Protesting environmental issues

In 1993 Brazilian forest peoples' leaders demonstrated outside the largest British department store to demand action against the sale of mahogany. Five British superstores subsequently announced that they will no longer sell mahogany. In Brazil, for the first time a logger was found guilty of illegal mahogany extraction from indigenous areas and three companies were required to end their activities in indigenous reserves.

Groups such as the International Rivers Network, Greenpeace, Clean Waters Network, Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth International, along with thousands of community groups around the world, are fighting the construction of new dams, reclaiming rivers and wetlands, confronting industry over contamination of water systems, and protecting whales and other aquatic species from hunting and overfishing.