Less than 400 critically endangered Sumatran tigers remain in the wild. No more habitat deforestation for palm oil & paper!

What do the environmental and animal rights movements have in common? More than you might think, including a profound love of certain vegan products that mark an intersection of our work to create a more just and sustainable future for all of Earth’s inhabitants.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of participating in a keynote panel at the close of the 2011 National Animal Rights Conference in Los Angeles. Every seat in the large ballroom was taken by a dedicated animal rights activist, even though it was late on a Sunday evening. Prior to the presentation, as I walked past tables and booths and chatted with people, I was inspired by the many folks I met who have dedicated so much of their time and energy to their values and beliefs.

I had been asked to speak on a panel about bridges between the animal rights and environmental movements. Also on the panel were Taryn Kiekow, a lawyer with Natural Resources Defense Council, and Dr. Rose Marie White, Southern California Endangered Species chair of the Sierra Club. Taryn spoke about NRDC’s work to protect whales, and Rose Marie talked about how struggles to protect land are also struggles to protect the incredible species of wildlife that reside there.

George Shea, who hosted the keynote panel, spoke in his introductory comments about the paramount issue of climate change, and it’s connection to species extinction risks, thus situating climate change as a primary issue of animal rights.

In my presentation, I echoed George’s concerns of climate change’s risk of driving extinction, and of the right of animals to exist. I focused my analysis through the lens of deforestation. Indonesia’s rainforests are home to incredible, majestic, and endangered creatures such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger. Currently, Indonesia’s rapid pace of deforestation has made the country the world’s 3rd largest greenhouse gas emitter behind the US and China. That’s right: Not only does rainforest destruction directly threaten the habitat of wildlife, it also releases more greenhouse gases than all of the cars, trains, planes, and trucks in the U.S. combined! Exacerbating climate change will only further endanger all of us, including our animal relatives.

Animal rights , environmental, social justice and climate justice activism all have significant reasons to confront the drivers of deforestation in Indonesia. This issue is a major intersection in our movements.

It was incredible to name those drivers of deforestation in my presentation: pulp and paper and palm oil plantation expansion. Many people in the room already know about Cargill, the largest privately owned corporation in the world, and the #1 importer of palm oil in the United States. Cargill has long been on the animal rights sh*t-list because of their inhumane profit model in the cattle industry. Now animal rights activists have another reason to work to stop Cargill from practicing business as usual: The company has no commitments to change its palm oil supply chain in time to save Sumatran tigers and orangutans.

You can take action by signing our petition to Cargill right now. Then, call Cargill and tell CEO Gregory Page exactly what you think about their palm oil problem: 1-800-CARGILL (1-800-227-4455).

Earth Balance vegan buttery spread contains palm oil sourced from RSPO-members. Not enough.

What came as a surprise to some and an ironic twist to others is the fact that palm oil is in some of our most beloved vegan products, including Earth Balance vegan buttery spread. OH THE SALTY TEARS! While Earth Balance knows its consumers enough to have a palm oil statement on its homepage, the company is still standing behind sourcing from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) members. Membership is not certification. My mom could join the RSPO for $3,000. Just kidding. Kind of. But seriously, read RAN Agribusiness Campaigner Ashley Schaeffer’s blog about the RSPO Membership Myth. Earth Balance needs to only source RSPO-certified palm oil, RSPO-member-supplied is NOT enough for the expectations of a vegan consumer base.

Vegans and animal rights activists have made inspiring, courageous choices to live by their values. Palm oil ending up in vegan products that are causing orangutan extinction is a time bomb in consumer advocacy that vegan product suppliers would be wise to address rather than avoid. And we know animal rights advocates are not going to settle for anything other than real solutions.

After the talk, I was inspired by how many people were so excited to get involved, to take action, and to learn more. By strategically aligning our movements where our issues overlap, we can make significant strides in protecting rainforests, the creatures that depend on this habitat, and keeping our climate stable. In this way, we are bridging our movements around focused strategy and solutions, and this is an issue we will WIN!

The report, titled Corruption, Land Conflict and Forest Destruction was released with the launch of RAN’s campaign to get the Walt Disney Company to stop using paper connected to rainforest destruction.

APP has a long history of corruption, political manipulation and aggressive expansion into new forests and new markets. The UK Guardian’s George Monbiot said the corporation may be “one of the most destructive companies on the planet.”

