Week 4: Santa's Naughty & Nice List

With just a few days left till Santa sets off on his annual journey around the world. Here is the final list check to see who has been naughty, and who has been nice.

Naughty List

1) Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Peter Kent - the two have been claiming to be unfairly targeted by environmental groups who exaggerate its impacts on nature and people. However their claims are looking a bit shaky since contamination of a major western Canadian river basin from oilsands operations is a "high-profile concern" for downstream communities and wildlife, says a newly-released "secret" presentation prepared last spring by Environment Canada that highlighted numerous warnings about the industry's growing footprint on land, air, water and the climate.

2) Yoshihiko Noda, Japan's Prime Minister - Japan has announced that they will use tax payers funds, originally earmarked to rebuild the country to increase resources of the Japanese whaling fleet heading to the Antarctic with a target of catching 900 Antarctic minke whales and 50 Endangered fin whales under the alleged purpose of conducting "scientific research."

3) Fred Nile, Christian Democrat leader - has expressed his disgust at the Australian Labour Party for changing their policy and now supporting gay marriage.

Nice List

1) Eugenio Lopez III - Chairman/CEO of ABS-CBN Corporation, Manila - The television network was named by WWF as their media partner of the year for their support since January in promoting local environmental issues.

Sidonie Asseme

2) Sidonie Asseme - This female anti-poaching ranger is breaking gender barriers working in Central Africa. She has been involved in many anti-poaching operations and like most other rangers has come into conflict with poachers. One time she and three other rangers were locked in a house and the poachers threatened to set the house on fire. “I was born in the forest and I feel it is a moral obligation to protect the forest and its wildlife,” she says. Asseme is not known as someone who complains, but she does have one request. “We need better arms and logistical support to enable us do our jobs. If I meet the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife this is the main message I will put to him.”

3) Jim Howe, executive director of the Central and Western Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Rochester, NY - The Nature Conservancy has secured a $1million grant from North American Wetland Conservation Act through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and will buy 500 acres of land known as Shaker Heights which is vital for migratory birds, waterfowl and contains spawning areas for many fish.

Special Mention

Santa wants to thank  the 80 year old woman who was run over and died while trying to save a duckling on the road in New South Wales, Australia. Her name is yet to be released.

Week 3: Santa's Naughty & Nice List

The big day is getting closer but some people are acting like they don't want any gifts from Santa this year.  Santa is disappointed with a few people not wanting to play nice in the sandbox. However thoughtfulness is getting others on the Nice List just in the St Nick of time.

The Naughty List

1) Jonathan Pershing, US delegation leader at the Durban Climate Summit - Greenpeace, WWF and Oxfam are all asking the USA to move aside and let the rest of the world move forward if you cannot get with the programme. The USA if fighting for voluntary pledges rather than binding agreements. After eight years of the US denying Climate Change as a issue with President Bush, there were hopes it would be better under Obama. This is yet to seem the case.

2) Matthew Gonshaw - Unfortunately for this poacher Santa doesn't deliver to jails where he will be spending the next six months after being sentenced for snatched hundreds of eggs from the nests of rare birds including ospreys, avocets and golden eagles in the UK. When police raided his London home they found over 700 eggs. This is his forth jail sentence for egg theft.

3) Executive Director, President, and CEO of Paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP)Teguh Ganda Wijaya - promised to move to 100% plantation sourcing of timber for major pulp mills four times several times but has missed their self-imposed deadlines to stop using native forest timber in 2004, 2007 and 2009. Their new dead line is 2015 but Santa is getting impatient considering they are cutting down trees in vital tiger habitat.

The Nice List

1) Nine Greenpeace activists - The Nimble Nine were able to break into a nuclear power plant in risk highlighting the lack of security. This has put the nuclear power debate in France back in the spotlight. This will be a key issue in the next election.

2) Denise and Daniel Villefort - a Malibu couple who have donated $2000 to the reward fund for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the death of a mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Malibu City Council had offered $5000. The total is now $18,700 worth of donated funds. The mountain lion in question was a 7-year-old known to the National Park Service researchers as P-15 who had been fitted with a GPS device to research the animal's movements.

