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did you know?

• In 2004, Friends of the Earth International counted 71 member groups and 16 affiliates, uniting more than 1.5 million national and local activists and supporters around the world.
• In 2004, Friends of the Earth International's Membership Support Fund distributed more than 800,000 Euro to 39 of our members worldwide. We also recommended that US$ 80,000 be granted by the Global Greengrants Fund to 13 communities and organizations all over the world.
• The first Asian chair of Friends of the Earth International, Meena Raman from Malaysia , was elected in 2004.
• Friends of the Earth International personally presented World Bank President James Wolfensohn with a massive work of art (nearly 2 x 2 metres) based on drawings by children in mining areas of Honduras at the World Bank's 60th anniversary meeting in July 2004.
• In 2004-2005, the Friends of the Earth Secretariat team included staff and volunteers from Argentina , Belgium , Bulgaria , Canada , Costa Rica , China , Indonesia , Italy , the Netherlands , the Philippines , Poland , South Africa , Suriname , Uganda , the United Kingdom and the United States .
• In 2004, Friends of the Earth financially supported forest protection projects in Bolivia , Cameroon , Costa Rica , France , Ghana , Indonesia , Malaysia , Papua New Guinea and Paraguay .
• The most northerly Friends of the Earth group was launched in Rovaniemi , Finland , in September 2004. Located just on the Arctic Circle , this new local group will campaign at a latitude further north than Iceland or Alaska .
• In June, Yvette Raveneau and Lloyd Narain of Friends of the Earth Curaçao received the Silver Carnation Award from Prince Bernhard and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in recognition of their work for nature conservation.
• In September, Friends of the Earth International implemented its work on gender mainstreaming across the network's structures and campaigns. The International Campaign Coordinators were also given a gender sensitivity training by our gender coordinators.
• Friends of the Earth International Patron and musician Bruce Cockburn met with Friends of the Earth International on his way back from a fact-finding mission in Iraq in January 2004, where he met with doctors, religious leaders, mothers, children, politicians, artists and musicians.
• In April, Manana Kochladze from Friends of the Earth International affiliate CEE Bankwatch in Georgia was awarded the Goldman Prize in recognition of her campaigning on the controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project.
• In 2004, more than half a million people visited the Friends of the Earth International website www.foei.org. This is an increase of 43 percent from the total number of visitors (374,159) in 2003.
• The winner of the 2004 Friends of the Earth International award was International Secretariat volunteer Ina Breman for her many years of contribution to the federation as librarian and web wizard.
• There are currently 439 active users of Friends of the Earth International's internal website, the ‘insite', where we carry out discussions and plan campaigns. There are more than 500 documents uploaded on the insite.
• In 2003-2004, Friends of the Earth Europe sent a 6-metre high inflatable tomato around Europe to raise awareness about the US attempt to force-feed genetically modified food to the world. The tomato traveled to 16 cities and engaged with local activists from Friends of the Earth groups all over Europe .
• In the summer of 2004, Friends of the Earth Europe's 10-metre high “Carbon Dinosaur” visited more than 50 cities in Europe , naming and shaming politicians and corporations blocking action to fight climate change.
• For Mother Earth, the new Friends of the Earth member group in Flanders , Belgium , held alternative elections before the official US polls on November 2nd as part of their international Boycott Bush campaign (www.boycottbush.org). The campaign is running a boycott of six multinational corporations – Exxon-Mobil, Texaco, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Altria (Philip Morris and Kraft) and McDonalds – which are important Bush donors.
• The Friends of the Earth International publication “Genetically Modified Crops: A Decade of Failure”was downloaded 4,391 times throughout 2004.
• Friends of the Earth International enjoyed a baby boom in 2004, with at least 10 babies born to campaigners in groups around the world.