True to form, APP responded aggressively to the release of RAN’s case study detailing impacts on local communities and forests caused by APP’s deforestation. According to the Vancouver Sun on June 6, 2011, “APP responded to the RAN report by sending speedboats and helicopters to the remote community in Sumatra to question villagers.”

RAN’s main concern is for the communities and community members who have raised their voices to bring attention to the egregious actions of APP. Any intimidation and harassment of community members is unacceptable. RAN will continue to monitor the safety and security of our allies as we pursue our campaign goals of challenging the destructive practices of APP.

APP paid to promote its claims on an international business wire, alleging the community leaders featured in RAN’s report had disavowed their previous statements. RAN stands by the evidence and conclusions presented in the case study and challenges APP to address the substantive claims the case presents. In fact, National Public Radio’s program Living on Earth did a feature episode on deforestation and climate change in late 2009 in which they visited the same area featured in RAN’s report. Their coverage echo’s the content and conclusions put forward in RAN’s case study.

RAN has long recognized APP as one of the world’s most dangerous rainforest destroyers and has campaigned successfully to get leading companies including the Gucci Group, Simon & Schuster, International Paper, Tiffany & Co., Levi’s, Penguin/Pearson, and over 20 others to sever ties to APP and controversial Indonesian fiber. Perhaps APP’s distortion of facts and focus on RAN is evidence that the global campaign to may be getting under the company’s skin.

By its intimidating response, APP is avoiding the important questions about its operations raised by the report that it doesn’t want to answer. Is APP still clearing tiger habitat and other valuable natural forests and peatlands? Is APP respecting the free, prior and informed consent of communities to choose if their traditional lands become company controlled plantations? Are the people and environment better off than before the company came in? What are APP’s expansion plans and where is the fiber and money coming from to fuel its expansion?

APP’s response to RAN illustrates the company’s newfound sophistication in corporate double speak and over-the-top greenwashing. The company has hired slick pr firm Cohn and Wolfe and launched a vigorous drive to clean up its image through flowery words and visionary statements that would be comical if they did not conceal such a dark truth beneath.

For a preview of what we can expect to see more of as the global campaign to unmask APP continues to grow in scope and strength, visit the company’s new website, Rainforest Realities, perhaps the pinnacle of the companies Orwellian tactics to date. With categories like ‘biodiversity’ ‘carbon storage’ and my favorite, ‘people, planet, profit,’ we can see that APP is learning the language of sustainability. We can only hope they will soon be motivated enough to actually practice it.

Unfortunately, like any classic Disney tale, there is a darker side to this story, one that Disney does not want you to hear. Disney’s paper buying practices are driving some of Earth’s most iconic animals towards extinction, and so far the company is doing nothing about it.

Disney is the largest publisher of children’s books in the world, producing over 50 million books and 30 million magazines a year in the US alone. Last year, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) hired an independent lab to conduct tests on the fiber found in children’s books published by the top ten US publishers. Nine of the ten tested positive for fiber linked to Indonesian rainforest destruction, Disney included. See Turning the Page on Rainforest Destruction: Children’s Books and the future of Indonesia’s rainforests.

RAN approached each of the companies before releasing the incriminating data to allow each a chance to address this serious problem. In the year that followed, RAN worked closely with these companies and eight of the original ten have now established commitments not to source their paper from controversial Indonesian fiber. Seven of the ten have agreed to specifically avoid purchasing from the notoriously destructive logging and paper companies APP (Asia Pulp and Paper) and APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Limited) altogether.

Sadly, Disney has lagged behind its peers and to date has offered only empty words that do nothing to ensure the company is not still purchasing paper driving rainforest destruction.

Indonesia is a real life Magic Kingdom, home to some of the most biologically and culturally diverse forest ecosystems on Earth. With only 1% of the planet’s land area, Indonesia’s rainforests are home to 16% of all bird species, 11% of all plants and 10% of all mammals. This wealth of life includes endangered tigers, orangutans and elephants, the real life characters featured in Disney’s Jungle Book.

Reckless logging, largely driven by demand for cheap paper products and palm oil, has threatened all of this by causing one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. The carbon emissions from this large scale deforestation has made Indonesia the world’s 3rd largest greenhouse gas polluting country, behind only the US and China.

