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  • From: Gary Gallon <cibe@web.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Gallon Environment Letter, International
  • Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 11:53:18 -0300

THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER
Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment
506 Victoria Ave., Montreal, Quebec H3Y 2R5
Ph. (514) 369 0230, Fax (514) 369 3282
Email cibe@web.net
Vol. 3, No. 13, May 11, 1999

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INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL
**************************************************************************

ENVIRONMENTAL OPPORTUNITIES WILL GROW
SAYS NEW REPORT BY THE ASPEN INSTITUTE

Environmental opportunities will increasingly drive strategic
business planning, in corporations around the world, according
to a report released February 2, 1999, by the Aspen Institute.
The report entitled, "Uncovering Value Integrating
Environmental and Financial Performance", was prepared
by a diverse group of corporate, financial, governmental
and environmental officers who paid particular attention
to how financial institutions can value, or fail to value,
corporate activities and revenue generating functions
with integrated environmental planning. See the report
at Website
<http://www.aspeninst.org/dir/polpro/eee/ny/index.html>http://www.aspeninst.
org/dir/polpro/eee/ny/index.html

*********************************************************************

USE THE U.S. EPA DATABASE ON TOXICS

The ECOTOXicology database is a source for locating single chemical
toxicity data for aquatic life, terrestrial plants and wildlife. ECOTOX
integrates three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office
of Research and Development (ORD), National Health and Environmental
Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL), MidContinent Ecology Division,
toxicology effects databases; AQUIRE (aquatic life), PHYTOTOX
(terrestrial plants), and TERRETOX (terrestrial wildlife)."

ECOTOX was developed at the U.S. EPA, MED Duluth and
is a comprehensive computerbased system that provides
chemical specific toxicity values for aquatic life, terrestrial
plants, and terrestrial wildlife. This database is useful
in developing consistent ecosystem management decisions
within EPA and other Federal, state, local, tribal and
international governmental agencies. ECOTOX provides the
means to costeffectively collect standardized and critically
needed effects data for a wide variety of ecological risk
assessments. ECOTOX is a Unixbased system located at the U.S.
EPA National Computer Center. The database can be accessed
via a telnet connection, but access is restricted to
government offices. The AQUIRE component of ECOTOX is
accessible through a web search page. The webversion of AQUIRE
is open to the public without restriction. MEDDuluth plans on
releasing a version of the entire ECOTOX database on the world
wide web by January 2000. Website
<http://www.epa.gov/ecotox>http://www.epa.gov/ecotox/

*******************************************************************

ATTEND CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN
WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Second Annual Earth Technologies Forum, the pre eminent
conference and exhibition on global climate change and ozone protection
technologies and policies, will be held from the 27th to the 29th September
1999, at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. Delegates
from North America, Europe, Asia and other regions are attending
this high level meeting. The Conference is sponsored by the International
Climate Change Partnership (ICCP), the Alliance for Responsible
Atmospheric Policy and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, in
cooperation with the US Environmental Protection Agency, the UN
Environment Programme, Environment Canada and several other industry
groups, governmental entities and international government bodies.
Key issues include emissions trading, credit for early action to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and voluntary programmes to reduce emissions.
The participants will also discuss issues such as the Clean Development
Mechanism, technology transfer, inventories of gases and longterm objectives.
Technology sessions will focus on transportation, buildings, energy
efficiency,
energy supply, manufacturing, agriculture, forests and electricity
generation.

A call for papers is available upon request. For further information, please
call Ms Erika Fischer at +17038074052 or fax +17032432874. You
may also check the Forum´s website at
<http://www.earthforum.com/>http://www.earthforum.com

**********************************************************************

$750,000 GOLDMAN ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL
ENVIRONMENT AWARDS

The International Goldman Environmental Prize is a project of
the Goldman Environmental Foundation, established in 1989 by
civic leaders Richard N. and the late Rhoda H. Goldman. Richard
Goldman is Chairman of Goldman Insurance Services, an independent
insurance brokerage firm based in San Francisco. Rhoda Goldman
was a descendant of Levi Strauss levis. In April 1999, $750,000
Goldman provided US$750,000 in prize money to seven outstanding
local environmentalists from around the world, at a at the Tenth
Annual Awards ceremonies held in San Francisco. Each of the
winners received an award of US $125,000.

