Rivers : British Columbia : Canada
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
By JOEL CONNELLY P-I COLUMNIST
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
B.C. natives seek to protect land, pristine rivers
ISKUT, B.C. -- Seated in a large circle, flanked by a mountain plateau that is headwaters to great North American rivers, natives from northern British Columbia convened last weekend to keep the global economy from seizing their remote corner of the Earth.
The robed tribal leaders vowed to resist "unwanted resource development" on land still vital for subsistence, and that the birthplace of the Stikine, Skeena and Nass rivers will remain "wild, beautiful and sacred forever."
The "headwaters initiative" may become for native rights what the Stikine is to rivers.
The Stikine begins as a brook but grows into a big, powerful 400-mile-long river, rushing through Canada's greatest canyon and boring through the Coast Mountains to its estuary near Wrangell, Alaska.
Near the site of last weekend's meeting, Shell Canada has drilled test wells for a possible coal bed methane project. Eight major mining projects are under exploration or development in the Stikine-Iskut River system.
Tribal chiefs and elders from northern British Columbia convene in a historic hunting area at the headwaters of several major river systems in Iskut, B.C., last weekend. Marie Louie of the Iskut Band, third from left, leads a ceremony that symbolized their determination to keep the land "wild, beautiful and sacred forever."
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| Tribal chiefs and elders from northern British Columbia convene in a historic hunting area at the headwaters of several major river systems in Iskut, B.C., last weekend. Marie Louie of the Iskut Band, third from left, leads a ceremony that symbolized their determination to keep the land "wild, beautiful and sacred forever." |
If Shell Canada represents the global economy, an elderly Tahltan tribal elder named Loveman Nole stands for the subsistence economy.
"We make our living here by hunting moose, caribou and sheep on the mountain," Nole said. "We have a culture camp for the young. They, the companies, just come into our land and use it.
"There's nothing, there's never been jobs around here. We hunt. We trap a little. We fish a little in the winter. All my life here, I have never gone a day without a meal."
Has anyone ever tried to eat a gas well?
The natives aren't naysayers.
They are willing to let mines operate, if multinationals leave alone such sacred, vital places as the headwaters country. A big copper-gold mine called Galore, in the lower Stikine, is a project that could avoid major environmental or cultural damage.
Native activists want mines developed one at a time, to guarantee a sustainable source of local jobs. They do not want outside companies to strip the Stikine of its mineral resources in 20 or 30 years, and then leave.
"They either measure up or they don't," said Sandra Jack, cool, articulate young chief of the Taku Band.
What are the natives talking about?
A three-hour drive south, the Bell-Irving River is a scene of vast clearcuts. The valley's trees were cut down and shipped, unprocessed, out of Stewart, B.C., to Asian markets.
The headwaters country deserves better. It is a kind of Eden -- with mosquitoes.
Nearby Spatsizi Provincial Park is renowned for its populations of moose and Stone's sheep. Rafting parties engage in howl-ins with wolves. A grizzly bear wandered in the valley below the weekend convocation.
Controversy over the Stikine has barely been heard in corporate offices of far-off Vancouver and Toronto, or the ornate Parliament Building in Victoria.
Its major local native group, the Tahltans, has been split between a pro-mining tribal government and elders who staged a lengthy sit-in at tribal offices last year. Other sit-ins have discouraged Shell and Fortune Minerals from work on coal claims in the headwaters country.
With native leaders traveling hundreds of miles to last weekend's gathering, however, the battle has been joined.
The whole world soon will be watching British Columbia. Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. The provincial government pledges its games will be history's "greenest."
Such a promise will be hard to sustain if British Columbia lets a mining company "walk" a Caterpillar D6 and excavator through a fisheries stream near Iskut.
The province would have to tell the world why an open-pit mine is located next to a premier Stone's sheep calving area.
And it might need to explain why salty water from coal-methane development is getting into North Coast salmon streams vital to U.S. and Canadian fishers.
Premier Gordon Campbell last year promised a "new relationship" with B.C. natives, who have a history of unresolved land claims with the province.
At the same time, Campbell has put up a welcome sign and declared, "British Columbia is open for business."
The booming Chinese market for metals -- and rising prices -- makes it economical to pursue claims in remote places once abandoned as infeasible.
