4/14/01
4:01:10 PM
Have A Happy Easter Sunday
Love Yourself, One Another And All Life
4/27/01
8:20:48 PM
FAIR
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
Media Beat
OVERDUE: MEDIA SCRUTINY OF THE "WHITE BLOC"
By Norman Solomon
As police fired rubber bullets through tear gas in Quebec City, many reporters echoed the claim that "free trade" promotes democracy. Meanwhile, protesters struggled to shed light on a key fact: The proposed hemispheric trade pact would give large corporations even more power to override laws that have been enacted -- democratically -- to protect the environment, labor and human rights.
Newsweek responded to the turmoil at the Summit of the Americas with a column by Fareed Zakaria, a favorite policy analyst in elite circles. He declared that "the anti-globalization crowd is antidemocratic ... trying to achieve, through intimidation and scare tactics, what it has not been able to get through legislation." In recent decades, of course, the same was said about cutting-edge demonstrations for such causes as civil rights, peace in Vietnam and environmental safeguards.
Protests against the likes of the World Trade Organization, and now the Free Trade Area of the Americas, have great impact because they resonate widely. Foes of global corporatization are speaking and acting on behalf of huge grassroots constituencies.
The ABC television program "This Week" deigned to air a discussion with a real-live progressive activist, Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. Journalist Cokie Roberts voiced befuddlement: "It's gotten to the point where any time there are global meetings, world leaders meeting, we have a sense that the protesters are going to be there, and there's not much sense of exactly what you're protesting." The interview only lasted a couple of minutes.
Most news outlets showed little interest in the content of alternative forums in Quebec City that drew thousands of activists from all over the hemisphere. Likewise, a big march in the city, with some estimates ranging above 60,000 participants, got underwhelming coverage. For that matter, most reporters didn't seem very deeply interested in the several thousand people who bravely engaged in militant, nonviolent direct action -- risking and sometimes sustaining injuries from police assaults -- while confronting the official summit.
What did get plenty of media attention was noted at the outset of the April 24 lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which yearned for "a world where TV cameras prefer trade agreements to black-clad anarchists." Some of those few "black-clad anarchists" call themselves the Black Bloc.
Routinely slipping by, with scant journalistic scrutiny, is what we could dub the "White Bloc" -- a nexus of immense media power serving corporate interests.
The White Bloc is not monolithic. But on the issue of "free trade," it's difficult to find a major U.S. publication that does not editorially support accords like NAFTA, WTO and the new FTAA.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, at the right edge of the Bloc, is much honored by the media establishment. Last year, Journal columnist Paul Gigot won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. This year, in mid-April, the same award went to another very conservative columnist for the newspaper, Dorothy Rabinowitz. But it's the unheralded daily output of the White Bloc that can be most breathtaking.
On the day Rabinowitz's prize was announced, for instance, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal featured a freelance article that began this way: "In the early 1990s, America's major cities were on life-support, suffocating under socialistic policies that left them looking like Soviet-bloc relics." (It was not a humor piece, by the way.) Farther down the page was a column headlined "The Monarchy Is Worth Saving," written by the Journal's deputy editorial features editor, who earnestly argued that British citizens need their monarchy "as a source of authority."
But the White Bloc has a liberal side, too. Several New York Times columnists take turns condemning those who have the gall to stand in the way of corporate Progress.
Free-marketeers at the Times know how to pound away at the same line. While heads of state prepared to leave the Quebec summit, Paul Krugman ended his column by writing that the protesters "are doing their best to make the poor even poorer." Two days later, Thomas Friedman concluded his column by explaining that "these 'protesters' should be called by their real name: The Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor."
The White Bloc (which includes people of all colors if suitably conformist) has its own forms of hip solidarity. On the "Hardball" national TV program, airing on both MSNBC and CNBC, host Chris Matthews closed his April 18 interview with Friedman exactly this way:
Matthews: "You are the future, my man. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times."
Friedman: "Thanks, bro."
Matthews: "The smartest columnist in the world."
This is the most recent of Norman Solmon's nationally syndicated "Media Beat" columns.
Solomon is a FAIR associate. His latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media."
For more about Media Beat:
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/
For more on trade:
http://www.fair.org/issues-news/trade.html
To listen to CounterSpin's interview with author and activist Naomi Klein:
http://www.webactive.com/cspin/cspin20010413.html
4/27/01
8:17:03 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We Cover the Earth For You" ***********************************************************************
EARTH WEEK WITH NOBEL LAUREATE WOLE SOYINKA OF NIGERIA
By Sunny Lewis
LAS VEGAS, Nevada, April 27, 2001 (ENS) - Nigerian Nobel Prize winning author Wole Soyinka has an Earth Week message for the world about his homeland - at least a third of the entire country is polluted in some way.
Now writer in residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Soyinka is the first holder of the university's newly established Endowed Chair of Creative Writing. He shared some insights on the environmental and political problems of Nigeria.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-27-01.html
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YELLOWSTONE BISON HAZED WHILE BIRTHING
WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana, April 27, 2001 (ENS) - Montana Department of Livestock personnel are hazing the last wild bison herd left in the United States while the animals are actually giving birth, say conservationists who witnessed events this week.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-27-02.html
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POWER PLANT LOCATION PLAYS ROLE IN SMOG FORMATION
BOULDER, Colorado, April 27, 2001 (ENS) - The United States needs to rethink its strategy for controlling ground level ozone or smog pollution, a new study suggests. The research by federal and university scientists suggests that programs to reduce harmful ozone produced by electric utility power plants could be improved by considering power plant emission rates and geographic location.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-27-06.html
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NATURAL GAS PIPELINE PLAN ANGERS B.C. ENVIRONMENTALISTS
VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, April 27, 2001 (ENS) - A plan to build a natural gas pipeline to connect Vancouver Island in Canada with Sumas power plant in Washington State has angered environmental groups who say it will cause greenhouse gas emissions to soar.
For full text and graphics, visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-27-10.html
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HILLSIDE HOMES ADD TO MALAYSIAN FLOOD WOES
PETALING JAYA, Malaysia, April 27, 2001 (ENS) - The effects of recent flooding in Malaysia have been worsened by deforestation in the country's highlands, according to World Wide Fund for Nature, which has called on the government to regulate highland development.
For full text and graphics, visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-27-11.html
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 27, 2001
Over Protests, Navy Bombs Vieques Again
Water Vapor On the Rise in Upper Atmosphere
Mining Rule Rollbacks Could Cost Taxpayers Millions
California Rallies Urge End to Clearcutting
Pew Wilderness Center Launches Ad Featuring X-Files Star
Pepsi Broke Recycling Promise, Environmental Groups Charge
Coastal Communities in Seven States to Share $150 Million
Clean Water Act Violations Have Serious Consequences
Bill Would Protect Nine Million Acres of Utah Wilderness
PVC Free Database Allows Builders to Choose Alternatives
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-27-09.html
4/27/01
8:15:59 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. CREDIT CARS Ford, Toyota, and Honda are working with environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and Union of Concerned Scientists to urge Congress to pass tax credits for people who buy vehicles that are better for the environment. Legislation introduced in the Senate would create tax credits that range from $1,000 for gas-electric hybrids to much more for heavy-duty trucks that runs on electricity or fuel cells. Ford President Jacques Nasser said the bill "will help accelerate demand for cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles in the marketplace and put them on the road earlier and in higher volumes." DaimlerChrysler and General Motors say they support tax incentives, but they disagree with the way the bill calculates fuel improvements. The Sierra Club, on the other hand, supports higher requirements for gas mileage rather than tax credits.
do good: Take action and pledge to buy an eco-friendly car <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/autos.stm#pledge>
2. UM. HAVEN'T WE LEARNED ANYTHING? People across the former Soviet Union offered their prayers yesterday to victims of the Chernobyl disaster, 15 years after the world's worst nuclear accident occurred in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government says that more than 70,000 people were fully disabled by the accident and more than 4,000 who took part in the clean-up have died. At least 7 million people in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine suffer physical or psychological effects from the radiation released during the catastrophe. Meanwhile, half of Americans now say they support using nuclear plants to produce electricity, an increase over two years ago, according to an Associated Press poll. And the nuclear industry may soon seek its first permit in decades to build a new plant in the U.S.
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Associated Press, 25 Apr 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/564225.asp>
3. THEIR SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN A federal appeals panel earlier this week dismissed a lower court's ruling that mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia violates environmental law by burying hundreds of miles of streams under tons of rock and earth. The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found unanimously that the plaintiffs in the citizens suit against the state had no standing in a federal court because it was state's bailiwick, not the feds', to enforce the particular environmental law in question. Enviro groups said they would challenge the panel decision.
straight to the source: New York Times, Francis X. Clines, 26 Apr 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/national/26MINE.html>
4. THE FOOL ON CAPITOL HILL Some Labor Party members in the U.K. are publicly deriding U.S. President Bush as the "toxic Texan" and "the fool on Capitol Hill" for his stance on climate change. In fact, the Bush administration, by all reports, has been astonished by the intense reaction around the world to its decision to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty on climate change. The State Department, at the request of the Bushies, put together a review of how the press in 43 countries covered the issue. One Seoul paper wrote that Bush's "scrapping" of Kyoto was "tantamount to a declaration of ... environmental terrorism against humankind." Read more quotes and learn how Kyoto could still be saved on the Grist Magazine website.
straight to the source: London Independent, Ben Russell, 25 Apr 2001 <http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=68594>
read it only in Grist Magazine: This just in -- in our Heat Beat section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/heatbeat/thisjustin042701.stm>
do good: Take action and tell Bush not to abandon Kyoto <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.stm>
5. POLL POSITION Only 38 percent of the American public approves of the way President Bush is handling the environment, according to a poll taken this week by CBS News. More than twice as many Americans place a priority on protecting the environment over producing energy -- but the public overwhelmingly thinks Bush is on the side of energy production, the poll found.
straight to the source: CBSNews.com, 26 Apr 2001 <http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,287908-412,00.shtml>
6. THE BONNEVILLE HORROR Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) on Wednesday said the Bonneville Power Administration and other federal agencies were not fulfilling their obligations to help salmon in the midst of a drought that has caused electricity prices to soar. In recent weeks, the BPA has twice declared power emergencies that allow the agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to skirt endangered species rules to protect salmon and steelhead runs. Kitzhaber urged the Northwest Power Planning Council to provide a counterweight to the BPA's approach. But yesterday the power council stuck to its guns and recommended that electricity generation remain concern No. 1 over salmon at federal dams this summer.
catch it only in Grist Magazine: Run, salmon, run! -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha070599.stm>
do good: Take action and tell the feds to fund salmon recovery <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.stm#recovery>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Michigan seems like a scheme to me now -- Bush's attack on federal resources and rules was honed in the states -- by Keith Schneider in our Main Dish section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/schneider042501.stm>
Barton finks -- Austin is losing the battle to protect the Barton Springs salamander -- in our Main Dish section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/oko042401.stm>
Fairway to heaven, a gardening guru gives new meaning to a putting green -- in our Out on a Limb column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb120799.stm>
4/27/01
2:12:58 PM
Dear friends,
This week, all over the world, people are continuing their celebrations of the 31st annual Earth Day. Here are just a few highlights.
