agrofuels is a relatively new issue and data is sparse. 

Nevertheless, there have already been some excellent external achievements by this relatively young campaign, in part because of its links to FoEI’s ongoing campaign against the deforestation caused by oil palm plantations.

2009 was particularly notable because of the World Bank’s suspension of its investments in oil palm plantation companies. In September 2009, the International Finance Corporation (the IFC, the World Bank's private sector arm) announced that it would halt all palm oil investments until a revised strategy for financing the sector was in place. The World Bank Group statement was unveiled on 9 September in a letter from its president Robert Zoellick, who was responding to an appeal from Indonesian and international NGOs. A coalition of local and international NGOs, spearheaded by the UK organization Forest Peoples Program and including FoE Netherlands, had previously filed a complaint with the IFC's internal watchdog, the Compliance Advisory Ombudsman office (CAO) about a series of loans to palm oil giant Wilmar International. A joint report by three NGOs (FoE Netherlands, Kontak Rakyat Borneo and Gemawan), had examined Wilmar's plantations in Sambas, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and found that the company was working with dubious licenses, and was entangled in land rights conflicts and illegal logging activities. This complaint triggered an audit by the CAO, which concluded that the IFC had violated its own procedures, and that commercial interests had overruled the IFC's environmental and social standards.

The Indonesian President has also identified illegal logging as another form of entrenched corruption, saying that he appreciated the efforts of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth which have been active in criticising the forest management of his government, saying, "I want to give my appreciation for their concerns and hope they will continue their partnership with Indonesia."

Friends of the Earth groups from Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea also joined forces to develop and propose a mandatory code of conduct for Malaysian palm oil companies operating in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. An intense advocacy campaign was directed at the Malaysian opposition group in Parliament; the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, Board, and Council; and the Human Rights Council. The groups also tried to lobby the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities, and the Prime Minister. The three groups, together with Sawit Watch, testified to the failure of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) process, and requested the introduction of the proposed legally binding code of conduct. They have so far received positive responses from the Human Rights Council and the Opposition Party, who have accepted that Malaysian palm oil expansion has created adverse impacts, including haze from forest and land fires during land clearing, social conflicts with local communities, and environmental impacts.

Friends of the Earth also filed a complaint with the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against the Malaysian Palm Oil Council for falsely advertising that palm oil is the "only product able to sustainably and efficiently meet a larger portion of the world's increasing demand for oil crop-based consumer goods, foodstuffs and biofuels." The ASA ruled that this statement was misleading, and that the Malaysian Palm Oil Council’s claim that palm oil contributes to alleviation of poverty was also misleading. The ASA found there was “not a consensus of the economic impact of palm oil on local communities” and stated that the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil certification scheme was “still the subject of debate”; and that making a claim that palm oil could be wholly sustainable, which cannot be substantiated, was deemed to be misleading. In November 2009, we followed up on this ruling by filing a grievance with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) against the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, for violating the members' Code of Conduct and continuing to mislead the public and make unsubstantiated claims about the production, procurement and use of palm oil.

FoE Indonesia has played an important role in these campaign actions, and regional coordination of oil palm activities in the Asia Pacific. The group also facilitated communications, and coordinated capacity-building on agrofuels, land rights and monocultures issues, including with communities in remote areas such as Kupang in Indonesia (2,000 miles from Jakarta).

FoEI is committed to strengthening local communities’ capacity to defend their territories. We have worked with and supported communities that are keen to find out more about isolating and analyzing some of the ‘false solutions’ to the climate change and energy crises commonly proposed. A process of capacity-building on agrofuels, land rights and monoculture has also been initiated in Central America. We have also helped to coordinate different groups and communities wanting to work together on agrofuels. In Latin America, for example, this has involved bringing together the food sovereignty network in Guatemala, the food sovereignty and agrarian reform network of Honduras, the Water Valley communities in Honduras, victims of kidney failure due to sugar cane plantations in Nicaragua, and Via Campesina and World March of Women groups in El Salvador, amongst others. A video on "Monocultures, Land and Agrofuels in Central America" was created by FoE El Salvador with these communities’ support.

FoEI also organized an international delegation to gather evidence on the impact of agrofuels in Colombia, 1-10 July, with 40 international participants. Several members of FoEI took part: FoE Indonesia, FoE Uruguay, FoE Paraguay and FoE Brazil. The main objective of this delegation was to gather empirical evidence about the environmental impacts of agribusinesses producing biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel). This involved identifying and documenting human rights, economic, social and cultural rights violations, as well as violations of ethnic and environmental rights, and infringements on the food sovereignty of afro-Colombian, peasant and Indigenous communities in the country.

Lobbying efforts in Europe remain focused on challenging the EU’s target of 10% of all road transport fuel coming from ‘renewable’ sources by 2020, with a majority likely to come from agrofuels. Key to this is increasing Europeans’ awareness of the impacts of agrofuels and about potential alternatives. This included the publication of "Biofuels: handle with care," an analysis of EU biofuels policy with recommendations for action, in November 2009. This document contains a clear set of policy recommendations focusing variously on European policy, European member states, and investors and industry.

