POWER OF THE GREEN PEN

Earth provides enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed - Mahatma Gandhi

If you would like to support the campaign to encourage essential oil and herb suppliers to stop selling products from unsustainable wild sources, the single most effective action you can take is to send a brief and courteous letter or email alerting the supplier to conservation issues. You might also include this web address with reference to my article, ‘Spotlight on the Trade in Wild Plants’.

Most suppliers of eco products have noble intentions, so in instances where they do happen to be trading in botanicals from fragile wild sources, almost certainly it’s because they are unaware of the facts. Once enlightened, reputable suppliers will remove all such products from their shelves and explain to their customers exactly why they have done so.

If you are not quite sure how to word your communication, below is a sample letter featuring the essential oils of sandalwood and rosewood, extracted mainly for the frivolous and lucrative purposes of scent, cosmetics, and ecologically unaware forms of aromatherapy. Common sense tells us that to uproot slow-growing wild trees cannot possibly be regarded as 'sustainable' and is an abuse of the term. Indeed, sustainable practice is that which can carry on indefinitely without ever creating an imbalance. Where other at-risk herbs and aromatics are listed in the supplier's catalogue, including the lavishly government subsidised Western Australian sandalwood, of course you will need to adapt your communication accordingly.



Dear

I would like to order some products from your company.

However, I’m concerned that you are selling the essential oils of sandalwood (Santalum album) and rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora). As a reputable supplier, clearly you must be unaware of the serious ecological imbalances associated with the unsustainable production of these aromatics. Both oils are distilled from the heartwood of threatened wild forest trees. Indeed, the trees are listed in the IUCN Red Book of endangered species. So the use of these aromatics runs counter to the ethics of holistic botanical medicine and aromatherapy, which encompass a caring attitude to the planet that sustains life.

I’d be grateful, therefore, if you would kindly read the in-depth and thoroughly researched report on the issue of uncontrolled wild harvesting of medicinal and aromatic plants to be found on the following website. The same article has been published in various forms in a number of journals, including the Natural Medicines Society newsletter.

Here's the web page URL:


I hope you will take this matter seriously and consider phasing out these products in due course.


Yours etc.


ON THE SUBJECT OF CHILD LABOUR WITHIN THE INCENSE INDUSTRY

Below is a copy of an email sent to Sylvia Baker of the Aromatherapy Trade Council (ATC) on the subject of sandalwood and child labour in Asian incense factories.

A copy was also sent to Sue Minter of the Eden Project. Within a few days she came to her senses and agreed to stop recommending the use of sandalwood oil in the Eden Project's range of bodycare products. See GOOD NEWS FOR THE GREEN PEN CAMPAIGN and TEMPTATION IN EDEN, accessed via the navigation bar on the left of the screen.

You might wish to send a similarly powerful letter or email to a company selling sandalwood products.


Dear Sylvia Baker,

Perhaps you will kindly forward this note to all ATC members who are still selling sandalwood oil from India, Australia or any other part of the world.

If you can't be persuaded by the overwhelming ecological reasons for not selling sandalwood, then please find it in your hearts to consider the plight of young children (mainly girls) who are forced to work in Asian incense factories rolling joss sticks for over 12 hours a day.

In case you are wondering what this has to do with the essential oil of sandalwood, well the de-oiled material remaining after distillation (including Australian sandalwood) is sold to incense factories in India where it's used as a base for making joss sticks and cones. So by continuing to trade in sandalwood oil, you are supporting child servitude.

Child labour is common in many incense factories, and covertly in the form of piece work for impoverished home workers. Far from putting food on plates - as many sellers of sandalwood oil proclaim - the sandalwood trade, together with a number of other trades in Asia, are exploiting the most vulnerable people on Earth and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

If the ATC is to continue supporting the sandalwood trade, then please don't do it in the name of aromatherapy. A change of name for your organisation would be much appreciated - a name devoid of healing or therapeutic connotation.

Sincerely,

Chrissie Wildwood

CONTACT THE ORGANIC INSPECTION BODIES

If you have read my 'Spotlight' article and/or the brief news reports on Ecocert and the Soil Association (see the Fool's Parsley Prize page), then you might wish to contact these EU approved organic inspection bodies, requesting that they kindly take the necessary steps to de-certify the following essential oils.