With Shell, about 8.3 trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane lies beneath the ancestral hunting grounds that Loveman Nole has used all his life and where his grandchildren are learning tribal customs (and how to put together videos on natives' gatherings).
"We have to protect our interests," Marie Louie, newly elected Iskut Band chief, stressed repeatedly to the convocation.
In asking sensitivity and restraint, northwest B.C. natives are challenging the way business is done in corporate boardrooms and provincial cabinet meetings.
Dr. David Suzuki, the acclaimed scientist who hosts CBC-TV's "The Nature of Things," quietly watched last weekend's gathering and briefly spoke.
"You live in a remote corner of the world," he told the natives. "Well, I must tell you, the world is at your doorstep. Nowhere can you go on this planet to escape this global economy.
"This monster that is coming on to your lands has no limit to its appetites, because it believes it can grow forever."
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com.
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
biotechnology vs. biodiversity : Peru
July 18, 2006
Dear friends
We are very sad to share with you a very bad news. The Peruvian Congress
approved last night the law that promote biotech in Peru. The law passed
without discussion and was approved by a very small number of members of
the parliament.
This law, which has being called "Monsanto Law" in Peru, has only the
objective to promote modern biotechnology in the country. It will put
under great risk the extremely rich biodiversity of Peru, the food
sovereignty of the country and the indigenous peoples and small farmers
which depend on the extraordinary biodiversity of potatoes, corn, and
other Andean and Amazonic crops for their survival. Many of these crops
has their centre of origin in Peru, and were domesticated there several
thousand of years ago. The local communities have being conserving and
creating more biodiversity since then, and now this biodiversity is
under risk of genetic contamination, if transgenics crops are introduce
into Per�.
It is regretful that the lobby of big transnational corporations like
Monsanto has being more important for the parliamentarians that the
opposition of the different organizations around Peru and Latin America,
which expressed their opposition and concern about this law.
The law provides special finantial incentives for the national and
international companies which want to invest in biotechnology in Per�.
Our concern is that through this law, Peru will be transformed in a
biotech field experimentation country, were new technologies, crops and
traits that have not being tested anywhere else in the World will be
tested in Peru.
And additional sources of concern is the fact that the traditional
agriculture in Peru has already very affected due to the policies
implemented in this country in the last two decades, although there
is still much to be protected and rural areas in Peru. The introduction
of Genetically Engineered crops will exacerbate the process of
deterioration of the peasant economies, which will lead to a genetic
erosion of some of the crops that right now are feeding the world like
potatoes and corn.
And at the end of the day, the only benefits will the for the
transnational
corporations like Monsanto and others, while Peru will stay only with
the impacts of GMOs.
For this reasons, we ask the international community to support our
campaing against this law. It has to be approved by the President of the
country.
So, we kindly ask you to direct letters to:
Doctor Alejandro Toledo Manrique
Presidente Constitucional del Peru
Fax: 0051 1 311 43 07
Asking him not to approve this law (Ley General de Promocion de la
Biotecnologi a en el Peru)
for more info, check out: ipcb-net@ipcb.org, http://ipcb.org/mailman/listinfo/ipcb-net_ipcb.org
Tia Oros Peters
Executive Director
Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
ph: 707-825-7640 fax: 707-825-7639
www.7genfund.org
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Food : Taro patenting : Hawaii
http://starbulletin.com/2006/06/21/news/story03.html
C 1996-2006 The Honolulu Star-Bulletin | http://www.starbulletin.com
Vol. 11, Issue 172 - Wednesday, June 21, 2006
JAMM AQUINO
(photo missing) From left, taro farmer Chris Kobayashi, Jon Osorio, director of the UH Center for Hawaiian Studies, and Walter Ritte tore the patent documents for taro grown locally during a press conference at the Center for Hawaiian Studies on the UH Manoa Campus yesterday morning.
Activists tear up 3 UH patents for taro
By Susan Essoyan
sessoyan@starbulletin.comChants honoring the Hawaiian people's kinship with kalo, or taro, began
a ceremony yesterday that culminated in Hawaiians tearing up copies of
patents on the staple plant that the University of Hawaii had decided to
relinquish.
"It is as if the patents were never filed," said Gary Ostrander, vice
chancellor for research at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who
attended the event. "Anyone throughout the world may now plant them, may
propagate them, sell them."