Advocacy by FoE Netherlands and allied Dutch NGOs has also led to some important national developments that are influencing the course of EU debates relating to agrofuels. Palm oil remains excluded from the Dutch subsidy ruling for green electricity for 2010, despite RSPO certified palm oil becoming available. However, palm oil is however still part of the agrofuel mix in the Netherlands, and the hard won promise from Dutch Minister Cramer that sustainability concerns would take priority cannot be fulfilled because it is over-ruled by the weaker EU Renewable Energy Directive. However, the Dutch position in Brussels includes having at least some sustainability criteria for solid biomass in the Renewable Energy Directive, and promoting the use of an indirect land use change factor for calculating emissions for agrofuels. This resulted in the postponement of an EC decision, planned for 2009, that was supposed to state that solid biomass would not be subject to sustainability criteria.

FoE Netherlands also commissioned a publication on alternative implementation of the EU Renewables Directive for Transport in the Netherlands, "New Roads for Transport - Towards a sustainable solution for the 10% renewable transport energy target in 2020." This report on agrofuels alternatives also found its way to Brussels and the UK, and has been quoted frequently by industry players from the electric car and food industries.

In April 2009, FoE US and Earthtrack published a report "A Boon for Bad Biofuels: federal tax credits and mandates underwrite environmental damage at taxpayer expense," which focuses on US subsidies to the biofuels industry.

In September, comments were also submitted by the environmental community in the US, including FoE US, on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s draft regulation on the United States Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The RFS, in the Energy Independence Security Act of 2007, mandates a massive fivefold increase in agrofuels use and is a major driver of agrofuels production in the United States and abroad.

FoEI also facilitated research into agrofuels in many parts of the world, including on:

• the increase in agrofuel plantations in Central America and the link with the free trade agreement between the US and Central America; 

• the financing policies of the Inter-American Development Bank and how they are exacerbating climate change by promoting dirty energy and the promotion of agrofuels in Latin America; 

• the size and scope of subsidies for agrofuels in the US; 

• jatropha production in Swaziland; 

• land grabbing in Africa; and 

• agrofuels production in Mozambique. 

This research has also been used to develop position papers on the activities of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS), and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels. It also laid the foundations for the proposed mandatory code of conduct for palm oil companies in Malaysia. FoE has also conducted research into the position of Dutch banks financing agrofuel plantations, and how much money oil companies receive for using agrofuels.

Friends of the Earth’s aim of reaching a broader public was also substantially achieved through the broadcasting of footage from our commissioned film, "Lost in Palm Oil," which was broadcast on ARTE channel (30 million audience); on Dutch public broadcaster VARA; on Spanish national television (TVE); and on NDR  (Germany).

In keeping with FoEI’s commitment to awareness raising and mobilization we also:

• Participated in a tour to raise awareness about the threats posed by biofuels in Costa Rica and other Central American countries.

• Held a forum in El Salvador on the international day against plantations, denouncing regional plans to promote monocultures of sugar cane, palm and jatropha for agrofuels.

• Participated in public activities such as ‘Biofools Day’ activities, on 1 April. Over 10,000 activists participated, selecting Hugh Grant of Monsanto as 2009’s biggest Biofool.

Held an agrofuels awareness raising event in Tokyo, which was hosted by FoE Japan and its allies.

Created or participated in many other ‘solidarity spaces’ including an international forum on agrofuels in Sao Paolo, Brazil; an international forum on agrofuels in Paraguay; the dialogue of the Americas on agribusiness and agrofuels, "Building Alternatives from the food and energy sovereignty perspectives"; and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) forum in Nigeria.

The EJRN Program has also collaborated with the Agrofuels Campaign to organize a set of concrete activities including a publication on the role of private banks and their funding to promote agrofuels, a photo exhibition and activities on plantations and agrofuels at the European Social Forum.

The Stop Agrofuels Campaign working areas are:

• Defence of land
• Building a movement against agribusiness
• Certification mechanisms
• EU and US goals for agrofuels

Cross-cutting areas include:

• With the EJRN Program - a focus on exposing and countering the role of corporations, trade and investments in the agrofuels sector.

• With the Food Sovereignty Program - on Plantations.

Coordinators and participants

Co-Coordinators:

Silvia Quiroa, FoEI El Salvador, yada@navegante.com.sv

Torry Kuswardono, FoE Indonesia, torry@foei.org

The Stop Agrofuels Steering Group includes:

• For Africa: Thuli Makama, FoE Swaziland
• For North America: Kate Horner, FoE US
• For Latin America: Elias Diaz, FoE Paraguay, and FoE Brazil
• For Asia Pacific: Damien Ase, FoE Papua New Guinea
• For Europe: Adrian Bebb, FoE Europe

Groups that have actively participated in the Stop Agrofuels Campaign in 2009 include: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Uruguay.