Jojoba is a key tree for Robin des Bois and for the Sonora Desert. It is part of the association’s foundation and illustrates the will of proposition. Oil from jojoba seeds, practically unknown in Europe in 1985, is a substitute for whale spermaceti and is used as cosmetic oil.

Since 1988, the association has participated in ministerial and interministerial working groups to defend their objectives where decisions are made.

A Complex Work from A to Z: example of the Ivory Coast
When the Panamanian ship, Probo Koala, unloaded nearly 500 tons of ship generated waste at Abidjan in August 2006, and this toxic waste had been dropped off all around the capital of the Ivory Coast, Robin des Bois immediately demanded the return of the waste to Europe and launched its means of investigation. When rumors circulated in Abidjan at the same time as the sanitary impacts of the waste deposit, Robin des Bois organized a press conference in the Ivory Coast and revealed all the errors and anomalies in the Probo Koala’s conduct and operating waste management and refinement of oil aboard that previously occurred in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in Tallinn, Estonia, and in Gibraltar, United Kingdom. When the waste mixed with sediment (9000 tons) arrived for reprocessing in France, the NGO demanded and obtained specific modalities of information. At the time, Robin des Bois protested against reactions of the “not in my backyard” syndrome and at the same time called for a total transparency of modalities of treatment near Lyon. When it was measured that releases from the kiln scheduled for the incineration of Probo Koala wastes were exceeding the rules, Robin des Bois, Robin des Bois, with local associations, whishes that treatment would be deferred as long as the dioxin anomalies remained uncorrected. Simultaneously, a representative of Robin des Bois actively participated in all concerned states of Europe in the International Commission of Investigation, named by the Ivory Coast government.

From Road Seven to the North Pole
To clarify Robin des Bois’ ubiquity, it is convenient to concentrate on the example of closed gas stations and the Arctic. When Robin des Bois entered Grenelle of the Environment (National round table concerning the environment) through the window, it created an effect of a crazy dog at a family dinner. All the trophies were in place—biodiversity, pesticides, global warming, air pollution, reduction of this, non-allowance of that—and the guests were at the table. Robin des Bois succeeded in imposing dishes of resistance and unpredicted “petits fours” into the menu: noise, medication residue in water, post-catastrophic waste, litter in the ocean, closed gas stations, and the Arctic Ocean.
Closed gas stations are everyday pollution. They are derelict sites at the entrance of villages and along national roads, threatening water wells, neighboring caves and underground waters. Gas pumps reconverted into pizzerias or disguised in no man’s lands of concrete that attract waste, it’s a new French postcard. Robin des Bois could only be attentive to these stories of leaking tanks and polluted soils. Therefore, without announcement, Robin des Bois proposed this major issue largely underestimated to the appraisal of “Grenellocratie” which wasn’t prepared to be found with dirty hands. The national park of closed gas stations and their necessary rehabilitation leapt over all obstacles up to the final report. A large advancement for Robin des Bois, who will now decline those in working groups—oil producers, garages, elected officials, ministries, environmental protection groups—that must be patiently pushed, accelerated, and moved forward as Robin des Bois routinely does for other subjects.
The Arctic is another thing; it is leaving the down to earth to reach the planet. Robin des Bois has always worked on large living spaces—oceans and forests—traveled by migrating animals, and battered by predation and human degradation. It appeared to Robin des Bois in 1994, at the International Whaling Commission in Mexico, that the Arctic Ocean should benefit from a treaty, if not identical, at least analogous, to that of the Antarctic—despite the political difficulties attached—and that France and Europe needed to better reflect on and initiate it. Therefore, Robin des Bois introduced a proposal within the Grenelle biodiversity group. This enormous stake that Robin des Bois had carried alone in these circumstances was widely adopted as evidence and became a priority during the French presidency of the European Union. The treaty of the Arctic demands, without doubt, more time to develop and reach that protocol of remediation of gas stations in France and in the French territories. At the end of the process—it is necessary to be optimistic—it will be convenient to remember that Robin des Bois is at its origin.

Leaving pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear
The NGO has supported the diversification of energy sources for more than 10 years. Insofar, Robin des Bois is also very vigilant regarding energies presented as a way out of nuclear power, such as gas, wind power, and wood burning. Robin des Bois does not see the economic or ecologic justification of reprocessing nuclear spent fuel and extracting plutonium. Robin des Bois is opposed to the exportation and importation of radioactive waste, and condemns the authorization modalities for the construction of the new EPR reactor in Flamanville in the English Channel. Robin des Bois actively participates in the inventory of sources of radioactivity outside of artificial radioactivity—see this subject in the file “La Radioactivité Naturelle Techonologiquement Renforcée” (Technologically Enhanced Natural Radioactivity) on our website. Few organizations have the past and the antinuclear culture of Robin des Bois, but this does not prevent Robin des Bois—on the contrary—from joining specialists to participate in elaborating a doctrine of management for the effects of an accident in a nuclear settlement or in a mobile vector that involves nuclear materials.

Catastrophes and Wars
Robin des Bois considers it a priority to lead preventative actions regarding industrial and natural hazards. In this perspective, the group wrote a report on the sanitary and environmental risks of post-catastrophic wastes, available on the website in the French version, and regularly carries out inventories of recoveries and of deposits of war traces on French territory. The will of Robin des Bois is to improve the conditions of finding locations, storage, and elimination of abandoned munitions and to move France towards respecting the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction.

Robin des Bois
Association de protection de l’Homme et de l’environnement
14 rue de l’Atlas 75019 PARIS – Tel : 01.48.04.09.36 / Fax : 01.48.04.56.41
contact@robindesbois.org