Indonesia’s forest products industry is internationally renowned for its corruption and high rates of illegal logging, as well as for its devastating impacts on biodiversity, forest communities and the climate. The vast majority of Indonesia’s pulp and paper — approximately 80% — is controlled by two large and controversial suppliers: APP and APRIL. Over the past decade both have become infamous for their widespread, rapacious demolition of Indonesia’s rainforests and communities.

It’s time for Disney to realize that rainforest destruction is no fairy tale. Rainforest Action Network is putting Disney on notice, and we hope you will join us to get the company to align its practices with the values it espouses and embeds in the stories it tells. Bulldozers and chainsaws have no place in the habitat of endangered species or in the production of storybooks for children. It’s time for Disney to stop doing business with nefarious bad actors like APP and APRIL and to adopt a comprehensive policy that can guarantee parents that reading bedtime stories to their kids will not make them unwitting participants in tiger and orangutan extinction.

Because in the end, it was Disney who helped many of us learn for the first time, it’s a small world, after all.

Leave it to the folks at Rainforest Action Network to make anything fun. As an intern with RAN, my job is basically to do whatever task I’m presented, so when Hillary Lehr asked the interns, Lindsay, Lola, and I, to do our own Roar at the Store at the local Barnes & Noble, I thought, “Yeah, I can hand out a few pocket guides and help spread the word.”  When she mentioned someone wearing our full Tiki the Tiger costume, however, I became way more excited about the idea of our own roar and volunteered right away.

Really, who wouldn’t want to spend two hours dancing in a tiger suit, especially for such a good cause! I got some funny looks on the bus as we made our way to the store, but as soon as we took our positions outside and began handing out the awesome Rainforest Safe pocket guides, we got a much better reception and the fun began!  Although we hadn’t brought an awesome boombox or radio, I was blessed with the ability to entertain myself easily and was able to dance to the beat in my head.  Thanks to my super sweet moves, the pocket guides were going like hot cakes!

People would slow down or stop by to read my sign or take a picture with me, and it gave Lindsey and Lola a chance to explain what we were about and how children’s books can play a part in destroying the rainforest.

What I learned from my day as Tiki the Tiger is that participating in actions can be fun! I was nervous about going out on the street and “bothering” people, but when you’re having fun with it, others have fun with it, too! That great day turned out to be one of my favorite days with RAN.

The notorious Alan Oxley.

Some people will say anything for money.

Sometimes, this comes back to bite you, especially when you get called out. By famous scientists, no less.

Take for example the great call-out of Alan Oxley, the corporate equivalent of Lindsay Lohan’s publicist. His job is to make the reckless and incredibly destructive actions of exploitative corporations like APP and Sinar Mas look like gestures of Mother Theresa, existing to charitably benefit the world’s poor through no-holds-barred development. And boy, does his job pay well.

Alan Oxley is finally discovering that if you lie, people don’t believe you. Especially scientists, who base collaborative conclusions on objective evidence. In the past several months Oxley has asserted that environmental organizations are hurting the world’s poor through stymieing development by asserting such preposterous demands as advocating for palm oil customers to develop policies that include FPIC standards (Free Prior, and Informed Consent from affected communities) and commitments to uphold moratoriums on clearing of rainforest to make way for monoculture palm oil plantations that enforce slave-labor-like conditions. We even went as far as to demand that corporations like Sinar Mas stop illegally clearing forests. The nerve!

While Oxley masquerades his claims with nice letterhead from the World Growth Institute, the real paper to pay attention to is his pay stub. It seems that the villainous corporations Oxley defends are the very ones bankrolling his claim. When asked directly about this, Oxley declines to comment. Hmmm.

However, don’t just read my opinionated, snarky gloating over Oxley getting called out. Read “An Open Letter About Scientific Credibility and the Conservation of Tropical Forests” and decide for yourself who you want to believe: a conservative think-tank industrial lobbyist or an impressive collection of Nobel-level scientists from around the world.

Indonesian Rainforest, Sumatra. Photo courtesy of RAN

How will YOU celebrate rainforests from October 17-24? Please add your ideas, activities, and commitments as a comment to this blog to keep our thoughts and actions fresh with new ways to think global and act local.