Among this year's winners are Jacqui Katona and Yvonne Margarula,
two Aboriginal women from Australia, who have led a massive
national campaign to prevent mining of Jabiluka, one of the world's
largest uranium deposits. From Burma, the award was presented to
Ka Hsaw Wa, a young man from the Karen ethnic minority who has
undergone torture and risked death in opposition to the environmental
and human rights policies of the Burma military government. Fleeing
Rangoon, he went to live in the forests near the Thai border, where
he discovered extensive abuses taking place in the regions inhabited
by Burmese. From Canada is Bernard Martin, a fourth generation
fisherman who advocated reduced fishing quotas after seeing first hand
how the factory trawlers were decimating the onceabundant species
of the Grand Banks cod fishery. Martin co founded the Organization
for the Revitalization of Communities and Ecosystems.

Applications are not accepted for the Goldman Environmental
Prize. Nominations from each continent are submitted anonymously
by a network of 21 environmental organizations worldwide and a
confidential panel of experts representing nearly 50 nations. For more
information, you can visit The Goldman Environmental Prize web site
at <http://167.160.244.135/>http://167.160.244.135/. Three of the winners
this
year were
nominated by the Sierra Club. If you know of someone we should
consider nominating for the 2000 prize, (the deadline is July 15)
please send an email to stephen.mills@sierraclub.org.

***********************************************************************

U.S. REPUBLICANS AND CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS
AGAIN TRY TO WEAKEN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

In an unusual move, the Republicans are attempting to attach
"riders" to reduce environmental protection to the current "FY
1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill", that
would provide financial assistance to victims of hurricanes in
Central America and the Caribbean and the earthquake in Colombia,
as well as funding for U.S. military personnel in Kosovo. President
Clinton is being urged by environmental groups in the U.S. to veto
a relief bill that they would otherwise support. Their opposition is
only because the bill is full of non related riders that would affect
domestic environmental protection measures.

The antienvironmental riders include one introduced by Alaska Republican
Senator Frank Murkowski that would open Glacier Bay National Park
to commercial fishing, including waters designated as wilderness by
the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Another rider
would delay implementation of an oil valuation rule by the Minerals
Management Service (MMS) to make the largest oil companies pay
all the royalties that could be assessed for the oil they extract
from public lands until October 1999. The 40 biggest oil companies,
out of the 800 total oil producers, sell royalties to their own
subsidiaries at false low prices, and pay royalties on the much
lower inaccurate amounts. The new MMS would rectify the accounting
abuse. The MMS would provide that the large oil companies must use
prices that reflect true market value. The MMS delay would cost
US $66$100 million a year. Source Public Interest Research Group,
29 Temple Place, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, ph. 617 + 292 + 4800
See website <http://www.pirg.org/>http://www.pirg.org/

***************************************************************

ANOTHER RIDER ON THE U.S. HUMANITARIAN BILL WOULD
DELAY MINE TAILINGS CLEAN UP

Another antienvironmental rider was introduced by Senator
Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who holds the powerful position
of Democratic Whip. It would prevent the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) from issuing final hardrock mining regulations
until four months after the release of a National Academy of Sciences
study, which will not be complete until July 31, 1999. The Mining Law
of 1872 allows mineral extraction without payment of royalties, allows
mining companies to purchase public land at very low prices and does
not require that companies clean up abandoned mines. The BLM has
drafted new regulations that would make sure mining companies pay
to clean up their abandoned mines. These regulations would be delayed
by this rider.