A WORLDWIDE INVITATION: This Friday, more than 300,000 elementary school children in South Florida, USA will sing the song, "The Pledge (An Earth Anthem)," in a special Earth Day commitment event. Children all over the world are invited to join in. To see the lyrics of the anthem, which has been translated into four languages, For information on how to join the event, contact Lanny Smith, Email: earthman.is@juno.com visit
http://www.earthman.tv/html_files/emanconcerts.html
INDONESIA: WALHI is calling for a moratorium on industrial logging nationwide in an effort to stop rampant illegal logging, which has devastated the country's natural resource base. Contact Longenna Ginting, WALHI, Email: walhi@walhi.or.id
SAMOA: Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary is hosting many activities island-wide this week, including environmental heroes awards, talent shows, sand sculpting, tours of national parks and national marine sanctuaries, and much more! Contact the Sanctuary at Tel: 684 633 7354, Email: punipuao.lagai@noaa.gov
GUINEA: Jour de la Terre, Guinea is holding two months of internet training for youth in honor of Earth Day. Students will use the internet to learn about renewable energy and other environmental concerns, and they will discuss what they learn with French speaking students elsewhere in the world. Contact Francois Atchina, Tel: 224 21 62 76, Email: robert_disney@yahoo.com
KUWAIT: To celebrate Earth Day 2001, Environment Public Authority (EPA) will coordinate various creative activities for school children, including drawing, painting, a poster exhibition and poetry recitals. Contact Dr Mohammad Al-Sarawi, Tel: 965 482 0580, Email: sarawi@epa.org.kw,
SOUTH AFRICA: Earthlife Africa and other South African NGOs will lodge a petition in honor of Earth Day 2001, appealing to the government of South Africa to abandon its nuclear power program and make a formal commitment to alternative energy as a lead-up to hosting Earth Summit 111 in 2002. Contact Richard Worthington, Tel: 011 339 3662, Email: richardw@earthlife.org.za
RUSSIA: CAEI is holding a creative action this weekend that aims to draw local students and children into the anti-nuclear movement. The action will include theater festivals, drawing competitions, the making of a quilt entitled "Children for a Nuclear Free Future" and many other activities. Contact Olga Pitsunova, Tel: 845 2 79 86 05, Email: volga@wildfield.ru
ARGENTINA: This weekend in Villa Elisa, there will be environmental film viewings and talks by local authorities, as well as bike rallies and guided tours. The events are being organized by Asociacion Vecinal ProSaneamiento Ambiental, Comite de Cuencas, Proyecto Cultural MACA, Centro de Fomento del Barrio San Jorge, and the local Parque Ecologico. Contact Elisa Araujo, Email: earaujo@ba.net
CANADA: This weekend, an Earth Day Celebration of the diverse community in Mile-End will feature 5,000 square feet of presentations by local groups showing viable solutions for the greening of our environment. The event, which will be coordinated by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Eco-Quartier Mile-End, will also feature activities and workshops for children and grown-ups, a community bazaar, live music, and a stage full of bustling talent. Contact Yves Poirier, Tel: 1 514 812 3476, Email: yves@mileend.org, Website:
GERMANY: In honor of Earth Day, Freiburger Bundnis Tag der Erde is holding an exhibition of special projects that will highlight a "World Map of Non-violence," which is a map illustrating 150 successful events of the 20th century (including the falls of dictators and prevented wars). Tag der Erde hopes that groups, schools, and individuals viewing the map will create a "World Map of Hope" themselves. Contact Birgit Birgit, Tel: 49 71 281956, Email: birgitberg@bigfoot.de
IMPORTANT CORRECTION: Send digital photos of your Earth Day event to photo@asap21.org for inclusion in the online Earth Day Photo Gallery. We referred to an incorrect email address in our last bulletin.
For more details of the many other Earth Day events and actions happening across the planet,
please visit www.earthday.net/dir/event.asp
Millions of people all over the planet are taking simultaneous action in honor of Earth Day 2001 to preserve, honor and defend their environment.
We look forward to hearing how you have celebrated Earth Day 2001. If you have not already done so, please register your Earth Day plans online at http://www.earthday.net or email them to us at worldwide@earthday.net.
Thank you for being part of the Earth Day Network.
For the Earth,
Earth Day Network Worldwide Team: Serryn Janson
Vickery J. Prongay
Helen Couture Rodriguez
Sierra James
Leigh-Anne Havemann
Earth Day Network
811 First Avenue, Suite 454 Seattle, WA 98104 USA
Tel: + 1.206.876.2002 Fax: + 1.206.876.2015
worldwide@earthday.net http://www.earthday.net
4/27/01
1:17:45 PM
EcoNet News
This Week's Headlines and Alerts from EcoNet
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/enindex.html
EcoNet Alerts: April 27, 2001
Toxic Texan to Scuttle Clinton Roadless Area Protections
In a stunning blow to wilderness protection in the United States, the Toxic Texan (aka President Bush) is moving to scuttle protection of America's last roadless national forests. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988324049/index_html
FDA Will Not Require Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods
The FDA has proposed new rules that would NOT require genetically engineered (GE) food to be labeled as such. The rules would also continue to allow these foods to be sold without any required safety testing. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988324356/index_html
Letters Needed to Protect California's Imperiled Species
Developers in California are pushing the California Legislature to eliminate the strongest protections available for imperiled species under State law. California Condors, Bighorn Sheep, and dozens of other species need your help to stop this rollback in its tracks. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988326710/index_html
Three Gorges Dam Protesters Arrested
[Amnesty International has] recently received reports that four farmers protesting the Three Gorges Dam have been arbitrarily detained and possibly tortured. The men attempted to complain to government officials about the embezzlement of funds that were to be used to resettle people affected by the Dam. Please write to the Chinese government to express your concern that these men were detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression and that they be released immediately. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988327296/index_html
Papua New Guinea Logging Ban Must Stay
The final decision regarding whether the PNG Government, World Bank and Australia will sell out Papua New Guinea's rainforests to predatory logging is being determined RIGHT NOW! Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988327461/index_html
BC Grizzly Hunt Moratorium in Danger
Gordon Campbell and the Liberals have promised to overturn the BC grizzly hunt moratorium once they are in power. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988327659/index_html
NRDC Earth Actions: Arsenic, Mining, National Monuments
1. ARSENIC IN DRINKING WATER **URGENT UPDATE**: Tell the EPA not to delay the new arsenic-in-drinking-water standard -- official comments due May 7!
2. MINING POLLUTION: Tell the Bush administration to protect our public lands from mining pollution
3. NATIONAL MONUMENTS: Urge Gale Norton to uphold protections for our national monuments Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988328147/index_html
Cove/Mallard Update
The Cove/Mallard Coalition is undergoing a transition, with Wild Rockies Earth First! taking over the role of using direct action to protect the integrity of the largest intact ecosystem in the lower 48 states. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/988335203/index_html
EcoNet Headlines: April 27, 2001
Japan's Insatiable Appetite for Timber Imports
Japan is the largest importer of timber in the World. Japan has just 2 percent of the world's population but imports 33 percent of internationally traded wood products. This level of wasteful and excessive consumption marks Japan as the World's greatest contributor to global deforestation. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988335665/index_html
Shell Plans to Exploit Pakistani Wildlife Haven
Shell, and the military Government of Pakistan, will today face a legal challenge in a Karachi court over plans to explore for gas in the country's oldest national park. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988335895/index_html
World's Largest Mangrove Forest in Great Danger
The destruction of the world's largest mangrove forest continues even as environmental experts and state officials warn against the dire consequences of its loss. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988336060/index_html
Greenhouse Gases Main Reason for Quicker Northern Winter Warming
Greenhouse gases are the main reason why the northern hemisphere is warming quicker during winter-time months than the rest of the world, according to new computer climate model results by NASA scientists. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988336304/index_html
Appeals Court Throws Out Mining Restrictions
A federal appeals court has overturned a ruling barring coal mining companies from dumping mining debris into most streams and rivers. The ruling, based on who has jurisdiction over state mining rules, is a major setback for opponents of a technique known as mountaintop removal mining. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988337017/index_html
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund Launches New Web Site
Earthjustice, the nation's premier public interest environmental law organization, announced today the launching of its new web site,
www.earthjustice.org.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988337275/index_html
GREEN: County Challenges ESA on Constitutional Grounds
Okanagan County, WA, is expected to file a lawsuit "in the next two weeks" challenging the constitutionality of restricting "state-granted water rights in the name of salmon recovery." Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/988337622/index_html
4/27/01
1:08:19 PM
Fetus Don't Fail Us Now
By Scott Shuger
The WP and NYT lead with the House's approval yesterday of a bill that would make it a federal crime to harm a fetus while committing another federal crime against a pregnant woman. USAT stuffs that, leading instead with a report, based on unnamed inside sources, that defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld will soon seek something like 10%-15% more in money for the Pentagon over the next six years than current plans call for. The paper says that Rumsfeld's wish list includes more money for satellites and unmanned aircraft and for more B-2 stealth bombers, while retiring older bombers and de-emphasizing the role of ground troops, while contracting out to private companies many non-war-fighting activities like maintenance, supply and accounting. The LAT fronts the House fetus bill but leads with criticism from California government officials and energy experts of Wednesday's federally ordered power cost caps for the state. According to the paper, the day-after consensus is that the scheme is so flawed that power prices there will continue going up, because the caps don't apply at all unless the power supply is officially deemed dangerously low, nor to rates charged by power vendors based outside California, and only loosely to brokers.