Since January, Hawaiians have been pushing the university to give up
patents it had obtained on three varieties of disease-resistant taro it
developed. The Hawaiians argue that kalo as the "elder brother" of the
Hawaiian people should not be owned.
"Today is a victory," said activist Walter Ritte of Molokai, who helped
lead the effort to end the only patents on Hawaiian taro. "The
university has taken a big step by listening to the people they should
be listening to. It's a huge example for other people to follow."
After a leaf blight wiped out 90 percent of the taro in Samoa in the
1990s, Ostrander said, University of Hawaii scientists were asked to
help.
They used traditional breeding techniques to cross Palauan and Hawaiian
taro to produce three strains resistant to the disease, and the
university obtained plant patents on them in 2002.
In January, Ritte and Kauai taro farmer Christine Kobayashi sent a
letter to the university demanding that the patents be dropped. Their
protest grew, and on May 18, Hawaiians clad in malo padlocked the
entrance to the university's medical school in an effort to make their
point.
"UH did not invent taro, and they had no right to own it or license it
to farmers," Kobayashi said in a written statement yesterday.
After behind-the-scenes negotiations, the university filed "terminal
disclaimers" with the U.S. Patent Office that dissolved its proprietary
interests as of last Friday. It had issued 13 licenses to use the plant,
but licensees no longer owe royalties or any other obligation to the
university, Ostrander said.
"I hope this is an opportunity to continue to develop our existing
relationship based on mutual trust and respect, as undoubtedly we will
face other issues as we go forward," Ostrander said, adding that he had
come to appreciate the Hawaiians' point of view on the issue.
"The Hawaiian people have been modifying and growing taro for 1,000
years, and probably 5,000 years before that in Polynesia," he said.
"What seems counterintuitive now is that a faculty member can make an
improvement now and patent it."
At yesterday's event at the UH Center for Hawaiian Studies, University
of Hawaii-Manoa interim Chancellor Denise Konan handed the copies of the
patents on three varieties of taro to Kobayashi, Ritte and Jon Osorio,
director of the UH Center for Hawaiian Studies. In unison, the three
tore them in half.
The patents were on taro plants named "Paakala," "Pauakea" and
"Palehua," all known for their vigorous growth, good taste, and
resistance to taro leaf blight.
Manu Kaiama, director of the Native Hawaiian Leadership Project,
welcomed the university's move, but said it wasn't making a big
financial sacrifice.
"They don't have much of a market," she said. "I wonder if the
administration would have been willing to give up a patent that was
going to make millions of dollars."
Ostrander acknowledged that the patents are "not a big money maker right
now" but said interest had been expressed in using the kalo varieties in
baby food.
Graduate student Kelii Collier called the patent fight just the first
step in a broader movement against other UH undertakings such as a
proposed military research center on the campus.
"It is the beginning for the university to do the right thing," he said.
"The next time we meet it will be to rip out the UARC (University
Affiliated Research Center) contract."
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Contaminated : Columbia River : Washington
Columbia River toxins moving up food chain
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter
June 6, 2006
VANCOUVER, Wash. - First were the crayfish near Bonneville Dam, so loaded with toxins that scientists wondered how they could still be alive.
Then researchers learned Columbia River fish were contaminated enough that nearby tribes face dramatically higher risks of disease. Scientists since have found deformed sturgeon, uranium building up in clams near the Hanford nuclear reservation, and water in parts of the last stretch of the river as contaminated as Seattle's Duwamish River, a federal Superfund site.
Over the past five years, virtually unnoticed amid other issues, scientists have unearthed a wealth of new information detailing the extent of toxic contamination in the Columbia River, enough that the Environmental Protection Agency added the entire 1,200-mile river to a shortlist of major waterways demanding national attention.
"Salmon recovery and dams have been what people have been focused on," said Mary Lou Soscia, who coordinates Columbia River pollution issues for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "But you can't talk about a healthy Columbia without talking about toxics."
Two centuries after Lewis and Clark followed the river on their final push to the Pacific, the federal government, states and tribes are embarking on an unusually systematic attempt to assess how pollution in the Columbia is altering Northwest ecology.
So far the steps being taken are rudimentary, with modest goals: identify the worst contaminants, figure out where they are coming from, and reduce them by 10 percent in fish and water in five years. But those next few years could lay the groundwork for grander restoration efforts to come.
