News: Community, environment, regeneration

23.04.2004 Wiltshire County Council has become the latest local authority in Britain to go GM free. All six county councils in the South West region have now passed policies opposing GM crops. The news coincides with a Friends of the Earth campaign, launched on 22 April in Brussels, calling for new EU rules to allow local and regional authorities to ban GM crops from their areas.

16.04.2004 Thousands of Scots could be returned to fuel poverty unless new measures to improve energy efficiency are rapidly brought forward. Campaginers gave the warning in reponse to figures published this week by the Scottish Executive.

15.04.2004 The Soil Association has warmly welcomed this week's announcement by the government of a major financial boost for organic farming, due to start next spring, calling it "a brilliant deal for the public".

13.04.2004 WWF has revealed evidence that people across the UK are contaminated with a cocktail of highly toxic chemicals. Tests revealed that Northern Ireland displayed the highest average concentration of a pesticide type that in high quantities may cause cancer and damage the immune, nervous and reproductive systems.

08.04.2004 A Scottish MEP has today come joint bottom in a EU-wide survey, by Friends of the Earth Europe, designed to identify the most environmentally friendly European Parliamentarians. And voting records show UK MEPs bottom of the league in voting against environmental measures.

08.04.2004 It's fourteen years overdue, but Greenpeace are still applauding the European Commission for forcing nuclear company BNFL to clean up a dangerous spent nuclear fuel pond at the notorious Sellafield site in Cumbria.

07.04.2004 WWF has released a damning report exposing the UK government's abysmal record on tackling toxic chemicals in everyday products. It criticises the UK's lack of effective action to address the threat from hazardous chemicals in its current chemicals policy.

05.04.2004 French aggregate company, Lafarge Aggregates, announced it is to withdraw its plans to establish what would have been Britain's biggest quarry on Harris in the Western Isles, thereby ending Friends of the Earth Scotland's longest ever running campaign on 2 April.

01.04.2004 A 26-strong coalition of Scotland's leading environmental organisations have launched a major new campaign that aims to put the environment firmly on the political agenda in the run up to June's European Parliament elections. The everyone coalition plans to mobilise half a million supporters to challenge prospective MEPs on range of environmental issues.