The coverage reminds that the House bill, which passed handily, is identical to one that passed there in 1999 only to stall out in the Senate while facing a veto threat from Bill Clinton, but that now with the change of administrations, the president would sign it. Advocates say it would help combat a growing trend of assault on pregnant women while opponents depict the bill (which explicitly does not apply to abortions) as the first step in an incremental campaign to erode abortion rights by incorporating into the law the concept that a fetus has rights. The papers say yesterday's floor debate was particularly emotional. Both Times see no chance that it will pass the Senate any time soon. The papers completely overlook one question that gets at whether or not the bill is purely a means to the end of overthrowing abortion rights: What sorts of anti-women activities are federal crimes and what percentage of crimes against women do they constitute?
For a few days, stories on the Peru missionary shootdown have been quoting U.S. officials' descriptions of tapes of the incident, and it has emerged that U.S. personnel on board a nearby surveillance plane expressed doubts that the missionaries' aircraft was a drug runner. USAT is apparently the first paper to actually hear the tapes and today, it top-fronts its finding that three CIA crewmembers on that U.S. plane "repeatedly questioned" the assessment of the suspect plane and then "tried in vain" to stop the Peruvian jet from shooting. The story says that one of the CIA crew can be heard screaming, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"
The WP reports that in the mid-1980s, a United Nations agency made shooting down any civilian plane not engaged in a military attack a violation of international law, but that the U.S. never signed on because some members of Congress and other officials worried it could be construed as an admission that the United States was subject to the International Court of Justice. Both the NYT and WP front the new Japanese prime minister's selection of a cabinet, both emphasizing how conspicuously his choices depart from traditional Japanese political mores in that he selected a record five women and several men in their early forties, and that to do so he had to leave some powerful political factions unrepresented. The LAT continues to seem out of synch with its city by again stuffing the day's Japan politics story--on Page 12.
The WP and LAT both front pictures of ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey at the press conference he gave yesterday in response to a mounting controversy over a 1969 Vietnam raid he led and received a Bronze Star for, but which he this week admitted resulted in the deaths not of Vietcong but of a dozen or more civilians. The WP goes high with Kerrey saying he doesn't care if the military takes away his Bronze Star. The story also reports that Kerrey conceded that the civilians' bodies were found grouped together in the village center in a manner suggestive of an execution rather than a firefight. The Post reports that it tried without success to find out who wrote the Bronze Star citation crediting Kerrey's SEAL team with killing 21 Vietcong, and that Kerrey said yesterday his superiors knew civilians had been killed but he could not remember if he had mentioned those deaths in his report. The LAT says Kerrey says he gave his superiors the information orally. The WSJ op-ed page has John McCain weighing in on behalf of McCain, explaining that war is corrupting and that readers "should be careful not to form your judgment of [Kerrey] on your understanding of what constitutes a war hero." McCain also writes that Kerrey "would be the first to agree that his conduct, no matter how unintentional, did not merit commendation." (Well, actually he wasn't the first.) The LAT story emphasizes that the Pentagon said yesterday an investigation into Kerrey's medal might be launched if it appeared based on a false report. The papers report that during the press conference, Kerrey said he wouldn't be running for president in 2004.
USAT and the NYT report that Timothy McVeigh has, in a letter sent to a Fox News reporter, admitted considering, before deciding to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building, assassinating Janet Reno, a federal judge, or an FBI sharpshooter.
The NYT features an editorial that's a perfect specimen of the genre's slippery slopes. It addresses an important topic--humanitarian organizations' efforts to free Sudanese slaves by purchasing them. The editorial says redemption "may be expanding the very market it seeks to eliminate," and that it "may be a textbook case of good intentions gone awry" and that such efforts "are bound to fail unless Washington is prepared to lead a concerted international campaign to end the war itself." But the reader is never told whether slaves should be freed through purchase or not. Even the headline--"Redemption of Sudanese Slaves"--gives no clue.
Back for a beat to an overlooked aspect of that CIA tape of the Peru shootdown: That tape is unquestionably classified. If the tape instead had on it CIA officers ordering a resistant Peruvian pilot to shoot down the missionaries' plane, how many years and how many Freedom of Information Act requests would it have taken before any paper would have gotten to hear it? In other words, the USAT story is a reminder that classification rules only matter when the government wants them to.
4/27/01
1:04:43 PM
Sabotage at Three Mile Island?
Investigators suspected sabotage at Three Mile Island
There is evidence to suggest that sabotage played a role in the "accident" at Three Mile Island. (This publication details only the evidence that has been documented by official government or NRC investigations.) Several days before the emergency, an unannounced NRC inspection of the plant's physical protection discovered access control infractions. Previous announced inspections found TMI to be in compliance with regulations. At the time of the accident, Three Mile Island was not required to enforce the then new "two-man rule." The two-man rule was designed to prevent a worker from being alone in vital areas. Additionally, TMI had not met the deadline for other newly required security upgrades.
In the first moments of the accident, emergency feedwater was prevented from entering the system because the "emergency feedwater valves" were closed. Indicator lights on a control room panel should have alerted the operators that these valves were closed. The two lights were hidden from view by a maintenance tag that was covering them. The valves are supposed to stay open so that emergency pumps can deliver water to the steam generators if the normal circulation is interrupted. The steam generators remove enormous amounts of heat from the reactor. Without feedwater, the steam generators boiled dry within two minutes. The temperature and pressure soared inside the reactor vessel.
The licensee's internal investigation did not consider intentional closure. The NRC Office of Inspection and Enforcement reasoned that it would take a monumental effort to interview each of the more than 750 people who had access to the emergency feedwater valves. The NRC claimed its investigators from the Office of Inspection and Enforcement were sensitive to any evidence of sabotage. But there is some disturbing and eye-opening evidence that wasn't criminally investigated. In fact, the NRC never even discovered the initiating event.
THE INITIAL PROBLEM
The accident started at exactly 4:00:37am on March 28, 1979. This was precisely to the minute of the one year anniversary of start-up or what is known as criticality. This aroused suspicions of worker celebrations involving drinking. The workers testified that they had their normal coffee and doughnuts only.
The trouble started somewhere in the condensate polisher system. Some unknown event caused the polisher outlet valves to close. There are several ways that a saboteur could have made this happen without being detected by plant telemetry or subsequent investigations.
The NRC Office of Investigation and Enforcement hypothesized that the initial failure was a result of a stuck-open check valve allowing water to pass into an instrument control air line and thereby cause the condensate polisher outlet valves to close. The investigators tried to duplicate this condition to test their theory. Despite pouring 15 gallons of water into this line, they could not cause the valves to shut. But, this remained the best guess as to what the first failure might have been. Because the NRC believed that the accident could have been averted at several points if human errors weren't committed, they were satisfied with not knowing the initiating event. Still, the investigators did conclude, "The problems encountered with the condensate system and condenser vacuum significantly detracted the operator's attention from the accident."
Then in the first seconds of the accident, a condensate polisher pump failure was followed by the immediate shutdown of its paired pump. The NRC investigators reported that a "wiring error" caused this second pump to quit when the first one had. A criminal investigator never assumes that an error is "only an error."
A broken air line in the condensate polisher system was ignored by NRC investigators who believed that air was prevented from leaking out by the actuation of another automatic valve. But, at least one worker testified that he had heard the broken line blowing air during the emergency. The licensee claimed that the air line was broken by a water hammer which caused equipment to shift two or three feet. (A water hammer is a sudden pressure change or a slug of water like the one that can rattle your household pipes when turning off a water faucet.) The NRC investigators reported that based on their visual inspection, the air line movement was not as great as the licensee claimed. The cause was never determined or considered necessary.
An hour into the accident, workers needed to re-establish water circulation by opening a bypass valve. The handwheel was missing from this important valve. A search for the handwheel delayed bypassing the condensate polisher system where the failed pumps were located.
The radiological releases began when a safety valve on top of the reactor failed to close. This valve opened to relieve the rapidly increasing pressure. Control room operators did not know that the Pilot Operated Relief Valve (PORV) was still open because the telemetry system was improperly engineered. The operators were fooled by a panel light which only indicated that an electrical signal had been sent to close the valve and not its actual status. Thousands of gallons of water in the form of steam spilled out of the reactor in what is known as a loss of coolant accident. For a short while the contamination was contained inside the reactor building. Although these valves had failed before at other plants, the PORV at Three Mile Island has yet to be inspected. A TMI engineer who believes that the valve simply failed said that sabotage could not be dismissed.
(Eighteen months before the TMI accident, the reactor at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio started going out of control in what was actually a precursor to the Three Mile Island emergency. The PORV stuck open and operators struggled to understand the situation. Another design problem caused confusion about the water level inside the reactor. This problem reoccurred at TMI since both reactors were designed by Babcock & Wilcox. Davis-Besse was operating at only 9 percent compared to 97 percent at TMI when the troubles began. The Davis-Besse operators were able to return the plant to a safe condition. Afterwards, an investigation of the reactor revealed that an electrical relay had been removed from the PORV. Someone suggested sabotage. The reactor manufacturer finally decided that the relay was probably "borrowed" for usage in another part of the plant since it was compatible with several systems.)
The highly radioactive water steaming out of the TMI reactor would normally be pumped into an immense holding tank inside the reactor building. For some unknown reason the valve for this sump pump had been switched so that the contaminated water was transferred into the auxiliary building. From here the radioactivity was released to the environs through open vents.