"The Columbia is a huge, dynamic river system," said Michael Gearheard, who oversees water issues for the EPA in the Northwest. "Is it in crisis? No. But there are areas that merit concern. We want to understand where contamination is coming from, and make sure it is stopped."
Unexpected findings
It's hardly a secret that the Columbia River is polluted. It's been known for years that heavy metals have washed into Lake Roosevelt from a mine in British Columbia, and that Portland Harbor was contaminated by decades of boat-building and steel-milling.
But some of the findings of the past several years have caught officials off-guard:
• Five years ago, a half-century-old pile of poisonous mercury-vapor lamps was discovered in the river near Bonneville Dam, 40 miles east of Portland. The river bottom there was so high in cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that crayfish, a favorite of local fishermen, had 15,000 times more PCBs than is considered safe. The worst of the dump has now been cleaned up, but researchers fear there may be other dumps like it.
• Last year, scientists at the Hanford nuclear reservation found another vast plume of highly radioactive technetium-99 in groundwater that is moving toward the river. It's the most threatening of several plumes that contaminate 80 square miles of groundwater. The Government Accountability Office recently said efforts to keep Hanford contamination from the river are often "not satisfactory."
• Because the Columbia and its tributaries drain an area about the size of France, "legacy pollutants" — chemicals banned in the 1970s such as PCBs and DDT — still flush into the river from farms, roads, construction sites and stormwater systems. They accumulate in fish and other animals at some of the highest levels in the Northwest.
• Newer chemicals, such as pesticides, are entering the river. The amount of PBDE flame retardants in fish near the headwaters in Canada is doubling every few years.
• For some Native Americans, who eat up to 11 times more fish than other Americans, the risk of cancer from toxins in Columbia River salmon may be as high as 1 in 500, the EPA suggested four years ago, which is far higher than the agency's threshold for concern. Risks are even greater for those who eat mostly sturgeon, which have so many chemicals in their bodies scientist believe it's causing the fish's population to decline. Even juvenile salmon may collect enough contaminants to make them more susceptible to disease.
And pollution in the Columbia seems to "move up the food chain faster than in other places in the Northwest," said Jeremy Buck, a scientist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who has studied ospreys along the river.
Oversight scattered
Few American rivers have been asked to do as much as the Columbia and its tributaries.
The river system provides recreation and drinking water and helps irrigate a quarter-million square miles of sage desert. It's a highway for farm goods. Thanks to 55 dams, it supplies the cheapest power in the nation, and a lot of it.
Yet unlike Puget Sound, which has been systematically monitored for years, the Columbia system is so huge and regulated by so many different entities that attempts to assess its health have been piecemeal at best.
"It's just unbelievable that all our information on the Columbia is scattered in about 20 different places," said the EPA's Soscia.
For instance, in 2005 the state Department of Ecology found that PCBs and DDT in the lower river regularly exceeded water-quality standards. But the study didn't examine the water upstream of Bonneville Dam, even though researchers believe most DDT is coming from agricultural land above Bonneville.
Meanwhile, large-scale cleanup projects on the Columbia proceed slowly.
The Army Corps of Engineers began investigating a landfill near Bonneville Dam 10 years ago, but it still isn't clean. Seven years ago, the Colville Confederated Tribes urged the EPA to find out whether mining pollution in the Upper Columbia was harming their health. The agency is still investigating.
"It's been our sense that Puget Sound gets far more attention with respect to water quality, restoration and basic protection," said Charles Hudson, spokesman for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission. "We sometimes feel Western Washington considers Eastern Washington a sacrifice zone."
In fact, it's often difficult to measure how much has really changed since a major study of the river concluded in the mid-1990s that the Columbia contains "potentially harmful levels" of toxics.
"Based on what I'm familiar with, I think levels in the Columbia are better than they were in the 1960s," said Lyndal Johnson, a toxicologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"But I don't think they've improved much in the last 10 years."
New look at pollution
The EPA, the tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington are hoping to change that.
In the past few years, they have tried coordinating studies to determine the extent of pollution in the river, from Canada to the Pacific.
Later this summer, the results of two detailed studies are expected. One looked at contaminants in the Columbia estuary. The other, by the federal Department of Energy, is a compilation of all available information on the health of the entire river.