Here are some ideas from our staff, friends, and activist like YOU about how they will be honoring and sharing the beauty and importance of our world’s precious rainforests all week (and beyond!)

1 Be A Rainforest Hero

Visit RainforestHeroes.com with the kids and youth in your life to learn about rainforests and their awesome inhabitants. Sign up for yourself or your class to be Rainforest Heroes today!

Rainforest Heroes

2 Watch Green

Watch the films GREEN and Orang-Rimba: Happiness Lies in the Forest with your friends or family. GREEN is a powerful, beautiful film that documents orangutan habitat loss in Indonesia through the eyes of one of its victims. The second film documents the impacts of deforestation on Indigenous Peoples, such as the nomadic Orang Rimba who live in the Jambi and Riau provinces of Sumatra. Then, write a letter to one of the companies destroying Indonesia’s rainforests telling them to change their practices.

3 Breathe

Take a deep breath. Know that rainforests produce 20% of the oxygen we breath. Say thanks!

4 Meet Tiki

• Become friends with Tiki the Tiger on Facebook
• Follow Tiki on Twitter
• Sign Tiki the Tiny Tiger’s petition
• Visit TikiTheTiger.com to learn about the cutest, tiniest Sumatran Tiger in the whole wide world- and how YOU can help save his rainforest home.

5 Eat Rainforest Food

Incorporate sustainably-harvested rainforest foods into a meal and savor a taste of what incredible (and delicious) plants have evolved in such biodiverse tropical areas!

6 Love Indonesia’s Rainforests

Join our We Love Indonesia’s Rainforests Facebook fan page

Zapara Elder, Ecuador. Photo courtesty of RAN.

7 Protect An Acre

Donate to RAN’s Protect-an-Acre fund. PAA is a small grants program which contributes directly to forest communities struggling to protect their rainforest homelands and the natural-resource base on which these communities rely. Learn about the Zapara People of the Ecuadorian Amazon, our featured PAA grant.

8 Sleuth at the Store

Sleuth out Rainforest-Safe Books at your local bookstore with our free, easy-to-download Sleuth toolkit.

9 Get There Without Chevron

Skip the gas station (especially Chevron), ride your bike, walk or take the bus.  Learn about what Chevron has dumped in the Amazon and tell Chevron to take responsibility and  CLEAN UP ECUADOR.

10 Be Brilliant

We want to hear your ideas for how to celebrate World Rainforest Week. Please comment below and let us know how you intend to especially celebrate rainforests this week!

RAN Interns Sleuthing Around... Shhh!

Fellow detectives and friends, it’s not every day you get to bust out your magnifying glass and scope out your local bookstore, but next week that is what over a thousand sleuths around the world will be doing.

What are these sleuths snooping out exactly?

Rainforest-safe books!

In honor of World Rainforest Week, over a thousand sleuths will be heading to bookstores around the country to research the recycled, post-consumer recycled and FSC-certified paper content of some of the most popular titles on bookstore shelves.

Can You Spot Tiki?

When rainforest-safe books (or books of paper made of destroyed rainforests) are detected, these sleuths will be uploading their findings into a rainforest-safe database.

You -and booklovers everywhere- will able to use this database as a consumer guide so that you can choose books that are rainforest-safe.

Now that’s something worth scoping out.

Want to sign up to be one of over a thousand of sleuths around the world? You can download a PDF packet and starting sleuthing today!

Can you hear me??

Well, I hope you can hear me.

Hi Everybody! My name is Tiki. My friends call me Tiki the Tiny Tiger because I’m the smallest tiger cub in the whole wide world!

Will you be my friend?

They call me Tiki the Tiny Tiger because there are only five species of tigers left in the world, and Sumatran Tiger cubs are the smallest out of all of them. That’s right: since I’m a lil’ Sumatran tiger cub, that makes me the smallest, cutest tiger in the whole wide world. Now, I’m the new spokestiger for the Rainforest-Free Paper campaign with all my new friends at Rainforest Action Network. Gosh, those sure are some nice, smart people over at RAN! They said if I type this blog that I could meet more people that will want to help save my rainforest home.

There is something else tiny about Sumatran Tigers: our numbers. This makes me soooo sad but there are only 500 Sumatran Tigers left in the rainforest! Every day these big, loud, scary machines come and chop down our rainforest trees. Then we have less space to live in and find food, so my tiger species is great danger of going extinct… nooooooooo!