There are an estimated half a million abandoned and polluting mine
sites in the United States. Sixtysix are Superfund sites. Senator
Domenici has expressed his intention to attach another anti environmental
rider to the emergency supplemental funding package. According to public
statements from his office, Domenici's rider would attempt to undermine
the critical habitat provisions of the Endangered Species Act. Source,
Environment News Service (ENS), May 7, 1999 (ENS).

***********************************************************************

CANADA'S BOLIDEN MINE TAILINGS SPILL
STILL LEAKING IN SPAIN

SEVILLE, Spain, May 7, 1999 (ENS) Toxic sludge is still leaking
at the rate of 84,000 litres (22,000 gallons) a day from Canada's
Boliden Mines Ltd.'s, Los Frailes mine into the river Guadiamar
upstream from Doñana National Park. This adds to the widespread
residual contamination still affecting the area in Spain's southern
province of Andalucia after the mine's tailings waste pond broke
April 26, 1998.. The Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation
(CHG) was alerted to the new leak by local government workers,
who discovered "a dense whitish foam underneath the pond," and
increased levels of acidity, zinc, copper, manganese and cadmium
in the river. Boliden recently received permission to reopen the mine.

In January, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) reported that the
Boliden project to reopen the mine does not satisfactorily prevent the
risk of a new incident in the area. Jane Madgwick, WWF European
freshwater officer and coordinator of the WWF Doñana Initiative
predicted in January, "Should the Boliden project be approved, the
risks of toxic leaching and a new incident are significant." Last July,
WWF presented a full report to the Spanish authorities, the European
Union, and to the Boliden mining company. It included recommendations
for risk assessment and mine tailings management. To date, Boliden has
not implemented these recommendations. A WWF assessment of the
reopening plan found that Boliden had failed to fully address the
environmental risk factors associated with the tailings lagoon and the
old pit. {Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily,
Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services
Ltd., London. Email envdaily@ends.co.uk} © Environment News Service
(ENS) 1999.

********************************************************************

CUT U.S. GOVERNMENT SPENDING,
REDUCE FORESTRY SUBSIDIES

Taxpayers for Common Sense is a government watchdog group that
works to eliminate subsidies and promote sound fiscal reform. Last
year it started an aggressive campaign to eliminate timber subsidies
that support logging and logging road construction within the National
Forest System. A letter has been prepared by the taxpayers and signed by
professional economists, accountants and business managers. It
reported that there is wasteful use of tax dollars and the poor fiscal
reporting and accountability by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). It
reports that the USFS spends hundreds of millions of tax dollars each
year in support of corporate logging of the national forests.

A General Accounting Office report published in September 1995 found
that the USFS lost U.S. $995.4 million in preparing and administering
timber sales during the 199294 fiscal years. The President's Council of
Economic Advisers report of 1997 states: "Generally, the USFS subsidizes
timber extraction from public lands by collecting less in timber sale
revenues
than it spends on timber program costs. In 1995, for example, the USFS
collected $616 million in timber receipts but spent over $850 million on
timber management, reforestation, construction of logging roads,
payments to States, and other program costs." The taxpayers' groups
urged the elimination of all subsidies for the federal timber program,
including logging road construction and all other logging related costs.

Contact, Jonathan Oppenheimer, Outreach Coordinator, Forest Campaign,
Taxpayers for Common Sense, 651 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Washington,
D.C. 20003, Ph. (202) 546 8500 ext. 132, Fax (202) 546 8511, Email
jonathan@taxpayer.net , Website
<http://www.taxpayer.net/>http://www.taxpayer.net

************************************************************************

LACK OF RUSSIA ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION BEING STUDIED