And this year the Columbia was placed with Puget Sound, the Everglades, Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, Long Island Sound and the Gulf of Mexico on a list of the EPA's top water priorities for the next five years.
For now, that means the EPA expects to propose a series of small projects to clean up river sediment. Soscia said it also would work with Oregon to toughen water-quality standards to reduce the amount of pollution industries are allowed to spill into the river.
Some of the work already has begun.
A few years ago, Eugene Foster, an Oregon state toxicologist, began working with some farmers to help them cut back on agricultural runoff that was contaminating tributaries with chemicals and insecticide.
Now the orchardists are changing how and where they apply pesticides. They have been better managing how water passes over soil that still has DDT in it. And they are reducing pesticide concentrations.
Similar work has been done along the Yakima River, and both Washington and Oregon are slowly expanding those programs to other Columbia tributaries.
"We've got a marathon ahead of us," Soscia said.
But, "I've worked at EPA for 22 years," she added.
"This is the most important thing I could do in my last years at the agency."
Columbia River toxins moving up food chain
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Forests Nov. 21, 2005
Calls Needed: Walden/Baird Logging Bill Moving Fast
Activist tools below (important links, talking points, sample letters, etc)
Representative Greg Walden (R-OR-2) and Brian Baird (D-WA-3) introduced a bill, called the "Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act" (HR4200) that sweeps aside protections for forests, fish and wildlife in order to rush logging and roadbuilding after normal, natural events that occur in National Forests. Despite all of the green washing by Walden and Baird in a Resources Committee hearing on November 10, 2005, this bill is damaging to our forest ecosystems and cannot be defended as scientifically credible.
The bill is moving fast. The House Agriculture Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill on December 7, 2005. That same week, the House Resources Committee could vote on the bill and send it to the House floor. The bill could go to the House floor for a vote as early as the week of December 12th.
Representative Tom Udall (D-NM) has introduced an alternative bill called the "National Forests Rehabilitation and Recovery Act" (H.R. 3973). The Udall collaboration bill is a cautious, common sense approach, to studying the best responses to natural disturbances on forest ecosystems based on science and community collaboration.
Calls are needed to your Representative today.
TAKE ACTION: Call Your Representative. Please activate your networks, members and volunteers to call Members of the House of Representatives at 202-224-3121 and tell them to oppose the Walden logging bill (deceptively called the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, FERRA) and cosponsor the Udall collaboration bill (H.R. 3973, The National Forests Rehabilitation and Recovery Act. (Talking points for both bills are below).
ACTIVIST TOOLS
For a copy of the Walden/Baird logging bill go to:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills &docid=f:h4200ih.txt.pdf
For a copy of The Wilderness Society Analysis of the Walden/Baird logging bill go to: http://www.americanlands.org/documents/1131395420_Walden bill HR 4200 analysis.pdf
To view copies of the testimony submitted for the November 10, 2005 Resources Committee hearing on the Walden/Baird logging bill go to: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/archives/109/ffh/111005.htm
For a copy of the American Lands report, After the Fires: Do No Harm in America's Forest, A Report on the Impacts of Logging on Forest Recovery: http://www.americanlands.org/issues.php?subsubNo=1085141603 &article=1130855803
For a factsheet on the Myths and Facts of the Walden/Baird logging bill prepared by NRDC please go to: http://www.americanlands.org/documents/1131128447_Walden bill myths and facts _2_.pdf
For a copy of the Udall collaboration bill go to:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills &docid=f:h3973ih.txt.pdf
Walden Logging Bill Talking Points
1. The Walden logging bill sweeps aside protections for forests, fish and wildlife in order to rush logging after normal natural events (such as rainstorms, fires, and droughts) on National Forests.
2. The Walden logging bill eliminates meaningful environmental review and cuts the public out of decisions that would harm America's public forests. The bill waives the National Environmental Policy Act for damaging logging activities after normal natural events on National Forests.
3. Logging after natural disturbances is not restoration or recovery. Logging these sensitive recovering forests degrades aquatic habitat through sediment runoff into streams, spreads invasive weeds, causes the loss of biological legacies, which include large live and dead trees that are vital in the recovery process.
4. According to the best available science there is no ecological emergency to log forests after normal, natural events on National Forests.
