Hello from Durban, home of COP17, and for the past 10 days home of the Greenpeace forest team.
Sometimes serendipity just waltzes right up to you. And that is what has just happened. Earlier this year a Greenpeace investigation revealed the shortcomings of the management consultancy McKinsey & Company's work on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation or REDD schemes (REDD = developed countries pay developing nations to protect their forests).
Our report demonstrated how McKinsey's policy advice, if followed, would not only lead to more rather than less deforestation but would actually reward those companies that are the main drivers of deforestation while at the same time punishing small-scale subsistence farmers.
So when planning what we would do in Durban and the briefings and reports that we would need to produce we decided to summarise our report in the form of a one page comic. At the time we had no idea how, when or where we would distribute it, but then, out of the blue, we find out that McKinsey are in Durban. Serendipity, yaay!
So yesterday, Tuesday 6th December, some of the team headed off to distribute our humorous look at the "firm". First stop was the convention centre where the climate negotiations are happening where the comic was passed out to journalists.
Next was Durban's beautiful Botanical Gardens where McKinsey were speaking at a side event. Unfortunately, exception was taken by the organisers to our look at McKinsey's secret plans. And in no time at all we were requested to leave (nicely I must say).
In finishing I have a short message for anyone from McKinsey who might be reading this: "Greenpeace is not going away. Your advice to governments is a bad influence on REDD. Bit by bit you are being unmasked. And it's not a pretty sight."