I just don’t know why those machines are cutting down the trees- me and my friends live here! I heard that people are taking some of these trees and turning them into paper for books. Now even though tiny tigers don’t read a whole lot, we still love books. We shouldn’t have to choose between books and rainforests… that’s silly!

My friends at Rainforest Action Network said they will start talking to ‘publishers’, the people who make books- and give them a chance to change their bad, rainforest-destroying habits. If they don’t, we have to get together and RAWR for the rainforests. Sometimes, some grow-ups don’t hear me roaring at all. But I met a lot of cool kids who can hear me, and they roar really load. At RAN, I even met some RAWRING grown-ups! Will you RAWR with me too?

Visit www.TikiTheTiger.com and you can be my friend on Facebook and Twitter. This whole world wide spider, i mean, world wide web makes it really easy to stay in touch with the whole wide world. And right now, that’s a great thing because I need the whole wide world to RAWR for rainforests with me!

Thank you for being my friend. Let’s save my rainforest home!

Love, Tiki

Responding to the movements against Sinar Mas, Cargill also made an announcement on Sinar Mas last week; unfortunately Cargill chose to delay action and pass the burden of responsibility to the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil rather than live up to their own corporate responsibility statements and act immediately to remove Sinar Mas’ dirty and dangerous palm oil from their supply chain.

Kraft, Unilever, and Sainsbury’s have also ended their direct palm oil contracts with Sinar Mas yet Cargill continues to stand behind their longstanding relationship with Sinar Mas. As palm oil production destroys forests, endangers forest peoples, and threatens the global climate, Cargill has met calls from Rainforest Action Network to end their support of Sinar Mas with stonewalling, inaction, and silence. The company has refused to disclose the size of their palm oil contract with the Indonesian multinational, all the while maintaining that they are committed to transparency and sustainability.

The evidence out against Sinar Mas is known, but perhaps the palm oil Cargill buys from Sinar Mas and resells in Europe and the US is just too profitable, or Cargill does not truly care about Indonesia’s forests, or they are not concerned about the underlying sustainability of the palm oil industry. Whatever the reason, Cargill’s lack of action is unacceptable and violates their own commitments to sustainable production and environmental stewardship.

Sinar Mas has the world's largest landbank for palm oil production - much of it threatened rainforests

Kraft, Nestle, and Unilever are all Cargill customers, and until Cargill removes Sinar Mas palm oil from their supply chain, these companies will not be able to live up to their very public commitments to disassociate with Sinar Mas. Under significant pressure from this powerful group of companies, Cargill last week finally made an announcement regarding Sinar Mas:

“If the RSPO validates the allegations of improper land conversion or illegal planting in deep peat land as alleged in the Greenpeace report and Sinar Mas does not take corrective action, we will delist them.”

This public statement was long overdue, but falls far short of the actions of Cargill’s customers and peers. Rather than cancel with a dirty and dangerous supplier, Cargill has passed the burden of responsibility to a powerless, controversial, and politically compromised Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – an initiative of palm oil producers, traders, buyers, and NGOs.

Unlike other companies that took unilateral action, Cargill is hoping to hide behind the decisions of the RSPO, who have up to this point been unable to hold their members accountable for unsustainable and destructive production practices.  And then the clause ‘Corrective Action’ – Sinar Mas has been destroying rainforests for at least 20 years, and their wood pulp arm, Asia Pulp and Paper, is such an egregious rainforest destroyer that almost all the major US outlets of paper and cardboard have canceled their contracts with Sinar Mas (Office Depot, Unisource, Target, etc). Unilever conducted an expensive audit of Sinar Mas’ impacts, a publicly available document of Sinar Mas’ destruction, and NGOs have released countless reports documenting Sinar Mas’ actions on the ground.

Are we to believe, as Cargill tells us, that the allegations against Sinar Mas are still unproven and that Sinar Mas can take corrective action to gain back Cargill’s and their customers’ trust?

The time is now for Cargill to face up to their responsibility as a major palm oil producer, trader, and supplier and eliminate Sinar Mas palm oil from their supply chain and chain of custody. Today. Without statements passing on responsibility to powerless trade groups, and without any if’s, but’s, or when’s.