5. Burned forests are not a "waste," it is the US Forest Service's "salvage" logging program that wastes tax dollars.
6. Walden logging bill is a misplaced priority. Since the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (PL 108-148) was signed into law, virtually no projects have been implemented. Congress does not need to pass new legislation granting new logging authorities to the Forest Service, especially when the necessary and needed community protection work under the HFRA remains unfounded and incomplete.
Udall Collaboration Bill Talking Points
1. The Udall collaboration bill is a common sense approach to studying the best responses to natural disturbances on forest ecosystems based on science and community collaboration.
2. The Udall collaboration bill sets up five pilot projects. The projects are required to comply with current environmental protections and are monitored by a national scientific committee.
Sample LTE Talking Points
1. Pandering to logging interests, the Walden logging bill sweeps aside protections for forests, fish and wildlife in order to rush logging after normal natural events (such as rainstorms, fires, and droughts) on National Forests.
2. The Walden logging bill eliminates meaningful environmental review on damaging logging projects and cuts the public out of decisions that would harm America's public forests in order to maximize profits for logging companies.
3. Logging after natural disturbances is not restoration or recovery. Logging these sensitive recovering forests degrades aquatic habitat through sediment runoff into streams, spreads invasive weeds, causes the loss of biological legacies, which include large live and dead trees that are vital in the recovery process.
4. According to the best available science there is no ecological emergency to log forests after normal, natural events.
5. The Walden logging bill is a misplaced priority. Since the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (PL 108-148) was signed into law, virtually no projects have been implemented. Congress does not need to pass new legislation granting new logging authorities to the Forest Service, especially when the necessary and needed community protection work under the HFRA remains unfounded and incomplete.
6. Burned forests are not a "waste," it is the US Forest Service's "salvage" logging program that wastes tax dollars. The biggest trees that are most likely to be logged for economic reasons are the most important building blocks of a new forest, they shade young seedlings from sun and provide food and shelter for species ranging from woodpeckers to bears. Whereas, the Forest Service "salvage" logging program is a money loser that only benefits the timber industry by digging into the pockets of taxpayers.
Sample Letter to Member of Congress
Name of your Representative
US House of Representative
Washington DC 20515
Dear Representative X (List your Representative here),
Representative Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced the "Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act" on November 3, 2005. The Walden logging bill sweeps aside protections for forests, fish and wildlife in order to rush logging after normal natural events (such as rainstorms, fires, and droughts) on National Forests. The Walden logging bill eliminates meaningful environmental review and cuts the public out of decisions that would harm America's public forests. Specifically, the bill waives the National Environmental Policy Act for damaging logging activities.
The Walden logging bill promotes a false assumption that something must be done after normal, natural disturbances on National Forests, and that logging, roadbuilding and artificial replanting are necessary "restoration" and "recovery" actions needed. However, according to the best available science, there is no ecological emergency to log forests after normal, natural events. Logging and roadbuilding after fires should not be though of as a restorative action. As the 1988 Yellowstone fires taught us, forest recovery is more effective when log trucks and bulldozers are kept out of the picture, today Yellowstone is thriving.
The Walden logging bill is a misplaced priority. Since Congress passed the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (PL 108-148) in 2003 virtually no projects have been completed. Congress does not need to pass new legislation granting new logging authorities to the Forest Service, especially when the necessary and needed community protection work under the HFRA remains unfunded, and the Forest Service continues to fail to complete these projects due to lack of funding. Additionally, the Forest Service has plenty of existing authority to rapidly respond to natural disturbances on national forests.
Finally, communities nationwide are working together to find solutions in many collaborative processes to restore forests and/or protect their communities from wildfire. If this bill passes, the actions that it will allow will likely ignite new timber wars, much like the Salvage Logging Rider of 1995. The current collaborative spirit around National Forest restoration and community wildfire protection is too important to throw away on a bill that will give more subsidies and the public's old growth trees to the timber industry.