ROSEWOOD (Aniba rosaeodora), an endangered IUCN Red Book listed tree from the Brazilian rainforest. The essential oil is distilled from the heartwood and roots and certified as 'organic' by ECOCERT. The SOIL ASSOCIATION had intended to re-certify this oil from ECOCERT, though thankfully we succeeded in coaxing the organisation to its senses.

SANDALWOOD (Santalum austrocaledonica) from the South Pacific. Oft-touted as a sustainable alternative to the over-exploited and rapidly disappearing East Indian sandalwood (Santalum album), but ignoring the fact that wild trees of at least 50 years old are felled for essential oil production. Although new plantations are being attempted, it will take at least half a century for the trees to produce enough oil for commercial purposes - if indeed, the species is able to thrive in the experimental plantations. This fact is glossed over in the marketing material of producers, so most people are under the false impression that the plantations are already productive. In fact, the producers are unable to wait for the new plantations to mature, so these slow growing trees will continue to be felled from natural stands for decades to come. The essential oil is certified as organic by ECOCERT.

ATLAS CEDAR (Cedrus atlantica), from endangered forest remnants in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. Suppliers often cite ‘France’ as the product's country of origin. In fact, the oil is distilled in France but from cedar wood cuts imported from Morocco, and certified as organic by ECOCERT and the SOIL ASSOCIATION.


CONTACT DETAILS

ECOCERT’S organic certification operation is expanding rapidly, now representing France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Japan and the USA. If you intend to write in English, it’s best to contact Ecocert International which is based in Germany.

Ecocert SA,
c/o Ecocert International,
Gueterbahnhofsr, 10,
37154 Northeim,
Germany

Tel: +49 (5551) 90843-0
Email: info@ecocert.de


To approach the SOIL ASSOCIATION, contact:

Francis Blake,
Standards and Technical Director,
The Soil Association,
Bristol House,
40-56 Victoria Street,
Bristol,
BS1 6B4

Tel: +44 (0)117 929 0661
Email: fblake@soilassociation.org


It would also be worth asking Francis Blake and/or Ecocert to send you a list of all the wild harvested herbs and essential oils their respective organisations certify. This will enable you to check whether any other endangered botanicals have slipped through the net. I've requested such information from the Soil Association on several occasions, but thus far my requests have been ignored.

Click here to email the Soil Association

Click here to email Ecocert International

A Word to Well-Meaning Critics

In reply to those who have expressed alarm at the campaign’s criticisms of the Soil Association, we have no interest in undermining the past good works of the organisation in championing the organic cause, and for their continued resistance to GM. In these areas we support the Soil Association wholeheartedly.

Nonetheless, we will continue in our efforts to bring to public awareness the unpalatable truth that the Soil Association is selling out to big business. Not only through its unworkable Wildcrafting Standards policy, but also in its pandering to the demands of supermarket chains at the expense of small organic growers competing against cheap imports of organic produce, transported between countries using vast amounts of fossil fuel.

No one with a genuine desire to support sustainable agriculture and eco-ethics should feel obliged to remain silent when one of their own goes astray. Indeed, some people within the Green movement are saying we must focus only on the good works of the Soil Association, lest all that such organisations represent is brought into disrepute.

We say it's infinitely better to remove the rose-tinted specs and keep a crystal clear focus. If not, we risk losing authentically ethical alternatives to exploitation of the world's poorest people and unbridled plundering of Earth's finite bounty.

It's imperative, therefore, that the Soil Association, Ecocert, and other such wanderers, are brought back into the fold through the sanity of some straight talking!

Words of Wisdom

When dealing with people who seek to undermine those who speak out against unsustainable practises masquerading as 'green', or who ridicule proponents of eco-ethics as 'over emotional', 'unbalanced', or as 'self-righteous cranks', let's gain strength from the wisdom of Fritz Schumacher, one of the founders of the deep ecology movement. Schumacher was happy to embrace the label 'crank', since this is a small, simple and efficient tool that makes revolutions!

Schumacher was also a past president of the Soil Association. We might wonder how he would view the organisation today.

Click here to read about UK Green Party support for this campaign