go to WASHINGTON FREE PRESS HOME (subscribe, contacts, archives, latest, etc.)
Nov/Dec 2000 issue (#48)
|
|
Scientists are warning about the disappearance of birds in coffee-growing areas of the western hemisphere. Around 1970 coffee planters developed hybrid trees that grow without the traditional shade from trees. Since then many coffee growers cut down their trees to maximize coffee plantings and profits. But songbirds such as the Baltimore oriole, western tanager and wood thrushes have declined drastically as their cover disappeared, according to Co-Op America News. Now some coffee plantations are planting trees again in an effort to restore the birds' habitat. Shade-grown coffee costs more, but bird conservation groups urge people to buy it to help save the birds.
Computer equipment includes some 1000 materials, many of which are highly toxic, says an article in Enough, published by the Center for A New American Dream (www.newdream.org; 1-877-68dream). The industry has caused groundwater and air contamination and "significant clusters of illness among production workers," says author Ted Smith of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Smith says high tech production wastes water and energy, ignores renewable materials, and is "highly inefficient." Over 315 million computers will become obsolete by 2004 and will be dumped into landfills, where they will leave some one billion pounds of lead, four billion pounds of plastic and hundreds of millions of pounds of other toxic materials," Smith says. "Designers should redesign products for reuse, repair and/or upgradability.... [The industry should] take back its products and support reuse and recycling infrastructure.... This new way of thinking is called Extended Producer Responsibility--e.g. producers must be held financially responsible for manufacturing their product throughout their life cycle, including at the end of life," Smith writes.
(ENS) The Animal Protection Institute recently reviewed the US Fish and Wildlife Service information and found that a majority of national wildlife refuges allow recreational hunting. In fact, the API found that more refuges offer programs for killing animals than for watching them! Visit www.api4animals.org for more information.
(ENS) The United Nations has formed a new body, the World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC), to monitor and assess the health of the planet's species and ecosystems. The agency will help nations create their own biodiversity information systems, enabling them to develop science-based policy and regulations for the environment. A UN environmental spokesman said the Earth's biodiversity is being lost to unsustainable consumption levels in industrialized countries and poverty in developing countries. "Overall, ecosystems and species populations have declined by 30 percent in the past 30 years and the trend is continuing," he said.
(ENS) The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has called on Congress to designate 15 places as new national park areas. The group's "Parks in the 21st Century Initiative" is the largest private push ever to protect, through congressional designation, the nation's natural and cultural heritage areas from destruction and development. Proposed new parks include sites in California, Puerto Rico, Iowa and Arizona. Areas proposed as additions to existing parks are in Hawaii, Colorado, and Idaho. Find out more at: www.npca.org/exploreparks/newparks
The Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services division, an outfit that kills wild animals, usually at the behest of ranchers, killed 87,774 animals in fiscal 1998, according to Predator Conservation Alliance. PCA said the kill included 380 black bears, 2,250 bobcats, 77,997 coyotes, 6,809 red foxes, and 338 mountain lions. PCA (POB 6733, Bozeman, MT, 59771; 406-587-3389; pca@predatorconservation.org; www.predatorconservation.org) urges everyone to write to their Congressional representatives to vote to kill funding for this out-of-control program.
(ENS)-Ten years after the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where a global plan of environmental restoration and sustainable development was devised, another Earth Summit is in the works for 2002, pending a vote by the General Assembly. "It will be the most important world summit at the start of our millennium," said a spokesman. "This is the only way we can achieve the difficult goals necessary to survive on this planet."
Eleven transatlantic and seven trans-Pacific submarine fiber-optic cable projects are now under way in U.S. waters, and they threaten marine life, according to Marine Conservation News, published by the Center for Marine Conservation. One of the projects was approved for the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, off the Washington coast. To lay the cables, a massive seaplow digs a trench, creating a 20-foot-wide zone of disturbances. Laying the cable crushes bottom-dwelling creatures and disturbs sediment, smothering marine life. The article said there is growing pressure to lay cables in national marine sanctuary waters, despite regulations that prohibit damage to the seabed within the sanctuaries.
(ENS)-Anne Summers, an Australian feminist and writer and new head of Greenpeace, recently said the organization will open offices in India and Thailand. She added that people in the two countries had invited Greenpeace to come, and that the move is significant for Greenpeace, which had been "totally preoccupied with first North America and later Europe." Now Greenpeace is "adjusting its focus" to a region that holds the vast majority of the world's population, and which has paid the price for rapid development with massive and potentially life-threatening environmental damage, she said.
Physicians for Social Responsibility (www.psr.org) recently honored philanthropist/environmentalist Ted Turner. At the dinner where Turner was honored, he outlined "Ten Commandments," or "Voluntary Initiatives" to help the planet. Turner's initiatives are an important set of priorities for people and governments everywhere.
1) I promise to care for planet earth and all living things thereon, especially my fellow human beings.
2) I promise to treat all persons everywhere with dignity, respect and friendliness.
3) I promise to have no more than two children.
4) I promise to use my best efforts to help save what is left of our natural world in its undisturbed state, and to restore degraded areas.
5) I promise to use as little of our non-renewable resources as possible.
6) I promise to minimize my use of toxic chemicals, pesticides and other poisons, and to encourage others to do the same.
7) I promise to contribute to those less fortunate, to help them become self-sufficient and enjoy the benefits of a decent life, including clean air and water, adequate food, health care, housing, education and individual rights.
8) I reject the use of force, in particular military force, and I respect the United Nations arbitration of international disputes.
9) I support the total elimination of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and ultimately the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.
10) I support the United Nations and its efforts to improve the conditions of the planet.
|
go to WASHINGTON FREE PRESS HOME |