The Woodrow Wilson Center's Kennan Institute for Advanced
Russia Studies in Washington, D.C. held a special session on
"Russian Environmental NGO Development Activities and
Operating Strategies from the Soviet to PostSoviet Era", on
May 6, 1999. Severe degradation of the Russian environment
under communism helped spark many of the protests that led
to glasnost and the opening of the USSR economy. The many
nations of the old USSR are still suffering from lingering toxics
poisoning of the old centrally planned economy. Russia is still
at least 20 years behind Canada and the other OECD countries
that undertook vigorous efforts to clean up their environment in
the 1970's and 1980's. The conference/workshop was held to assess
the problem and to determine strategies for helping Russia tackle its
lingering severe environmental problems. Speakers at the conference
included Maria Tysiachniouk, Chair, Department of Environmental
Sociology, Center for Independent Social Research, St. Petersburg
State University, Russia, Fulbright Scholar, Ramapo College of
New Jersey, and Vladimir Iakimets, Senior Research Fellow, Institute
for Systems Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow,
and Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center. For conference
results and additional information contact, Joe Dresen at the Woodrow
Wilson Center at email dresenjo@wwic.si.edu

*****************************************************

CHINA'S NEW WEALTH CREATES GROWING DEMAND FOR TURTLES,
TURTLE COLONIES DISAPPEARING THROUGHOUT S.E. ASIA

One of the world's great centers of turtle and tortoise diversity,
Southeast Asia has long teemed with species found nowhere
else in the world. But in recent years, researchers say, this
biological treasure trove has become a gold mine for profiteers
who have been gathering every turtle in sight for sale as food
and medicinals in the turtle markets of China. Biologists say
collectors have made such a clean sweep of turtles in countries
like Vietnam and Laos that it can be impossible to find a single
turtle even in ideal habitats in national parks and remote preserves.
In the regions of Southeast Asia where turtles do persist, biologists
say, they are fast disappearing to satisfy the huge, some say infinite,
demand for turtles in China. Scientists have been reduced to
looking for turtles in China's markets as they say an entire fauna
is being bought, sold and eaten into oblivion. "Southeast Asia is
being vacuumed of its turtles for China's food markets," said Dr.
John Behler, chairman of the freshwater tortoise and turtle specialist
group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
and Natural Resources."The China markets are a black hole for turtles."

Studies of actual export numbers corroborate the anecdotal evidence for
largescale exportation of these turtles. According to reports from
Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring program, more than 240 tons of t
urtles, representing more than 200,000 individual turtles, were leaving
Vietnam each year for sale in China in 1994. By 1996, two to four tons
of turtles were being exported each day from Phnom Penh in Cambodia. A
half hour video of the turtle market is available in the U.S. For a copy
send US $10.00 to William Espenshade/PO Box 26018/Philadelphia,
Pennylvania 19128. Email WHE3@aol.com . Source, New York Times,
"Turtle Trade in China", by Carol Kaesuk Yoon, May 4, 1999.

*********************************************************************

COMPANIES MUST USE PROPER CERTIFICATION FOR TIMBER TO MEET
CONSUMER DEMAND IN EUROPE AND THE U.S.

There are a number of certification schemes for environmentally
sound lumber and pulp wood harvesting practices. Some
certification schemes are effective. But others are a form of
noneffective "greenwash", designed to confuse the consumer
public without creating any serious environmental protection
measures. The Sierra Club of the U.S. is warning the 200 million
U.S. consumers about what it calls a "green scam" being committed
by the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), which
claims its Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program protects
the environment. In fact, "SFI is simply a ruse to confuse American
consumers into supporting AF&PA's environmentally destructive
forestry practices", warns the Sierra Club. "Americans should not
for one minute believe that logging by AF&PA companies is kind
to our forests, or that Sierra Club in any way endorses their practices,"
said Bruce Hamilton, Sierra Club's Conservation Director. "American
consumers have proven their desire to buy products produced in
environmentally friendly ways; in response, AF&PA concocted
this socalled `Sustainable Forestry Initiative' to wrap itself in a
green banner. AF&PA's Sustainable Forestry Initiative is a cynical
green scam that tries to profit off of Americans' concern for the
environment."