3) Clark Bunting, President of the Discovery Channel - Last week he was on the Naughty List but Santa is overjoyed that Discovery has announced that they will now show the finale of Frozen Planet which deals exclusively with the effects of climate change. Santa lives in the Arctic and is affected by Climate Change too!

4) Datuk Sam Mannan, Sabah Forestry Department Director - the department has recently awarded reforestation contracts to four contractors to restore degraded forest areas in North Ulu Segama, within the Ulu Segama-Malua Forest Reserve in Lahad Datu. This means about 800 hectares of land will be replanted with indigenous tree species and wild fruit trees in the next 12 months to ensure the survival of orang utans.

How to get on the Nice List

Buy yourself some real estate - You can buy an area of the Coral Triangle for as low as $US5 and help save the area. See http://mycoraltriangle.wwf.or.id/coralweb/about/saving.aspx for all the details.

Who has been naughty and who has been nice on Santa's List?

With the population reaching seven billion earlier this year Santa has his work cut out for him determining who had been naughty and who had been nice. I am good friends with Santa (click here to listen to our chat a couple of year's ago on Christmas Eve in iTunes) so he has asked me to help. Each week he has asked me to compile a list of who has been naughty and who has been nice and it would be helpful if you could check it for us twice. Of course I am sure Santa will double check it to see if they really deserve a gift on Christmas.

The Naughty List

1) The Pemberton Poacher - Although Santa knows who it is, the Pemberton Wildlife Association is still looking for and have offered a $1,000 reward for the killer of a 317kg grizzly bear who was found shot to death, with body parts missing, in the Pemberton Meadows area near the turnoff to the Hurley Forest Service Road on 17th November. If you have any information you can contact the B.C. Conservation Officer Service on 1-877-952-7277.

2) Lakshmi N. Mittal of Steel industry giant Arcellor-Mittal, Dr. Hans Engel of chemicals industry leader BASF, Dr. Marius Kloppers of mining giant BHP Billiton, Charles G. Koch of the US energy industry’s Koch and Brian Dames of South Africa’s electric utility Eskom – these five individuals are leaders of giant multinational companies who, along with others, literally spend “the equivalent of the GDP of entire nations to block progress on climate legislation and ensure that fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies continue to give unfair advantage to dirty energy, above the safe, clean renewable energy future the public demands.” as according to Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo and a new report.

3) Vincent de Rivaz, CEO of EDF - The French utility company has been fined €1.5 million for hacking into the computer networks of Greenpeace. Pascal Durieux, EDF's head of nuclear production security in 2006, was handed a three-year sentence with two years suspended and a €10,000 fine (about $13,000) for commissioning the spying.

The Nice List

1) Clement Kwok, The Chief Executive of the Peninsula Hotel Group - The luxurious hotel chain with nine hotels in Asia has taken shark fin soup off all their menus in a bid to help save the depleting numbers of sharks in our oceans. 73 million sharks are currently killed each year for shark fin soup.

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent

2) Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent - who at a recent talk at the Lory Student Center Grand Ballroom on the CSU campus shared his belief that sustainability is currently the world's greatest issue and that corporate partnerships to promote sustainability, such as Coca-Cola's new deal with Coca Cola need to become the norm.

3) Japanese tuna boat captain Kazuhiro Yamazaki - has designed new fishing gear, called the ‘Yamazaki Double-Weight Branchline,’ which causes hooks to sink deeper into the water, out of site of hungry birds. The new invention reduced seabird bycatch by up to 90% without reducing fishing catches. The invention won the World Wildlife Fund’s 2011 International Smart Gear Competition.

4) Zhang Junming, Guan Jianhong, Li Shiheibu and the other members of a group a "panda seeking" team - they spent five days surveying panda habitat in the mountains of southwest China's Sichuan province, looking for traces of the endangered animals. "This place is known as 'China's Bermuda Triangle,' as several people were reported missing here in the 1960s and 1970s," said Zhou Longlin, deputy chief of the reserve's administration. Although they saw no pandas, they found evidence via droppings and foot prints and concluded 33 pandas reside in the area.

How to get on the Nice List

Join WWF's Living Planet Community at http://community.wwf.ca. It's a great way to get a whole bunch of green living tips and get a true measurement on your reduction green house gas emissions. Feel free to join my group Adam Barralet's Bloody Good Things To Do once you've open your account. I'll put in a good word for you with Santa.