The pact with the panda

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Movie
Original title The pact with the panda
Country of production Germany , Indonesia , USA
original language German
Publishing year 2011
length 43 minutes
Rod
Director Wilfried Huismann
script Wilfried Huismann
production Bettina Kapune ,
Beatrix Holzmenger ,
Carolin Rath ,
Reto Sonderegger
music André Feldhaus
camera Ulli Köhler ,
Birgit Handke
cut Olaf Strecker
occupation

The pact with the panda: What the WWF is hiding from us is a German television documentary by Wilfried Huismann about the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The film shows the dubious practices and the influence of various interest groups on the world's largest nature conservation organization.

The film is a co-production by WDR and SWR and edited by Tibet Sinha and Martin Schneider. Huismann worked on the film for a year.

The film premiered in the cinema on June 22, 2011 in Bremen.

content

According to its own information, the WWF is the largest environmental protection organization in the world with around 500 million euros in donations annually. Since it was founded in 1961, the WWF has been one of the world's most influential lobby organizations for nature and species protection and has good contacts to high-ranking decision-makers in politics and industry.

The author Wilfried Huismann shows in the film that this connection is a constant tightrope walk between commitment and buyability.

The film shows that the WWF is cooperating with companies such as Robert Kuoks Wilmar International that are clearing the forests in the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo in order to create palm oil plantations on the land . This would threaten orangutans that the WWF claims to protect. The WWF also receives donations from the palm oil companies, to which it awards a seal of quality for sustainable production ( Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the so-called round table for sustainable palm oil). Huismann sees this as a modern indulgence trade , so-called greenwashing . As early as October 2008, around 250 environmental associations and social groups, including 20 from German-speaking countries, published a declaration in which the cultivation methods developed by the RSPO were accused of being environmentally damaging on the grounds that palm oil cultivation in large monocultures could generally not be sustainable and the RSPO only serve the industry for greenwashing.

According to the film, the WWF maintains partnerships with large companies from the energy and agricultural sectors worldwide. This also is genetically modified soy the chemical company Monsanto accepted by the WWF and was thus enhanced in the public esteem. In this context, the film raises the question of whether the cooperation between WWF and industry can really save the world's last intact ecosystems or rather accelerate their destruction.

Huismann interviews the agricultural entrepreneur Hector Laurence, who, according to the film, led negotiations on a biodiesel strategy for the country in 2003 as head of WWF Argentina . At that time, however, Laurence was also the president of the agricultural association and director of a genetic engineering company. In the interview Laurence defends genetic engineering: "I think genetic engineering and biodiversity can be perfectly combined."

Jason Clay, Senior Vice President Market Transformation at WWF USA, will be shown at an event organized by the agricultural industry association Global Harvest Initiative , in which Monsanto, Cargill , ADM and WWF are members. The film shows a video in which Clay says in a speech: “We have to freeze the ecological footprint of agriculture. To this end, we propose seven or eight measures that should be discussed. First: genetic engineering, ... “ In addition to grain, genetic engineering must be extended to a number of other types of crops. Clay repeated his theses several times and in July 2011 also in an article in the scientific journal Nature . Clay is responsible for the conservation organization's forest, fisheries, agriculture and aquaculture initiatives. He also advocates genetic methods to increase production in livestock.

Reactions

The WWF (WWF Germany) reacted to the film with criticism. He has published an extensive statement in which the organization denies many of the claims in the film. Huismann responded to this with a statement in which he accused the WWF of untruths.

In addition to the dispute over individual statements (see legal dispute ), the WWF defended itself against the accusation that it would take money from corporations for issuing sustainability seals, as it generally does not award such seals. In the film itself, the WWF justifies the close cooperation with a “non-ideological” course that brings much more than consistent rejection.

WWF Germany commented on the allegations that the organization would support the cultivation of genetically modified soy through its joint membership with Monsanto at the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS). "We are continuing to work on the RTRS because we do more Want GMO-free soy and generally want to minimize the environmental damage caused by soy cultivation, such as the destruction of forests. We reject genetic engineering. We will do this until it has been proven that genetically modified plants are absolutely harmless to the environment, biodiversity and us humans. This position of WWF International applies to all WWF country organizations. ” The WWF admits that “ there are also employees in individual country organizations whose opinion does not coincide with the official WWF position. This applies in particular to countries in which the proportion of genetic engineering in agriculture is already very high, such as the USA and Argentina. ” However, these employees are members of the top management of the WWF. Jason Clay, who is openly committed to the cultivation of GM soy (see content ) and, together with the chemicals and seed company Monsanto, calls for the use of genetic engineering in many other plants, is a Vice President of WWF USA and coordinator for market relations at WWF International and agricultural policy.