"In paid advertising and in press releases, AF&PA has falsely implied
support from Sierra Club. Sierra Club does not endorse the AF&PA
or their Sustainable Forestry Initiative", stated the Sierra Club.
"Although it purports to monitor its members' logging practices
for ‘sustainability,' the SFI program has standards so weak and
vague that any relation between compliance and true sustainability
would be impossible to verify", the Sierra Club further stated.
For more information contact, Melanie Griffin, Sierra Club,
Washington, D.C., ph. 2026756273, or Anne Woiwode, ph.
517 484 2372 Sierra Club USA website at
<http://www.sierraclub.org/>http://www.sierraclub.org

*************************************************************************

SWEDEN'S NATIONAL GOVERNMENT ADOPTS
15 NEW ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES

The National Swedish parliament has approved 15 environmental
goals that it hopes will contribute to the achievement of sustainable
development within one generation as promised by prime minister
Göran Persson in September 1997. The fifteen goals call for the
achievement and maintenance of clean air, unpolluted groundwater,
living lakes and waterways, vibrant water meadows, a sea in balance
and a living coastline, balanced use of fertilisers, absence of
acidification,
living forests, a rich landscape, healthy mountain ecosystems, a good
built environment, a poison free environment, absence of radiation, a
protective ozone layer, and limited climate effects.

The fifteen initiatives represent a boiling down of more than 150
previous policy objectives, and were conceived in parallel with
the new national environmental code, which passed into law in
January 1999. This legislation rolled together Sweden's 15 major
environmental laws and added in the use of the precautionary
principle and the polluter pays principle for contaminated land.
It also incorporated codes that include some recent European Union
(EU) environmental legislation. Detailed work will now start on
fleshing out specific targets relating to each environmental goal,
as well as action programmes and analysis of socioeconomic
impact, so that a final strategy can be put in place by June 2000.

The Swedish Chemical Industries Association broadly welcomed
adoption of the policy, which it described as "negotiable and workable,"
while stressing that much depended on the prioritisation agreed by the
committee and how it was put into practice. The most obvious targets
for early action are thought to include brominated flame retardants and
chlorinated paraffins. The report, published in cooperation with ENDS
Environment Daily, Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email
envdaily@ends.co.uk

********************************************************************

CRUMBLING ENVIRONMENTAL INFRASTRUCTURE HURTS
RIO DE JANIERO'S TOURISM INCOME

Rio de Janiero is a major vacation destination for sun seekers from
around the world. So what happens when you drop raw sewage on
Rio de Janiero's beaches? The vacation bound will search for cleaner
beaches elsewhere in the world. Rio has become dirty. The Brazilian
Government, instead of treating and cleaning its sewage in tertiary
sewage treatment plants, pumps Rio's sewage into the ocean through
a long concrete pipe. Diluted sewage washes back to the beaches.
Worse, Rio de Janeiro suffered a large break in the raw sewage pipeline,
allowing the sewage to emerge right off of its most important beaches.
In particular, the leaks caused raw sewage to be dumped into the ocean
along Ipanema Beach and the Copacabana and Leblon districts. Lack
of investment in environmental protection in Brazil has resulted in major
loss of revenue in tourism income in Rio de Janeiro. Typically, with
crumbling infrastructure like the sewage pipeline, we can soon expect
more decay and breaks in the pipeline. Source, Washington Times,
May 11, 1999. More about tourism in Rio de Janeiro at
website <http://www.123rio.com/>http://www.123rio.com/

********************************************
***************************************************************

$180.90 ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION TO
THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER

Subscribe to "The Gallon Environment Letter". The 8 to 10 page newsletter is
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Make your cheque out to, "Gallon Letter", 506 Victoria Ave., Montreal,
Quebec,
H3Y 2R5.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Copyright (c) 1999 Canadian Institute for
Business and the Environment, Montreal
All rights reserved.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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