INADEQUATE INVESTIGATION
In June 1979, an NRC special review group conceded that the NRC investigators of the TMI accident had "no training in investigative techniques or knowledge of the laws of evidence or criminal procedures." The NRC investigators did not have the authority to administer oaths and felt that the quality of the information they had obtained would have been enhanced if oaths were given. The NRC actually did have the authority to administer oaths and didn't appear to know this until after the interviews were conducted.
The report also said:
".... a trained investigator should have been dispatched with the initial response team to organize and retain portions of the supportive evidence (notes, logs, etc.) which were lost during the initial days of the accident."
Additionally, the review group found that the NRC investigation was hindered by the delay of receiving transcripts of worker interviews
(Also noteworthy is that the control room alarm printer fell behind by almost two hours. The printer was designed to store alarms in its memory until they can be printed. So many alarms were going off in the early stages of the emergency that the control room operators had to dump the stored alarms to get to the current ones. The information was forever lost.)
A technical investigator for the President's Commission on the accident questioned the adequacy and efforts of the Office of Inspection and Enforcement. Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators had not even arrived at the plant until two weeks had passed. He also questioned the licensee's internal investigation.
The President's Commission obtained an internal TMI memo which had been written ten months before the accident. It said, "It's time to really do something on this problem before a very serious accident occurs. If the polishers take themselves off line at any high power level the resulting damage could be very significant."
The Chief Counsel for the President's Commission requested the licensee to examine its personnel files for "any person who might have long-standing grievances against the company." This was requested specifically as an attempt to discover workers who might have had incentive to close the emergency feedwater valves. Interrogation of the five workers who were identified by the company was considered.
On August 7, 1979 the President's Commission requested the FBI to determine the feasibility of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the closed valves. The President's Commission had the authority to ask for assistance from any Executive agency and by vote had decided that the FBI was needed. But, the FBI went right back to the NRC which informed them that human errors and equipment failures were to blame for the accident; therefore, an investigation was not necessary.
An encrypted telegram sent by the FBI to the White House Situation Room around April 6, 1979 informed the President that sabotage was not responsible for the accident according to the NRC's Harold Denton. There was no reasonable way for Denton to have drawn this conclusion. The telegram which is now in the National Archives is labeled "encrypted for transmission purposes only." Portions of it are blacked-out even though it has been unclassified.
On August 15, 1979 the President's Commission asked NASA to perform an inspection of the condensate polisher system. Three Mile Island did not even have the "as built" technical drawings needed for a proper inspection. How could the NRC inspectors have done a thorough job without these? The fact was that they didn't. Investigators from NASA's Office of Flight Assurance found wires that were disconnected at five of the eight polisher panels. Operating and engineering personnel didn't know when or why they were disconnected. They also noted that an instrument air valve on the back of the polishing system control panel permits the air to be shut off and thus cause the outlet valves to close. Paul Leventhal, co-director of the US Senate investigation of the Three Mile Island accident (now director of The Nuclear Control Institute), wanted to perform a special sabotage investigation. "The initiating event was always so mysterious in that so little was known about it," Leventhal divulged in an interview. "I wanted to hire someone like a former FBI agent to do an investigation but the Minority co-director objected."
Just four days into the accident, the FBI had already announced that sabotage was ruled out and the investigation was closed. Maybe they were trying to quiet the fears of the public which had just seen the new film "The China Syndrome." (Some people actually wrote to the NRC accusing Hollywood of a sick publicity stunt.) In actuality, the FBI was planning to meet with confidential sources who believed that sabotage was to blame. An openly public source was Pennsylvania State Representative Joseph Zeller.
Both the Senate and President's Commission investigations were called off the hunt and instructed that a criminal investigation was not their responsibility. It is not entirely unusual for a valve or switch to be in the wrong position, but this many "errors" should have been investigated for criminal activity.
Soon after the emergency, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory concluded:
"There was very little protection against insider sabotage. ...There was very little or no control of the whereabouts of people inside the vital area; so it cannot be said that sabotage to the auxiliary feedwater system was impossible." and
"...some vital area doors that should have been locked or guarded were found to be open and unguarded. Actually, there was very poor protection against the sabotage actions of the insider." and
"The conclusion can be drawn that the protection against the activities of an insider is still inadequate at TMI..." And an embarrassing incident did happen several months after the TMI accident when a newspaper reporter was hired as a security guard. He told of entering the control room unchallenged (only armed guards were permitted access). There was no lock on the door and a piece of clothesline hung where the doorknob should have been. A college textbook used this incident as an example of poor security. The book cited the reporter's headline -- "Three Mile Island: It's a Paradise Island for the Saboteur." General Public Utilities sought an injunction to block publication of the article on the grounds that it could compromise national security.
http://www.tmia.com/tmisab.html
4/27/01
1:01:59 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
BOVINE HORMONE WHISTLEBLOWERS HONORED
PR Watch
-- On April 23 Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, the Tampa journalists who took on the Fox Network in a legal suit over censorship of their investigative report which cast doubts on the safety of the bovine growth hormone rBGH, were announced as the winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
INSIDE-OUT AND UPSIDE-DOWN: AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNE BRADEN
by June Rostan, Colorlines
-- One of the South's renowned freedom fighters, Anne Braden, talks to Colorlines about her participation in the civil rights movement and her vision of the future.
CRACK WARS: CASH-FOR-BIRTH-CONTROL PROGRAM COMES TO BALTIMORE
by Brennen Jensen, Baltimore City Paper Online
-- The controversial CRACK program which offers drug addicts money for long-term birth control methods such as sterilization arrives in Baltimore where it's accused of being "inherently coercive and unethical, even racist."
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
4/27/01
12:58:05 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
CHERNOBYL VICTIMS NEED FINANCIAL HELP
NEW YORK, New York, April 26, 2001 (ENS) - United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on the international community to "do far more" to help those still living with the after effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which happened 15 years ago today.
About 1,800 cases of thyroid cancer in children who were exposed at the time of the accident are among those effects. So too is the psychological trauma felt by millions of people who lived near Chernobyl who have been relocated, lost social ties and fear radiation.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-10.html
TURKEY'S GEDIZ DELTA LEFT OUT OF PROTECTIVE GRANT
By Jon Gorvett
ISTANBUL, Turkey, April 26, 2001 (ENS) - Turkish government officials have announced a $2 million World Bank grant to help conserve four of the country's top ecological protected areas. Yet, at the same time there are warnings of eco-catastrophe for the Gediz River Delta, one of Turkey's most important nature reserves.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-01.html
CHILDREN MOST AT RISK FROM DEPLETED URANIUM
GENEVA, Switzerland, April 26, 2001 (ENS) - The World Health Organization (WHO) today published research on depleted uranium, including guidelines on how to deal with the substance's impact on human health.
Weapons made with depleted uranium pierce solid objects, like tanks, before erupting in a burning cloud of vapor. The vapor settles as dust, which is chemically poisonous and radioactive.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-11.html
DIESEL SCHOOL BUSES COULD BE HEADED FOR JUNKYARDS
WASHINGTON, DC, April 26, 2001(ENS) - Diesel buses, a familiar part of many childrens' school days, could become an endangered species, if a coalition of lawmakers and clean air advocates has its way. After decades of warnings about the health risks posed by diesel exhaust, the coalition launched a national campaign today to phase out diesel school buses.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-06.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 26, 2001
Bush Administration Takes Backwards Approach to Floods
Ventura Marsh Milk-Vetch Finally Wins Protection
Telecommuting Promoted to Reduce Air Pollution
Biotech Protesters Descend on FDA
U.S., Norway, Russia Meet on Arctic Environmental Cooperation
Tortugas Ecological Reserve Approved in State Waters
Nature Conservancy Protects Top Target on Clinch River
Udall Introduces James Peak Wilderness Protection Bill
Restoration Project Launched on Ten Mile River
Could Minnesota Forestry Save the Siberian Tiger?
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-26-09.html
4/27/01
12:55:23 PM
The Earth's Core Acts as an Electric Dynamo
By Larry Wright (ECTV)
<wright@iinet.com>
The internal heat engine within the planet Earth is only part of the equation. How much of this internal heat is caused by gravitational pressure and how much is caused by electrical energy? There are mega voltages of electric current flowing within the planet. Where there is electrical current there is heat caused by resistance. The greater the electrical current the more resistance and the more heat.
The core of the Earth acts as an electric dynamo and generates electrical currents that flow within the planet between the positive and negative poles. This is the source of Earth's magnetic field. This natural dynamo within the core is moving faster than the exterior of the planet at a relatively constant speed. The electrical current generated by this motion must therefore be fairly constant. The heat generated by this electric current must also be relativity constant. However, there are other sources of electrical energy that can be absorbed by the planet and add to and increase these internal voltages. One source would be electromagnetic induction caused by disturbances and movement of nearby magnetic fields. Another source is charged particle bombardments interacting with the atmosphere and magnetic field of the Earth. Both of these additional electrical sources can be directly linked to disturbances in the sun.
It's obvious to me that increased solar activity causes greater electrical current flow within the planet. This additional electrical current causes more heat and turns up Earth's internal heat engine. The more heat the greater the magma convection current flow. The greater the magma flow the more heat is transferred from the interior to the exterior of the planet. This then causes increased volcanic and earthquake activity as well as global weather changes and the melting of glaciers and polar ice.
I think that past and present climate changes and fluctuations can be attributed to cycles of solar activity of a greater or lessor degree. When solar activity increases we have global warming. During periods of extended solar decreases we have ice ages.
Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
4/27/01
12:47:58 PM
- World Resources Institute critical to FAO forest assessment
A new study by the World Resources Institute of the UN Food and Agriculture's (FAO) latest assessment of the world's forests reports that deforestation may not be slowing down and may have even increased in the tropics.
"FAO's own data show that the loss of natural forests in the tropics continues to be rapid," said Emily Matthews, author of the new WRI study, Understanding the Forest Resources Assessment 2000. "For FAO to say that global deforestation is slowing down is misleading given the differences in the regional and subregional conditions of the world's forests."
Deforestation rates have increased in tropical Africa, remained constant in Central America, and declined only slightly in tropical Asia and South America. The WRI report, which was endorsed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), points out that understanding the true rate of deforestation is made more confusing because FAO's "net rate of change" measures the combined change in natural forest area and plantation area. During the 1990s, an average of 3 million hectares of new plantations were planted globally each year, and FAO counts these as offsetting natural forest loss.