Even before the film, in 2009, many international non-governmental organizations had spoken out against participating in the RTRS, and a number of German environmental and farmer organizations had asked the WWF not to participate, whereupon the WWF defended its involvement in the RTRS with the argument that it would participate allow greater influence than waiver.

Also before the film (2011), Greenpeace , Friends of the Earth and other environmental organizations described the cultivation of palm oil on the Indonesian island of Borneo as damaging the environment and an additional threat to threatened species .

Legal dispute

Before the film was broadcast on June 22, 2011 on ARD, WWF filed six declarations of cease and desist against the film. ARD withdrew the statement contained in the original press release of May 11, 2011, according to which the ARD team in Borneo (Indonesia) had found "not a single orangutan protection project of the WWF" . The same applied to the formulation: "The WWF takes money from the company and gives it the seal of approval for sustainable productions" , insofar as this gives the impression that the company would receive a WWF seal of approval for sustainable productions in exchange for money. ARD has committed itself to WWF Germany to refrain from making these statements in connection with the film.

The WWF expressed itself in the run-up to the film, when its exact content was not yet known: “There are three allegations in the announcements that are simply false.” Huismann told the daily newspaper about the cease and desist statements : “This is because the WWF does not want these things to be discussed publicly. ... After all , according to market research , the WWF symbol, the panda , is the fourth most credible brand in the world. ”That brings something to everyone involved.

On April 18, 2012, the Cologne Regional Court ordered that the WDR may not repeat four statements made in the documentary “The Pact with the Panda” for the time being. The injunction was issued to the WDR, which is responsible for the film as the producing broadcaster. The WDR had to ensure that the allegations against the WWF are not repeated by any broadcaster or the ARD media library. On September 26th, however, these injunctions were lifted due to a lack of urgency. The disputes ultimately culminated in main proceedings, in which the Cologne Regional Court ruled in December 2013 and the WWF was right on five of the six objected points. The appeal by WDR and SWR was rejected by the Cologne Higher Regional Court in December 2014, and an appeal was not allowed. This means that the broadcasters are prohibited from repeating the relevant statements under threat of punishment. The claim that the WWF receives “fees for washing a destructive production green” is a false assertion of fact. The court condemned the statement that the WWF supports the deforestation of the savanna forests of the Chaco as defamation. The judge also criticized the neglect of journalistic due diligence on the part of the author Wilfried Huismann.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The pact with the panda. daserste.de, accessed on June 22, 2011
  2. ^ NordwestRadio, talk time, June 22, 2011
  3. ↑ International Declaration Against the 'Greenwashing' of Palm Oil by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.biofuelwatch.org.uk
  4. ↑ Greenpeace challenges RSPO to stop greenwashing member companies ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , November 14, 2008  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.greenpeace.org
  5. ↑ http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/experts/jason-clay.html
  6. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.globalharvestinitiative.org
  7. ^ Jason W. Clay: Agriculture from 2000 to 2050 - The Business as Usual Scenario. (PDF; 1.0 MB) Pre-publication draft, Global Harvest Initiative, 2010
  8. ↑ Jason Clay: Freeze the footprint of food. (PDF; 1.4 MB) Nature 475, 287–289, July 21, 2011
  9. ↑ Thomas Pany: Eight wedges against hunger. Telepolis , July 21, 2011
  10. ↑ Overpopulation is mankind's greatest problem. DPA / Die Welt , August 1, 2011
  11. ↑ WWF: Rethink the definition of sustainability. ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Communication from the Central Association of German Pig Production from July 8, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zds-bonn.de
  12. ↑ http://www.wwf.de/themen/huismann-kritik-pakt-mit-dem-panda-ffektencheck
  13. ↑ http://www.wwf.de/themen/huismann-kritik-pakt-mit-dem-panda- Faktencheck/der-pakt-mit-dem-panda-im-ffektencheck /
  14. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wilfried-huismann.de
  15. ↑ http://www.wwf.de/themen/huismann-kritik-pakt-mit-dem-panda-ffektencheck/#c50736
  16. ^ A b Lars Langenau: WWF and industry - the pact with the panda. In: sueddeutsche.de . June 24, 2011, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blogs.taz.de
  18. ↑ Program information of the WDR with correction ( memento of May 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 5, 2011
  19. ↑ a b A panda with scratches . In: taz.de from June 22, 2011
  20. ↑ Declaration on temporary injunction on the WWF website, accessed on April 19, 2012 ( Memento of the original of April 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wwf.de
  21. ^ Judgment of the Cologne Higher Regional Court of December 2, 2014 , accessed on February 4, 2015