2016 is already looking like it will top 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history.  

Despite it being absolutely essential that we leave most of the world’s fossil fuels in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change - John Key’s Government is still hell-bent on drilling for more oil.

That’s why on Monday, we will be at the oil industry conference at SkyCity in Auckland. Through non-violent peaceful civil disobedience inspired by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we will send the strongest message we can that New Zealand must join the global fight to quit oil and meet the greatest challenge of our time - climate change.

Now is the time for people to stand up. 

In this video posted today, climate movement leader Bill McKibben calls for New Zealanders to take action at the Oil Confer...

One morning in early 2009, Pak Manan a resident of Sungai Tohor, a coastal village on one of Indonesia’s islands in Riau, Sumatra, took his regular walk to community land about four kilometres away from the village. When he arrived he was in for a shock. The fertile landscape was ravaged: trees uprooted, gaping holes gouged in the earth, trenches and access roads carved through the peat. This was no act of mindless vandalism – the excavators and the scale of the clearance made it plain that this was a vast industrial operation. 

Pak Manan with his family at his home in Sungai Tohor.

For the Sungai Tohor community, whose economy relied on this peatland for sago cultivation, this was their land and livelihood that was destroyed. But as  they learned, the land had been granted to a pulpwood ... Read more >

It’s a purr-fect relationship - the one between a human and their cat.

As a cat owner, I’ve experienced the ups for the same feline companion for last 13 years, as well as the gut-wrenching, I-just-spent-my-whole-paycheck-at-the-vet-on-you downs.

We treat them, pamper them, worship them just so that, maybe, we get the cat-lovings we so desire at the end of the day - when in reality, the day ends with a blank stare that screams ‘I hate you’ with their claws cemented into the side of the couch.

Along with the nagging cat-guilt we owners suffer when it comes to their impact on native birds - yes, the relationship can be stretched. Placing all that aside, we love them, and we make ethical, sustainable choices for them. Which is why I would never feed my cat bad tuna. And I’m not alone.
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President Obama's first hang-out with the new Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau started off with a pretty chill subject: the Arctic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada (left) and President Barack Obama of the U.S. (right) wasted no time making big moves for the climate in their first meeting of 2016. Photo by Pete Souza / Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

In a “Joint Statement on Climate, Energy, and Arctic Leadership” issued today, President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined together to call for historic actions to prevent the worst impacts of climate change and specifically protect the Arctic from fossil fuel exploitation.

The biggest new development from this agreement is that “commercial activities” in the Arctic — explicitly including oil and ga... Read more >

Last month I joined the magnificent crew of the Rainbow Warrior, a team of experts, and Greenpeace colleagues from around the world. For two days we sailed along Fukushima’s beautiful, rugged coast working under rough conditions as the ship swayed along one-meter swells, and doing our best not to succumb to seasickness.

For 14 years I’ve been with the environmental organisation and throughout my career have experienced the stereotypical life of a “Greenpeace-er” – I’ve been arrested for revealing rorts in the whale meat market, helped stop toxic plastics in infant toys, worked to stop ocean dumping of industrial waste, and of course have had many unique opportunities on the Rainbow Warrior. Now, as I prepare to leave my position as Executive Director of Greenpeace Japan, I realise that t...

Is your cat eating bad tuna?

It’s #NotJustTuna as we know it – as sandwich filling or sushi - it’s also what our pets are eating.

Haunted by stories of human rights abuse, worker exploitation and destructive fishing, tuna giant Thai Union ships hundreds of thousands of cans of cat food to Mars each year containing tuna and other seafood.  

Although more famous for peddling Mars bars, Mars is also the largest pet food company on the planet. It owns many of the pet food brands you’ll see in the supermarket or at your vet, including Whiskas, Iams and Dine. And they all use tuna and other seafood sourced from Thailand.

Many of the tuna products are top shelf gourmet cat food, with names like ‘Tuna Fillets and Whole Prawns in a Seafood Sauce’ and ‘Tender Tuna’’, and they’re marketed with i... Read more >

As women we hear and tell many stories. We carry these stories with us – ones that happened to us, to our mothers, sisters, friends.

My mother-in-law told me a story. She grew up in a small village in southeast Turkey. None of her older sisters went to school. When she completed primary school, she was expected to stay at home and help her mother, but she wanted to continue her education. Every day, she asked her father to register her. To distract her, he asked her instead to clear rocks from his fields. His plan didn’t work – she cleared every rock, and then kept asking. She went on to complete her education and become a teacher.

My grandfather told me a story. He met my late grandmother working in a melon field. He was 17 years old – a new immigrant from Morocco. She was 16 – a new imm...