If new plantations are excluded from consideration, it appears that natural forests in the tropics are being lost at the rate of nearly 16 million hectares a year. "The extent of tropical deforestation appears to be higher in all tropical regions except Latin America," says Matthews. "More tropical forests were lost in the 1990s than the 1980s."
The full WRI report is available at
http://www.wri.org/wri/forests/pdf/fra2000.pdf
Article based on information from: WRI study reports deforestation may be higher than FAO estimates, Washington, 12/3/01
http://www.wri.org/wri/press/fao_fra5.html
4/27/01
12:47:32 PM
OCEANIA
- Tonga: The underlying causes of forest loss
The Kingdom of Tonga is located in the central south-west portion of the Pacific Ocean. Its territory comprises more than 175 islands, with a total of about 750 square kilometres of land, inhabited nowadays by about 100,000 people residing in 166 villages on 43 islands. The climate of Tonga is sub-tropical. It has an annual temperature range of 17 - 30ºC, with annual rainfall of approximately 2,700mm.
It can be reasonably assumed that Tonga was at some past time completely covered by forests, which according to studies performed in today's remnant forest areas, were very diverse in species. Remaining natural forests are confined to small areas, typically on land with physical constraints that preclude human use. The largest portion of natural forest is found on the steep east coast of 'Eua. Other remnants are scattered throughout the country, on several relatively remote islands of difficult access --like Kao, Tofua and Late-- in mangrove swamps, and a few small remaining segments elsewhere in Vava'u and Tongatapu.
A study carried out in the country identified two primary and interconnected causes for the serious deforestation and forest degradation process: population growth and monetarisation of the economy. Ecological and spatial restrictions would be the reason for the effect of population growth (from about 20,000 inhabitants in 1891 to 100,000 in 1996) on the forests. Nonetheless, the effects of population pressure have been accelerated and further exacerbated by economic change, and its impact on patterns of land-use. The most important overall economic change has been the transition of Tonga from a non-monetary economy --based primarily on subsistence agriculture-- to a monetary economy, with a wider and more commercial economic base. The entrance of Tonga into the globalized economy started about fifty years ago, and nowadays, with the registered demand for cash, the economic transition can be considered complete.
As the interaction between Tonga --which had been a rather isolated country-- and the outside world increased, so did the risks of the intensification of pressure on natural resources, forests included. In fact, from 1980 to 1992 the level of exports tripled. Since agriculture based on monocrops --especially aimed at the Japanese market-- accounts for 75% or more of export earnings it is not surprising that the advance in the agricultural frontier has provoked the loss of forest lands.
Article based on information from: "Deforestation and Forest Degradation in the Kingdom of Tonga", Denis Wolff, Tonga Community Development Trust The full study is available at:
http://wrm.org.uy/deforestation/Oceania/Tonga.html
4/27/01
12:47:04 PM
- Ecuador: Call for action to stop oil pipeline
The Ecuadorian government has signed a contract with the company Oleoductos de Crudos Pesados (OCP) to build a pipeline that will cross the country from east to west, through the three geographical regions that form its territory. It will affect fragile areas of great importance from an ecological and agricultural point of view.
The 500 km long pipeline will transport low quality crude oil. Most of this oil will come from an oil block situated within the Yasuni National Park, which has not yet been leased for exploitation. This constitutes the last pristine area in the Park, which is the most important of continental Ecuador, and the home of the Huaorani indigenous people. There is also the risk that the oil frontier will reach the Amazonian territories of southern Ecuador, still relatively unaltered, where the Quichua, Shuar and Achuar indigenous people live.
OCP Ecuador is a consortium formed by Agip, Alberta, Kerr Mc Gee, Occidental, YPF, Perez Companc and Techint. The works would be carried out by the Argentinian company Techint, whose environmental record is abysmal. The total cost will exceed U$S 1,100 million, but according to local sources this cost is overvaluated, taking into account that the cost for the same oil pipeline was estimated in U$S 400 in 1999. In the long run, the difference in cost will be paid by the Ecuadorian people.
The route of the pipeline was approved before an environmental impact assessment was carried out, which is a legal requirement under the Environmental Management Law. The National Constitution establishes that prior to such kind of works a consultation among affected people needs to be performed, which did not take place in this case. After the approval of the project, the consultancy firm ENTRIX was given only two months to produce an environmental impact assessment, which is obviously insufficient taking into account that the 500 km pipeline will pass through extremely complex ecosystems.
Given that the pipeline will cross the entire country from east to west, it will also cross all the geological fault systems affecting Ecuador, which contains at least 94 faults. Several active volcanoes are in the way of the projected route of the pipeline, among which the Reventador, Antisana, the volcanic complex of Chacama, Guagua Pichincha and Pululahua. The Guagua Pichincha is of particular concern given that it erupted recently. A violent eruption would mean that the pipeline would be exposed to ashes, landslides and lava flows.
The pipeline would be built on vulnerable and prone to erosion soils, in regions of heavy rainfall where landslides frequently occur. Part of the pipeline would pass through an area with a high concentration of schools, which would endanger the most vulnerable part of the population: the children.
The pipeline would also pass through other fragile and ecologically important areas and would in fact cross all the country's ecosystems, including the sources of creeks and rivers, high quality agricultural zones, areas composed of unstable and seismically active land, primary tropical forests, etc. Almost 40 villages would be affected by the project.
The projected route would pass through the valley of Mindo, considered by many ornithologists to be the World's Bird Capital because of it being the area with the highest bird concentration per unit in South America. The pipeline would destroy important wildlife corridors, affecting the local fauna. Local people's livelihoods depend on cattle raising and tourism and both activities would be seriously affected by both the construction and the future functioning of the pipeline. The pipeline would also cross other protected areas and forests which prevent erosion processes in the foothills of the Andes.
The proximity to Colombia implies an additional risk, since more than 760 attacks have been carried out against pipelines in that country during the past 10 years. Since Ecuador is participating in the Plan Colombia and given that violence in that country is increasing, the new pipeline could become an important military target. In fact, during the past year the Trans Ecuadorian Pipeline System (SOTE) has already been the target of four attacks.
The consequences of inadequately planned pipelines are already well known in Ecuador. Such is the case of SOTE, built by Texaco 30 years ago, which has collapsed several times, provoking the loss of human lives.
Accion Ecologica has for several years been promoting a moratorium to the expansion of oil exploitation in the tropics and is now urging all those individuals and organizations who believe that the Amazon must survive to support the campaign against the construction of this pipeline and against the expansion of oil exploitation to the last primary forests in the Ecuadorian Amazon. If you wish to support this campaign, please address a letter to the Ministry of Energy and Mines (eiaocp@andinanet.net) with copy to: amazonia@hoy.net
By: Accion Ecologica. E-mail: amazonia@hoy.net
4/27/01
12:46:15 PM
Chile: Tree monocultures threaten unique forest type
The fragmentation of habitats resulting from human activities --among which industrial tree plantations-- provokes restrictions in the supply of resources and the spacial needs of animal and plant species, which can even lead to the extinction of entire ecosystems. Once landscape structure has been altered the persistence of both plant and animal populations is menaced.
The central and southern regions of Chile have been and are being extensively planted with fast-growing tree monocultures. These regions gather in their temperate forests the highest diversity and endemism in the country. Plantations' present area is estimated in some 2.5 million hectares, with Monterrey pine (Pinus radiata) representing 80% of the total. A study carried out by the government agency CONAF in 1997 already showed that the annual deforestation rate during the 1985-1994 period had been of 36,700 hectares and that almost 40% of such area was destroyed to clear land for industrial tree plantations.
Additionally to the social conflicts that such development has generated, several studies since the decade of 1980 point out that changes in the landscape provoked by plantations have caused negative effects on the environment, included the affection of the habitats of native species. Independent research coincides in stating that the degree of perturbation caused by plantations of P. radiata is high. Ecological alterations have sometimes affected the plantations themselves as happened during outbreaks of defoliating insects and rodents registered in plantations in Chile.
A research published by a group of researchers of the Universidad de Chile and the Carleton University of Canada analyses the deforestation and fragmentation of the ruil forest (Nothofagus alessandri), a temperate and endemic formation restricted to 100 km of the coastal range of Central Chile, in association with Nothofagus glauca, Nothofagus obliqua and other species. The ruil forest area was estimated as comprising 825 hectares in 1981, but had shrunk to 352 hectares in 1991, mainly due to the expansion of plantations of Monterrey pine. The remnants of the ruil forest now have the configuration of an archipelago --composed of several small, regular fragments and few large, irregular ones, relatively isolated-- and surrounded by a matrix of pine plantations. Despite being a unique and severely threatened ecosystem, only 45 hectares of the ruil forest are under protection in the Chilean System of Protected Areas, and such protection --even without taking into account that the area is insufficient considering the present state of the ruil forest-- is not actually implemented.
The research considers that the situation is critical, since the effects of deforestation and fragmentation imply, in the short term, the loss of species and that of this unique ecosystem: "The ruil forest as an ecosystem is heading toward extinction. If the current rate of deforestation remains unabated, even ignoring deleterious effects other than area reduction, the ruil forest as a recognizable biome will disappear within the next decade due to the extinction of many species associated with this forest", expresses the document.
Additionally, Monterey pine presents further threats to the ruil forest: it is an invasive species intruding on the fragments of ruil forest; due to its higher ability to obtain water, it could outcompete native trees; Monterey pine is also fire-prone and since the ruil forest is embedded in a pine matrix, any fire in plantations may obliterate the ruil remnants.