Today, on the way to a meeting with the local NGO Elang, I passed villagers from the Kampar Peninsula, a carbon-rich and biodiverse ecoystem that is under attack by Sinar Mas’ oil palm operations and their timber division Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), on a hunger strike.

In front of the provincial parliament building, a group of men and women from the village of Kijang Kejo have set up a plastic tarp and banner, announcing to Riau’s elected officials that they will not eat until the oil palm plantation PT Arindo Tri Sejahtera, who stole their land and then paid thugs to kill three of their family members, is brought to justice.

10 days into their hunger strike, the villagers are pale and weak, sleeping while motor bikes and buses fly by them on the road. They told me they have not been able to meet with any members of the provincial government, and were not sure how much longer they could last without food.

The group that owns this particular plantation, Surya Dumai, might be on the nastier end of the scale of dirty, dangerous, and destructive oil palm and timber companies, but this is how the resource extraction game is played here in Riau, Sumatra; buy the military, government, and media and trample any local people that dare to stand up for their rights.

APP and Sinar Mas have been shown to violate Indonesian law and human rights, but with the authorities in their pocket, it is us, the consumers of timber and palm oil, that must demand  producers respect forests and the people who inhabit them.

David Gilbert is a Research Fellow at RAN. He has worked in the tropical forests of the Amazon and Indonesia, with a special focus on forest conservation and indigenous rights. He can be reached at davidgilbert@ran.org

This past week, RAN Senior Campaigner Bill Barclay and I were in Tokyo, Japan, to help our Japanese staff host three forums focused upon the serious problems with old growth logging in Tasmania. Japanese paper companies purchase over 80 percent of the woodchips produced by Gunns Limited, the Australian timber company that is rapidly clearing Tasmania’s ancient forests; in fact, just three companies—Nippon Paper, Oji Paper and Chu-estu Pulp—comprise 70 percent of Gunns’ woodchip market. The goal of the forums was to provide Japanese companies, NGOs, citizens and the media with greater information on the tragedy that is occurring in Tasmania and to discuss potential solutions. In other words, why it might be a bad idea to source timber from a company that clear-cuts old growth forests, napalms the cleared land, kills hundreds of thousands of native wildlife, and attacks anyone who opposes it, as well as how to avoid such practices and still have adequate supplies of woodchips. RAN staff were lucky enough to be joined by several experts from Tasmania, including an ecological scientist, NGO leaders, and Peg Putt, Leader of the Tasmanian Green Party.

By most accounts, it was a very successful week: the Japanese activists were really enthusiastic; the response from the companies was fairly good; and I was encouraged by how much media interest in our campaign has grown. We had a full house for our public forum and were able to make important connections with NGOs interested in working to save Tasmania’s forests and endangered animals. Many of the Japanese companies that buy products from Nippon, Oji or Chu-estu finally seemed to understand just how egregious Gunns’ practices are and that a solution needs to be found.

That solution is simple: all Nippon, Oji and Chu-estu need to do is request that Gunns does not include any old growth or high conservation value forests in their supply, and these forests will take a huge step towards being saved. Gunns can’t sell them elsewhere because no one else will buy them – not even other bad logging companies like APP in Malaysia. There are detailed maps of critical forest areas readily available, and adequate supplies of woodchips from other sources, such as plantations, ready to go.

Unfortunately, Nippon, Oji and Chu-estu were noticeably absent from the company forum. RAN had arranged to meet with Nippon and Oji last week, but they pulled out at the last minute. Why? Because forestry officials from the Australian government wouldn’t attend. Why? Because they hadn’t printed their latest information booklet. Give me a break! These paper companies just want to continue making as much profit as possible by buying woodchips from old growth forests that no other company will.

The good news is that now that their customers and the Japanese public have learned the truth about what is going on in Tasmania, questions are starting to be asked and momentum towards change is building. Companies are improving their purchasing policies, asking not to have old growth woodchips from Gunns included in their supply, and pressuring their suppliers to improve their own practices. Japanese activists are talking about Tasmania, informing their networks, and asking companies to make progress. Having grown up around activists in Okinawa, Japan, it was awesome to see the strong interest and enthusiasm that our trip generated in Japan’s greatest city. My hope for the future protection of Tasmania’s ancient forests is improving every day (as is my recovery from jet-lag).