Fern celebrates 20 years of campaigning to respect rights and protect forests
26 March 2015
In 1995, a meeting of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) working on forest issues agreed there was a need for a new NGO that would hold the EU accountable to its promises with a focus on forests and peoples. Saskia Ozinga, a forest campaigner at Friends of the Earth Netherlands at the time and Sian Pettman, civil servant at the European Commission took the challenge on board and set up Fern. Today we are 20 years old, but the challenge is bigger than ever, with up to 80 per cent of environmental policy decisions affecting EU Member States being made at the Brussels level. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the colleagues and friends who have worked with us along the way on our aid, biodiversity offsetting, carbon trading, climate, energy, export credit agencies, forest governance and trade campaigns. We also ask you to join with us to demand an action plan to halt the EU’s negative impact on forests globally. We couldn’t have done it without you all; you are friends and allies for life!