The authors conclude that land use in central Chile is not sustainable. "Sustainability implies economical, ecological and socio-cultural issues. Even when pine plantations may offer a profitable economical income (under current market interests), this benefit is reached at the expense of socio-cultural and ecological aspects. From a socio-cultural point of view, extensive forest plantations increase poverty and unemployment as plantations demand low workforce. The increasing local unemployment has triggered the emigration of peasants (Lara & Veblen 1993, Unda et al. 1997). Furthermore, the loss of native forest because of an inappropriate management is considered by local people to be one of the main environmental problems of the region (Hajek et al. 1990). From an ecological point of view, land management is definitively unsustainable. We have no evidence that Monterey pine is degrading the land where it is planted, but as discussed above, this exotic species is the main reason for ruil forest loss and fragmentation, and ultimately for its current endangered status."
Article based on information from: "Landscape Ecology, Deforestation, And Forest Fragmentation: The Case Of The Ruil Forest In Chile." by Audrey A. Grez, Ramiro O. Bustamante, Javier A. Simonetti and Lenore Fahrig
http://www.brocku.ca/epi/lebk/grez.html
4/27/01
12:45:11 PM
SOUTH AMERICA
- Argentina: Monoculture tree plantations impact on grassland bird populations
In Argentina, the invasion of tree monocultures is destroying the country's grassland-related biodiversity. Subsidised by the government with backing from the World Bank, plantations are expanding in the eastern Provinces of Misiones, Corrientes and Entre Rios, while significant areas are also being planted in the Provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Cuyo, Chaco and Patagonia. According to unofficial figures, the plantation area in Argentina has increased five fold from 1995 to 2000, and continues growing. The Argentinian authorities are keeping in line with neighbouring Chile and Uruguay, ignoring the social and environmental impacts that this plantation model is generating in those countries.
A study recently published by the ornithological association "Aves Argentinas" (Argentinian Birds), reveals that "the increase of plantations promoted through State subsidies has provoked a reduction in the populations of endangered bird species in the eco-region Los Campos, located in the northeast of the country". Many crucial areas for the conservation of bird species are being converted to large-scale pine and eucalyptus monocultures, which constitute a uniform and food-poor habitat for birds. Some of the grassland habitats of endemic bird species in the Argentinian Mesopotamia (a region located between the Parana and Uruguay rivers), are disappearing. The area of Los Campos is dominated by subtropical herbaceous vegetation, transitional between the savannah of the Chaco, the grasslands of the Pampa and the Atlantic Forest. It is a biodiversity rich environment where grasses, subtropical forests, riverine forest and wetlands coexist. It is the richest area in the country concerning the number of grassland bird species, of which more than ten are considered in danger of extinction at the global level, for example the ochre-breasted pipit (Anthus nattereri), the safron-cowled blackbird (Xanthopsar flavus), four species of seadeaters (Sporophila sp.) and the strange-tailed tyrant (Alectrurus risora).
The survey carried out in the area reveals that the destruction of the grassland natural habitats in the area of Los Campos and their substitution by eucalyptus and pine plantations has led to the loss of bird populations. Other practices related to afforestation --like the elimination of wetlands and the use of pesticides-- are resulting in further impacts to local bird populations. The study thus proves that large-scale tree plantations in grassland ecosystems have similar negative impacts on biodiversity as those implemented in forest areas, and that the larger the scale the more widespread are the impacts.
Article based on information from: Carlos U. Leoni, 8/4/2001, e-mail: focal@infovia.com.ar
4/27/01
12:44:44 PM
NORTH AMERICA
Accusations at logging giant Boise Cascade during its annual meeting
The US-based Boise Cascade has been practising unsustainable logging both in Southern and Northern countries, including the US itself. One of the most outstanding conflicts in which the company was involved is that of the community forests ("ejidos") of the Sierra of Petatlan in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, that resulted in the detention and prosecution of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, two peasants who organized resistance against Boise Cascade (see WRM Bulletins 26, 35 and 38).
Boise Cascade has also been criticized in Chile, where it has been the seventh largest importer of old growth wood from that country, thus affecting unique temperate forests. As a result of strong resistance from local communities and environmentalists, the company recently announced it would abandon the country. Boise Cascade is actively logging old growth forests in the USA, and in central Canada, serving also as a prime distributor of wood from British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest, where a logging ban has recently been declared.
The company's annual meeting that took place last March in Idaho was the scenario for criticism towards its environmental performance. The meeting was totally unusual, because it focused on the questions posed by members and supporters of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) on the negative environmental performance of the corporation. Enrique Rodriguez, a member of the Association of Peasant Environmentalists of the Sierra of Petatlan, blamed Boise Cascade for destroying forest land in Mexico and for the arrest of activists Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera, who are still in prison. As a means of trying to avoid the issues raised by the environmentalists, a company spokesperson accused RAN of not being "a serious-minded environmental organization", defining the organization as "a group of reckless, lawless radical activists who lash out at modern society."
Outside the meeting room, RAN supporters marched from a rally at the Idaho Capitol to Boise Cascade's headquarters, chanting and waving signs. A huge banner was displayed denouncing the company's "dinosaur" logging methods. Patricia Vera, international coordinator of Defenders of the Chilean Forests, present at the protest, asked that the company put in writing its plans to terminate a proposed logging venture in the temperate rainforests of her country.
One thing is certain: this year, Boise Cascade's shareholders, employees and journalists were not bored at the annual meeting and perhaps, maybe, they will have gone home with some questions in their minds.
Article based on information from: "Protesters criticize Boise Cascade's actions. Activists draw caustic response from spokesman" by Beth Bow
4/27/01
12:44:22 PM
CENTRAL AMERICA
- Honduras: World Bank involvement in mangrove destruction
Industrial shrimp farming is a main cause for the loss of mangroves in the tropics. Even though private companies are the direct agents of such destruction it is important to highlight that governments and multilateral development agencies play a very active role in paving the way for this to happen.
The expansion of the "San Bernardo Marine Farms" (SBMF) shrimp company in the Gulf of Fonseca in Honduras is provoking grave concern. In June 1999 the International Finance Corporation (IFC) --private sector branch of the World Bank-- granted a U$S 6 million dollar loan to SBMF, where U.S. investors hold majority shares. The justification for the loan was apparently to "reactivate the shrimp production and recover from the damages caused by Hurricane Mitch". Such arguments do not seem to be very solid. On the one hand, it makes little sense with regard to the prevention against natural catastrophes --such as hurricanes-- to support an activity that implies the destruction of mangroves which, among other valuable functions, act as a natural barrier for the protection of the coastline. On the other hand, the infrastructures of the company had not been severely affected by this climatic phenomenon and thus the new funds are being used by the company to expand its operations, causing further negative environmental impacts on neighbouring wetlands and on the livelihoods of local fishing communities.
As a result of the struggle of local fisherfolk and supporting organizations to protect the local ecosystems and to stop shrimp farming development, the area was declared a Ramsar site at the end of 1999. However, neither that nor the World Bank's own environmental guidelines were taken into account by the IFC. As a result, the IFC itself now shares responsibility for the social conflict and environmental destruction that are resulting from the investment. Recently members of the local community who implemented an action to cut the access roads to the SBMF shrimp farm were subject to a savage repression by the national police. Additionally, the Environmental Impact Assessment carried out to obtain the environmental license to expand shrimp farming operations is under severe questioning.
The World Bank Group --to which the IFC belongs-- has a number of guidelines regarding environmental protection. In spite of that, the IFC appears to chose to ignore them when providing funds to this investment. Will the World Bank do something to make the IFC comply with its own rules?
Article based on information from: Late Friday News, March 2001, e-mail: mangroveap@olympus.net ; CODEFFAGOLF, 27/3/2001, e-mail: cgolf@sdnhon.org.hn
4/27/01
12:43:53 PM
Vietnam: Carbon sink plantations to avoid emission reductions in Australia
During the intergovernmental negotiations on climate change (COP-6) at the Hague last November, the Australian government sided with the US, Japan and Canada in refusing to negotiate reductions of its own carbon emissions. Five months later, the Australian government announced five projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Predictably enough, the projects, which are funded through the government's International Greenhouse Partnerships (IGP) Programme, are not aimed at reducing Australia's emissions, but are to be carried out in Peru, Fiji, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Launched in May 1998, and working from within the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, the IGP Programme aims "to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through projects overseas" that will in future be considered as carbon off-set projects under the Kyoto protocol.
Announcing the projects, Nick Minchin, the Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Resources, said "Not only will the projects be addressing global climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they will be helping to develop Australia's expertise in clean, green technologies through sound, commercially viable projects."
One of the IGP Programme projects will establish fast-growing tree plantations in Vietnam. The US$242,000 project is to be carried out by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) with the Research Centre for Forest Tree Improvement of Vietnam. According to Minchin, CSIRO "will increase the carbon dioxide uptake of planted forests [sic] in Vietnam through the use of genetically improved planting stock."
CSIRO will supply acacia and eucalyptus seeds --the favoured trees of the pulp and paper industry-- and will establish four seedling orchards, each covering five hectares, two in Quang Tri province in central Vietnam and two in Binh Thuan province in the south. Seedlings from these orchards will be planted over a total area of 8,250 hectares on a range of sites in Vietnam.
CSIRO estimates that the plantations will remove "an extra 21,500 tonnes of CO2" from the atmosphere per year compared to other tree plantations. The calculation is based on a 15 per cent increase in volume growth, which CSIRO expects from using improved tree seeds. Recent research published in the journals "Nature" and "Science", however, indicates that forests are much better than plantations at absorbing carbon dioxide (see WRM bulletin 39). Yet, the publicly available information on the IGP project makes no mention of any attempts to compare the amount of carbon stored in natural forests to that stored in plantations.
CSIRO also anticipates developing predictive models for "other major plantation species", and argues that "such a capability will assist in the successful growth of plantations, enabling higher yields from the forests [sic] planted and greater carbon sequestration in the longer term." Even assuming plantations are useful in absorbing carbon dioxide, the logic is flawed -- higher yield plantations make no difference if the trees are cut after five years to produce short-lived commodities like woodchips, pulp and paper.
Elsewhere in Vietnam, private investors are finding it difficult to find enough land for their tree plantations. For example, the US$14 million Japanese-funded Quy Nhon Forest Plantation in Binh Dinh province aims to plant 13,000 hectares of acacia and eucalyptus plantations to produce wood chips for export to Japan. So far, in the seven years since the project was licensed, the company has received only around 8,000 hectares of land. "The land problem is increasing the risks for projects in plantations," Hironobu Ohara, the director of the project told the Vietnam Investment Review.
