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Over recent years, politicians, in many parts of the world, have dismissed the type of youth activism best characterised by Greta Thunberg, because as children these protesters didn’t yet have a vote. Obviously, the politicians thought they still had sufficient sway over the parents, grandparents and older siblings of the School Strike For Climate generation to ensure that they would stick with the current neoliberal program. But what now that Greta has turned 18 and she can vote? Greta and her fellow campaigners can sign onto the electoral roll and so their views won’t be so easy for politicians to disregard. While some young adults in this age group will want to maintain [...]

Wildlife and timber crime is a failure of business, industry, markets and investors. They demonstrate no understanding of the tremendous impacts of the poorly regulated procurement of endangered species for the global legal trade. Over the last 30 years, talk about sustainability has increased, bringing with it a growing pile of glossy sustainability reports. But we are further from sustainability in extracting biomass from nature than ever before. After decades of legal trade in endangered and exotic species there appears little commercial understanding of sustainable offtake levels. Begging the question, is it time for a moratorium on this trade until businesses, industries and shareholders provide the necessary investments to properly monitor and clean up supply chains? While [...]

Mention the word slavery and for most of us it brings to mind images of ships full of people in chains, transported from Africa to be sold to plantation owners in the USA and the Caribbean. Sadly, too few lessons have been learnt from this horrendous disregard of human life and today modern slavery is all around us. The last decade has seen a growing focus on the tragedy of modern day slavery, with governments around the world either enacting legislation aimed at tackling this crisis or considering doing so. This is yet another example highlighting that after decades of voluntary governance schemes and fair-trade initiatives, too many industries aren’t monitoring their supply chains. It [...]

How many reports will be published, talking about the desperate need for more financial support to stop biodiversity loss, which never talk about how to create an ongoing, reliable funding stream? The problem of ineffective monitoring and regulation of the trade in endangered species has been known for decades. Knowing the problem hasn’t yet led to anything other than piecemeal investments and, as a result, unsustainable over-exploitation for trade remains a major contributor to the extinction crisis. This was highlighted again this month, with an addition to the growing number of papers being written about the legal trade in wildlife; in this recent paper the authors state, “A global understanding of carrying capacity and offtake levels is [...]

As we approach the 2021 Lunar New Year, on the 12th of February, it is a good time to reflect on this important holiday. The Lunar New Year celebration is the time to usher in prosperity, luck and good fortune for the year ahead. The holiday emphasises the importance of family and has been called the largest annual human migration on earth, as the many people who left regional areas for better job opportunities in cities, travel home to see families. For some parents, who had to leave children with their grandparents in home villages, to look for work, the Lunar New Year holiday may be the first time they will have seen their children in 12 months. [...]

Reflecting on a year, like no other in living memory, I felt drawn to Charles Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol, first published on the 19 December 1843. With the many versions, for both stage and screen, and the continued popularity of the book, why does this haunting tale still resonate with so many people? Dickens’ wrote the book to voice his concern about injustice and the treatment of the poor. The greed and neglect of the most vulnerable in society by the rich, as symbolised by Jacob Marley. The ghost of Marley, who in life was described as a 'good man of business’, appears as a warning to his partner [...]

In recent days Formula 1 unveiled its 2021 calendar, calling it the ‘biggest ever F1 season’ but there is a glaring omission in the schedule. Where is Viet Nam? Now, Vietnamese organisers have said their race, originally scheduled for April, may never take place. Why? Doubts about the Viet Nam event arose after Nguyen Duc Chung, the then Chairman of the City of Hanoi, and a major supporter of the F1 event, was arrested on corruption charges. F1 has only announced that the Hanoi race will be cancelled for the 2021 calendar. Formula 1 is a global spectacular, an elite event and brand that cannot afford its reputation to be tarnished. Given its global profile and media [...]

Helen Clark, who has been appointed to lead the investigation into the World Health Organization response to the coronavirus pandemic, said in a recent interview: “The brief we’ve been given is, what do we need to stop the world being blindsided again by a crisis like this?” While I for one am delighted with the choice of Helen Clark, given her reputation as a “fighter” and someone who will push the boundaries of the scope of the review if needed. But even she will only be able to push these boundaries so far. We must see clearly that the scope of this review is far too narrow because it is only investigating the role of the [...]