The world's oceans support countless forms of life. Unfortunately, oceans and the tens of millions of people who live near them are under threat from oil spills, air pollution, sewage releases, aquaculture and unnatural ocean noise, and around the world, resource extraction and deforestation are destroying forests and displacing the people who live in them.
Friends of the Earth has won regional, national and international limits on air, water and oil pollution from cruise ships, cargo ships, oil tankers, ferries and recreational water craft. We were instrumental in achieving the upcoming establishment of air pollution limits for ships near the coasts of the U.S. and Canada, which will prohibit them from using dirty bunker fuel.
Forest protection and conservation has long been at the heart of environmental movements. Forests are the greatest repositories of biological and cultural wealth on earth. But in the ongoing race for profit, forests are under ever increasing threat from logging, industrial agriculture and extractive industries.
Deforestation is an urgent problem that has wide repercussions, and climate change has rightly thrust the decades-long fight against deforestation back into the international spotlight. The loss of forests worldwide accounts for between 15 and 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and forests are critical to regulating the climate, both locally and globally. But forests are not merely the lungs of the earth -- they are also home to 350 million people, including at least 60 million indigenous peoples who have protected and defended forests since time immemorial.
We are working to address the root causes of forest destruction and the marginalization of forest-dwelling communities. We do this through our campaign on landgrabs, forests & finance, and our work to challenge forest carbon offsets. Friends of the Earth’s work on biofuels is closely tied in to these campaigns, but is housed under our Climate & Energy project.
We are advocating for laws and regulations to stop cruise ships from dumping waste into our oceans, polluting our beaches, contaminating our coral reefs, and destroying our valuable marine ecology.
We are working at the local, state, national and international level to strengthen port regulations to protect local communities and waters, to enact health-protective national and international shipping standards, and to achieve global warming reductions from ocean-going vessels in order to attain pollution reductions worldwide.
We are working to protect valuable marine sanctuaries from environmental harms including damaging water and air pollution from ocean going vessels.
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Tell Home Depot and Lowe’s to stop selling bee-killing pesticides.