According to a recent article in the Thai newspaper, the Nation, the Vietnamese government stated that any carbon sequestration plantation projects in Vietnam must include support for communities that would be affected by the plantations. No such support is mentioned in the publicly available information on the IGP plantation project in Vietnam.
CSIRO receives 75 per cent of its funding from the Australian government, and is explicit about where its loyalty ultimately lies. In the organisation's own words: "CSIRO's primary functions are to assist Australian industry, contribute to Australia's national objectives and facilitate the application of the results of research."
The message is clear: the Australian government will not negotiate reductions in Australian carbon emissions, but CSIRO will "assist Australian industry" through planting eucalyptus and acacia trees in Vietnam -- supposedly to absorb those emissions.
Further information on this project should be available from IGP (e-mail: igp.office@isr.gov.au) and CSIRO (e-mail: stephen.midgley@ffp.csiro.au).
By: Chris Lang. E-mail: chrislang@t-online.de
4/27/01
12:43:25 PM
Thailand: A step forward in the resolution of a conflict
A conflict exists in Northern Thailand between certain groups of highland and lowland people over the use of natural resources. Many lowlanders accuse some highland minority groups of affecting their water supplies as a result of unsustainable agricultural practices which lead to deforestation, which itself is said to decrease water supply and increase sedimentation of watercourses due to soil erosion. The solution put forward: removal of the minority groups from the area. This being obviously unacceptable to the latter, the conflict has persisted for several years.
With the aim of achieving equitable solutions to the problem, a number of organizations --including the World Rainforest Movement -- organized an international symposium in March in Chiang Mai. Participants included international experts in watershed management and protected areas, as well as representatives from the Royal Forestry Department, government officials, academics, conservationists and local peoples organizations. Once the symposium was over, the participants were able to visit one area in which conflict has occurred and to hear the viewpoints of both highland and the lowland people.
The main achievement of the meeting was to open up a space for discussion of the different viewpoints and to bring to the debate experiences from other countries as well as the results of new research. The symposium concluded that the problem was not as simple as it had first appeared to be to some lowland groups and that therefore the solution could not be a simplistic one.
>From the visit to the conflict area we reached the following conclusions:
1) Soil erosion in the mountain area does constitute a major problem for downstream water users, but the major cause of erosion appears not to be deforestation but a badly- built road system.
2) Part of the problem in mountain areas has been the forced resettlement of peoples who used to carry out sustainable shifting agriculture practices but are now confined to carrying out permanent cultivation, which does entail some environmental impacts.
3) Water usage, particularly by lowlanders, has dramatically increased as a result of the expansion of cash crop cultivation and large-scale fruit orchards for export in the lowlands. The water shortages experienced by downstream users during the past years are to a large extent attributable to this increased lowland agricultural use.
4) A number of dams have been built along the lower reaches of the river tributary system in question and many irrigation canals divert the water, which has an impact on water supplies in downstream areas.
What is thus clear is that even if the hill people were removed from their homes, this unfair solution would not solve the problem. It is therefore necessary to continue efforts to bring people together and to facilitate a process for the achievement of true and equitable solutions to an issue which is creating problems to both lowlanders and highlanders. We sincerely hope that the recently held international symposium will mean a step forward in that direction.
By: WRM International Secretariat
4/27/01
12:42:56 PM
India: Reports of Forest Department involvement in violence against the Adivasi people
The Adivasi indigenous people have lived in India since time immemorial. Today they constitute an ethnic minority referred to pejoratively as "tribals". These people, even though being descendents of the original inhabitants of India, over the course of time, have been pushed aside to more marginal areas, sloping areas, and forestland. Only some decades ago the Adivasi still lived in slavery, without any political or civil rights, obliged to work in the factories owned by the Indian and European people. Nowadays their territorial rights continue to be ignored. Moreover they are victims of violence and all kinds of abuses to expel them from the forests they inhabit.
Local communities report that during March and April 2001 the police and members of the Van Suraksha Samities (Forest Protection Committees) attacked a group of unarmed Adivasi people in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. The aggression resulted in the deaths of four unarmed villagers.
This is not the first case reported in Madhya Pradesh regarding these sorts of human rights violations against indigenous forest peoples. On 23 September 1999, forest officials fired on the village of Kadudiya causing the death of adivasi Roopsingh Bhilala. There have been reports of numerous cases since the middle of March 2001 in which forest officials, police and armed teams of the Special Armed Force (SAF) have attacked Adivasi villages, demolished homes, looted property and assaulted people including women. Among the atrocities committed to the detriment of the Adivasi there have also been reported cases of kidnapping and contamination of food and water with herbicides. Despite a large peaceful protest on 29 May 2000, the Dewas administration has failed to act on complaints about such abuses. No judicial inquiries have been established and local people continue to suffer further repression. Additionally, no compensation has been granted to the affected villagers and their families.
Local villagers and activists in Dewas refute the allegations made by the authorities that they are armed and incite people to violence. They also reject any allegations that they are involved in harmful illegal timber extraction. As a matter of fact the recent atrocities are a consequence of their resistance to the predatory and corrupt practices of some Forest Department officials that allegedly practice illegal timber extraction on a commercial scale. Local activists point out that they have encouraged local people not to pay bribes to forestry officials for the right to continue with their customary livelihood activities. Activists claim that the recent violent campaign by local officials is a direct backlash against their opposition to the corrupt forest administration and the repressive practices of the newly formed Forest Protection Committees that have been formed under Joint Forest Management schemes established in recent years, with the support of the various organizations, including the World Bank.
Article based on information from: Tom Griffiths, Forest Peoples Programme, 18/4/2001, e-mail: tom@fppwrm.gn.apc.org;
http://www.rfb.it/icc99/adivasi.htm
http://www.caritas.org.nz/Update/sept2000/update24land.htm
4/27/01
12:42:09 PM
ASIA
- China: Exporting deforestation and promoting tree monocultures
The growth of the Chinese economy, measured in conventional economy terms, is astonishing: its National Gross Product jumped to U$$ 4 trillion, which represents a 22-fold increase of its value in 1978. Whether this phenomenon can be considered a success for China and the region is doubtful since, on the one hand, it has been accompanied by important environmental problems in the country itself --among which the loss of significant areas of the country's forests and the expansion of tree monocultures-- and, on the other hand, it has led to deforestation in other countries of the region in order to satisfy the increasing demand for wood of its domestic market.
To face deforestation and subsequent soil erosion, the Chinese government put in place in 1998 a logging ban in 12 provinces, which was extended to 18 in 2000. As a result, national timber production decreased 97% from 1997 to 2000. But wood consumption increased and is currently leading to deforestation in neighbouring countries.
On of those such cases is Burma, where the town of Pianma, located 1,500 miles southwest of Beijing on the far edge of Yunnan province, is currently one of China's gateways into the forests of northern Burma. A massive, unregulated and largely unnoticed timber trade had been depleting the ancient tropical forests of the region. It intensified in 1998 after the above-mentioned logging ban. More than 350,000 cubic metres move through Pianma alone each year. Large amounts also come into China from Burma at towns farther south along the border, like Tengchong, Yingjiang, Zhangfeng, Ruili and Wanding. A Malaysian timber firm is building a bridge across the Salween River, 60 miles north of Pianma near Fugong, to bring in still more logs. According to official statistics, Burma supplies almost 10% of China's imports (740,000 cubic metres) but trustworthy estimations consider that the real volume is twice that high. In Burma, forest cover has dropped from 21% of the country's area in 1949 to less than 7% nowadays. The military dictatorship that rules the country since 1962 has paved the way to transnational logging companies that are devastating the forests and local peoples' livelihoods.
Unfortunately, Burma is one of several examples of deforestation linked to China's economic growth. Imports of Russian softwood logs have also considerably increased over the past two years and Russia now accounts for 42% of all logs that enter China.
Preparations for China's entry into the World Trade Organization have also sparked a further increase in timber imports. In a move for a more open trading system, tariffs on forestry products have fallen drastically, and in many places along China's borders, no tariffs are charged for logs. China's imports of logs have grown from less than 5 million cubic metres in 1998, to more than 10 million in 1999, and to some 15 million in 2000. The country has become the world's second largest importer of wood.
Within such context, the logging ban appears to be but a way of diverting the burden of China's economic growth to other countries. At the same time, the measure is leading to a dramatic increase in monoculture tree plantations within the country.
"As China gets richer, it's natural that it will consume more wood" stated recently a World Bank official. Is that the only answer? Is not the problem more based on the adoption by China of a development model based on a consumption style which results in unsustainable use of internal and external resources?
In the 1940s, India's Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a supporter how long it would be before India was as rich as England. Gandhi's response was: "if it took half of the world to make England as rich as it is, how many worlds will it take to make India that rich?" Is not the same applicable to China?
Article based on information from: EnviroNews Service, 6/3/2001, e-mail: newsdesk@envirolink.org; Glen Barry, 26/3/2001, e-mail: gbarry@forests.org
4/27/01
12:31:20 PM
South Africa: Quo vadis FSC?
Certification of monoculture timber plantations as "sustainably managed forests" by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) makes an absolute mockery of the concept of sustainable environment and ecosystem management.
In recent years vast tracts of industrial tree plantations in South Africa and many other countries, have been given the FSC stamp of approval.
How can this be possible? The natural vegetation in the areas where these plantations have been established was originally highly bio-diverse grassland or woodland. After conversion to plantations, these areas stand little chance, if any, of being able to revert to the natural climax vegetation type. The environment is subjected to a terrifying range of harmful impacts, starting with the construction of primitive roads and ending with huge, computerised mechanical harvesters compacting the soil, thereby destroying its function.
In between these environmentally catastrophic events, the land and its rightful inhabitants are subjected to an extensive suite of chemical, physical, biological and demographic alterations to their natural state. This all as part of the process that is imposed to meet the demands of first world greed for wood-fibre products:
1.- As a first step, the natural vegetation is either bulldozed or killed with herbicides to prevent competition with alien plantation trees for water, light and nutrients.
