permaculture

[Gary Gallon <cibe@web.net>]

                 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
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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

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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/

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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

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$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.

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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/

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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).

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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.

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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

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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 

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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.

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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

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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

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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/  

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