It is not hypocritical to fly if I'm campaigning for the environment

There's no way I could raise millions for the rainforest if I only travelled by boat or train

Trudie Styler
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 May 2009 22.38 BST

Given the Guardian's reputation for a positive stance on the environment, I was angered and saddened by the cheap and scathing tone of your "Lost in showbiz" article about me (Trudie Styler: saving the world one private jet flight at a time, 15 May).
It sought to demolish my credibility as an environmental campaigner by laying charges of hypocrisy against my readily admitted occasional use of private aviation fuel as well as many (less reported) flights on scheduled commercial flights. The article's gripe extended to a sour attempt to create some sort of faux class envy around me in seeking to "focus … on madam's most cherished public pose: that of eco warrior".
The piece turned on the curious assertion that "Trudie's lifestyle compromises her environmental message so fatally that she can only be a big oil ­double agent created … with the sole aim of undermining an important message with her rank hypocrisy". Ironically the publication of this article, with its unsustainable attack on my integrity, actually casts the Guardian in the role of double agent. You have given succour to what I would have assumed was a mutual foe, the Chevron oil company.
For many years much of my work as an environmental campaigner has focused on exposing the devastation caused to large parts of Ecuador by Chevron during its exploitation of drilling rights. The recent documentary, Crude, in which I played a substantial role, has effectively concentrated global opposition to Chevron's continued refusal to make proper recompense for damage to thousands of lives.
Your article will be invaluable to those working on behalf of Chevron who seek to undermine this 14-year campaign through attacking my reputation.
Of course I use aeroplanes. Even the most dogmatic and dictatorial advocates of environmental reform would be hard pressed to suggest that Ecuador (and, yes, Washington) are practical places to reach by wagon train or boat.
Each year I fly thousands of miles to campaign for environmental change. It would have been inconceivable to raise tens of millions of pounds for the Rainforest Foundation – which protects the forests and their indigenous people and of which I was a joint founder 21 years ago – on horseback. It would have been similarly impracticable to have served as a global Unicef ambassador on a bicycle.
I am fortunate to receive occasional access to world leaders and those who can influence and implement environmental change. Hence trips to affluent world capitals as well as lands laid waste by the environmental vandals.
The Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading scientists, says one day's deforestation equates to the carbon footprint of 8 million people flying from London to New York. According to Nicholas Stern, over the next four years alone the destruction of forests in the Amazon, the Congo basin and Indonesia will pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than every flight in the history of aviation to 2025.
Being criticised for devoting large amounts of my time and our (earned) money to a cause which offends so many vested interests is an occupational hazard. But to be so undermined by the Guardian, albeit on its showbiz pages, feels like being hit by a particularly vicious burst of friendly fire.
Trudie Styler is co-founder of the ­Rainforest Foundation and a Unicef global ambassador