Nature Alert: Greenpeace and Yahoo! launch guerrilla campaign to save orang-utans, tigers and forests

Friday 20 March 2009

Greenpeace and Yahoo! launch guerrilla campaign to save orang-utans, tigers and forests

Greenpeace and Yahoo! launch guerrilla campaign
to save orang-utans, tigers and forests

Singapore, 19 March 2009 – They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Yet what if there were no more forests to photograph? No more amazing images of animals to be found. No tigers. No orangutans. No trees.

Greenpeace, Yahoo!, Bates 141, PhotoLibrary and Free Range Creative today launched an interactive guerrilla campaign to gather global support for the vanishing forests and endangered animals in Indonesia. And it’s unlike anything you have ever seen. In an innovative use of Yahoo’s photo search, banners and keys words promise to show you amazing photos of Indonesia's natural beauty: its incredible scenery and magnificent wildlife. Upon clicking through, you are led to a takeover page that looks exactly like Yahoo’s search site. However, the photos disappear as fast as Indonesia’s forests. You are then given a choice. Help Greenpeace stop deforestation. Or do nothing and resume the search. Hopefully most people choose the first option.

“The urgency to stop destruction of Indonesia’s forests and protect the creatures that live there is embodied in this interactive campaign. Forests not only provide biodiversity, they help regulate the climate. Like the companies that helped create this campaign, we hope people around the world sign up and let their voice be heard. It’s more important than ever to keep intact Asia’s last remaining forests,” said Shailendra Yashwant, Campaign Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Indonesia, currently listed to have the fastest deforestation rate on the planet, is entering an election year. Now is the time when policies are shaped for the good of the environment and future generations. To view the work and help stop deforestation, go to:

http://sg.promo.yahoo.com/orangutans.html
http://sg.promo.yahoo.com/tigers.html
http://sg.promo.yahoo.com/rainforest.html

“We’re at a crucial point in history. We can be part of something momentous, or we can sit back and watch something disastrous occur. If our governments are willing to commit huge sums of money to revive an ailing global economy, surely we can make the same commitment to our planet. This collaboration is proof that great things happen when people work together. That’s why we need you to join us right now.” Ian Barnes, Executive Creative Director at Free Range Creative concluded, ”Sometimes no image says even more than a picture.”

Greenpeace extends special thanks Yahoo! SEA for their generous support as well as the following companies and individuals for collaborating to launch this campaign:

Media Partner: Yahoo! S. E. Asia
Agency: Bates141, Singapore
Creative Directors: Sonal Dabral / Ian Barnes
Writer: Ian Barnes
Art Director: Jovan Peh / Ian Barnes
Agency Producer: Aaron Gomez
Photography: Photolibrary S.E. Asia
Sound: Song Zu Music & Sound Design
Programmer: Xin Interactive – Jerry Soon

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Ian Barnes, Executive Creative Director, Free Range Creative, +65 81577658
Arthur Jones Dionio, Communications Manager, Greenpeace SEA, +66814451398

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/greenpeace-and-yahoo-launch-guerrilla,756773.shtml

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.