2.- Alien tree saplings are artificially fertilised to speed up their rate of establishment and other unnatural chemicals that absorb moisture are added to the soil to prevent the young plants from drying out.
3.- Spills of herbicides, insecticides, diesel fuel, engine oil and other human trash enter the natural environment without invitation.
4.- Alien invasive plants carried as seeds on vehicle tyres and worker's boots become established in the vacuum created by the destruction of the natural groundcover.
5.- Plantation contractors do not normally provide appropriate toilet facilities for their workers. Human faeces are deposited in the field, leading to pollution of streams, rivers and lakes with bacteria such as that which causes cholera. The recent cholera outbreak in the eastern region of South Africa could well have originated from this source.
6.- Contract workers are poorly paid and have little choice but to build makeshift homes within areas of natural forest near the plantation sites where they work, causing substantial ecological damage in the process.
7.- Animals and birds that are disturbed by the plantation establishment activities either flee the area or are hunted and snared as food for the contract workers.
8.- Local people who would have had access to the area if plantations had not been established, could have used the area to graze their cattle and sheep, harvest thatch grass for roofing their homes, and collect food and medicinal plants for their own limited use. They are now deprived of this resource and are forced to move into previously undisturbed areas in search of these commodities. This often leads to conflict with the management of protected natural areas.
9.- Surface water in the vicinity of new plantations is soon depleted and is usually only evident during the rainy season. People have to turn to the use of boreholes and wells that often are saline, or polluted with bacteria from pit toilets.
10.- Timber plantation contract workers are commonly unmarried men from other parts of the country and to a large extent from neighbouring countries. This can often lead to the problem of women in local communities being sexually harassed. Outcomes of this situation include unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and destroyed relationships. There is a high likelihood that the increasing incidence of HIV infection in the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) can be attributed in part to the employment practices of the timber plantation industry.
11.- Contract workers add a new dimension to local health care needs. Those that are recruited from remote rural parts of neighbouring states can be carriers of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. Coincidentally both these diseases have been increasing proportionately during the period that industrial timber plantations have been expanding (over the last 15 to 20 years).
12.- The loss of beneficial soil organisms in timber plantations has been well documented. Monocultures are inherently prone to the rapid spread of pathogens. Natural buffers that are present in bio-diverse ecosystems cannot be replicated in the timber monoculture environment.
13.- The establishment of timber plantations upsets the natural balance of species. These plantations create barriers that disrupt the normal migration and breeding patterns of birds, animals and insects.
14.- Community food security is one of the first victims of timber plantations. Areas used traditionally for growing fruit and vegetables become too dry or are shaded out when plantations are established too close to the fertile areas along streams and rivers. The remaining residents are left in a position where they have to use their limited financial resources (usually state pensions) to buy processed food from trading stores.
15.- Transport systems, especially roads, are subjected to high levels of usage for which they were not designed. The cost of upgrading or maintaining rural roads is usually borne by the state, which means that the timber industry benefits from an indirect subsidy.
16.- Negative effects on non-timber neighbouring farms are numerous. In much the same way as genetically engineered food crops will pollute fields of nearby non-GMO or organic crops, there are off-site impacts that undermine the economic viability of other farmers. These include an increase in alien invasive plants, loss of ground water, increased crime and poaching and the disruption of normal pasture management by burning, due to the risk of fire spreading to the timber plantations,
Large-scale timber plantations destroy whole ecosystems and rural economies. For some strange reason this calamity is virtually ignored by governments and research institutions. The onus should be on an organisation like FSC to insist that thorough, impartial research is conducted before certification can be considered.
In place of the natural landscape is a new visage dominated by fake forests. Fake not only in that their owners pretend that they can substitute meaningfully for the real thing, but truly fake in terms of how their economic benefits are exaggerated and inflated at the local level.
There is no doubt that a consumer commodity like paper, or pressboard, has great value in modern society. What is not acceptable is that the rate of consumption of paper products is increasing whilst the living standards of poor communities where the timber is produced do not. The growth of the throwaway culture of so-called developed countries has a direct correlation to the eroding natural environment, and standards of living in the countries that have been colonised by the tree plantations of the multinational corporations concerned.
The FSC must take a large share of the responsibility for this social and environmental injustice.
Plantations are not forests !!!
By: Wally Menne, member of the TIMBERWATCH Coalition. E-mail:
plantnet@iafrica.com
4/27/01
12:30:43 PM
- Liberia: Forest destruction backed by the government
Liberia hosts the last two significant blocks of the remaining closed canopy tropical rainforest within what is known as the upper Guinea Forests of West Africa, which spans Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The original extent of tropical rainforest in the upper Guinea forest is estimated at 727,900km2, but has shrunk to about 92,797km2, which represents only 12.7% of its original size. Liberian forests account for 44.5% of the remaining 92,797km2 followed by Cote d'Ivoire with 29.1%. This region holds a rich biodiversity, with over 2000 species of plants of which 240 are valuable timber species (see WRM Bulletin 44).
In the case of Liberia, the deforestation process is the result of the greed of international logging companies that invaded the country in the last decade, coupled with the attitude of the Liberian government that promotes their activities. Almost every significant national forest land, including areas previously designated as national parks or forest reserves, has been granted as concessions to logging companies, while those yet not granted are being encroached upon by various other companies. Monitoring and regulation by the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) exist only on paper. Logging operations have reached an unprecedented proportion, with approximately 60% of the country's forests now severely degraded. The country's biodiversity and the livelihoods of rural communities are further threatened, because deforestation has effectively separated the northern/northwestern and eastern/southeastern portions of the rainforest.
In January 2000 the government announced it was cancelling all concession agreements and that only applications for concessions of more than 300,000 acres would be granted. While the FDA insisted that this new measure was aimed at maximizing national income and promoting the sustainable utilization of the forest, it is now apparent that the actual motive was to grant larger concessions to few foreign giant logging companies. This is proven by the fact that areas seized from smaller companies were immediately redistributed amongst giant companies.
Even though there is very little difference in the modus operandi of the logging companies, the case of Oriental Timber Company (OTC) is paradigmatic (see WRM Bulletin 30). In the 1990s, during the Liberian civil war, a Dutch businessman --Mr. Gus van Kouwenhaven, known in the official circles as "Gus" and closely connected to Charles Taylor, who would become President of the country-- succeeded in acquiring several concessions in southeastern Liberia, --a significant portion of the forest block stretching from Grand Bassa through River Cess and into Sinoe County. Even though the agreement was kept in secret, the concession's present size is estimated to range between 900,000 hectares and 1.44 million hectares. In 1999 a Malaysian company registered in Liberia as the Oriental Timber Company (OTC) and --surprisingly enough-- had "Gus" as its president. In addition to its logging operations, OTC manages the port of Buchanan and upgraded the road connecting the ports of Buchanan and Greenville, originally constructed by "Gus" during the Liberian war to transport logs.
The OTC agreement has been and still is subject of much speculation and criticism. Ownership of the OTC is yet somewhat uncertain, and while some believe that the Indonesian Djan Djanti Group is the OTC's parent company in Asia, others point at the Hong Kong-based Global Star Group.
No environmental impact assessment was ever carried out regarding its logging activities. Clearcutting is practised in vast areas using more than 140 assorted caterpillars/bulldozers and about 75 trailers which work seven days a week, day and night, each trailer making at least two daily trips to the port of Buchanan to deliver logs. Given the speed at which OTC operates, a realistic estimate of log extraction can be put within the range of 2500 - 3000m3 of logs/day, or 75,000m3 - 90,000m3/month. These practices are in flagrant violation of established FDA regulations.
All OTC production is exported as round logs. According to OTC Director Joseph Wong, the company exports some 60,000-70,000 m3 per month to southeast Asia to supply its plywood factories. This comes to 720,000-840,000 m3 per year. The excess production is sold in the port of Buchanan to buyers mostly for export to Europe --France and Spain being the most frequently cited.
As usually happens, the arrival of OTC to the region was trumpeted as something positive because it would result in the creation of thousands of new jobs and in the building of roads, hospitals and schools to assist rural dwellers. Nevertheless, residents of rural communities where OTC operates complain of numerous abuses, among which the destruction of houses, crops and sacred forests belonging to local communities. At the same time, local dwellers have in several instances been subjected to harassment, intimidation and even unlawful detention by officers of the OTC's militia. Some 600 Asian labourers (mostly from the Indonesian island of Sumatra) have been imported and were all given free work permits. All skilled jobs are operated by Asians with reportedly few going to Liberians. Only unskilled jobs at the port, or spotters and chainsaw operators in the forest are reserved for Liberians.
All the above proves that OTC and the Liberian government are close partners and this partnership is enhanced by the controversial Strategic Commodity Act, whereby the President can declare any of the country's natural resources --from forests to mines-- as a "strategic commodity". He has the sole power to execute, negotiate and conclude all commercial contracts or agreements with any foreign or domestic investors for the exploitation of any of those commodities. In one of the most high profile incidences, President Taylor dismissed Grand Bassa county's Superintendent when he criticized the OTC and threatened to arrest its top management for failing to respond to complaints against the company by locals. In another incident, the president granted the OTC permission to log 114,935 hectares of forest which had been designated to be used by the University of Liberia for scientific studies and research purposes only.
The result of this de facto "joint-venture" between the private and the public sector is apparent: it is OTC and a reduced group of officials who win, while Liberian forests and people continue to loose.
Article based on information from: "Living Dangerously. An Assessment of Multinationals in Liberia Logging Industry (August 2000-January 2001)" by The Agenda for Global Trade Project (AGTP) & Save my future (SAMFU) Foundation, February 2001. Sent by: Ronnie Siakor, 1/3/2001, e-mail: samfu1@yahoo.com ; Investigative Report on Oriental Timber Corporation:
http://www.theperspective.org/otc.html
4/27/01
12:30:04 PM
Kenya: Pollution and deforestation caused by Pan African Paper Mills
The large-scale monoculture pulpwood plantation model being implemented in the South not only results in negative social and environmental impacts in the forest areas, but has also additional impacts from pollution resulting from the industrial process