There is a better solution. Please cosponsor The National Forests Rehabilitation and Recovery Act (H.R. 3973) by Representative Tom Udall (D-NM). The Udall collaboration bill is a cautious, common sense approach, to studying the best responses to natural disturbances on forest ecosystems based on science and community collaboration. The Udall collaboration bill sets up five pilot projects to test rehabilitation needs after natural events on National Forests. The projects are required to comply with current environmental protections and are monitored by a national scientific committee.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Address
For more information contact Lisa Dix, ldix@americanlands.org or Anne Martin, annem@americanlands.org or go to www.americanlands.org
Lisa Dix
National Forest Program Director
American Lands Alliance
ldix@americanlands.org
Ph: 202-547-9105; Fax: 202-547-9213 |
Apache
Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter to keep you informed of what might possibly happen if we Apache choose to stay silent about it. Many of our Apache peoples travel in the summer months to our “usual and accustomed places” to gather seeds, berries, and other various medicines needed for our traditional sustenance. One of our “usual and accustomed places” is in the Oak Flats-Apache Leap area near Superior, Arizona.
This area is currently managed by the Tonto National Forest, which holds the land in public domain. This area is located near the old Magma Copper mine. Resolution Copper Company (Rio Tinto/Kennecott) wants to open up the area for underground mining. They would like to do a land swap with Tonto National Forest without public interests being addressed. That public interest is all the Apache peoples.
Most recently, the Forest Service found an Apache camp that is still intact. There are plenty of archaeological sites. Most assuredly there are sacred objects and possible burial grounds in the area that must be protected. If Resolution Copper Company (Rio Tinto/Kennecott) has their way; they will destroy this area for their lust of greed. Archaeologists from the Ft. Apache and San Carlos Apache reservations have visited these sites.
This is not the only place that is being eyed out for possible mining activities that has cultural impact on our Apache and Native peoples. Lizard Road on the North Side of the Dragoon Mountains, where Cochise Stronghold is, is a likely site at the hands of greedy copper mining companies. Most recently, Ron Feldman, a “Lost Dutchman” goldmine prospector out of Apache Junction, received a “treasure trove” permit from the Tonto National Forest to look for the so-called “Lost Dutchman Goldmine” in the Superstition Mountains. Soon thereafter it was revoked. We all know as Apache that these mountains and others are extremely sacred to our Peoples. This kind of activity against our people must be addressed. Each and every one of us eat Acorn Stew and Dumplings and we pray, so this isn’t about being traditional or Christian, it’s about being Apache.
Rep. Rick Renzi and Senator Jon Kyl, who are both in our Congressional District, were in support of the Southeastern Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2005 deemed “the land exchange bill.” Renzi has been to our reservation many times wooing our people with a new hospital. He has also played the other card of wanting to take our lands away to give to big corporations, which he is doing with Oak-Flats as this is being written. Even though we have a reservation in which was granted to us by executive order in 1872, our Apache Lands extend beyond the reservation boundaries. These are the places where we go to get both our physical and spiritual sustenance. And we must be made aware of what is happening around us.
Rep. Richard Pombo from California has also introduced legislation into Congress that uses language to sell public lands that are sacred to Indigenous Peoples. This legislation is an amendment in the House Resources Budget Package that is currently on the floor of the House of Representatives as I type this letter (11/17/05). So by the time this comes out on Wednesday, it might be a law. Although the United States government has a “trust responsibility” to the Native Peoples, it is our native peoples that continue to receive the shaft when it comes to our sacred sites and lands, and cultural resource areas.
You can help by calling Congressman Rick Renzi at his Washington D.C. office at (202) 225-2315 or his Safford office at (928) 587-3417, or Senator John McCain’s Office in Washington D.C. at (202) 224-2235 or his Phoenix office at (602) 952-2410 and let them know of your opposition to these Bills. Election time is around the corner so keep that in mind when they are asking for a favor of election. Also talk to your tribal council members and tell them to protect these sites under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act or the Native American Graves and Repatriation Acts, which they can do. All it takes for them is to make a resolution to protect our interests outside of our reservation.
If you like to eat our traditional foods and use our traditional plants for your curing needs, it is up to you to do something about it. Like I said earlier, we all like Acorn Stew and Dumplings and if you choose not to say anything about it, don’t get mad when the places that are “usual and accustomed” are closed to gathering and harvesting our seeds, berries and medicinal plants. Be mad only at yourself for not speaking up for yourself and saying anything about it at all. It is your responsibility as an Apache!
Respectfully Submitted,
Michael Paul Hill
San Carlos Apache Member |
Wolves
Defenders of Wildlife is gearing up for a new campaign to save Alaska's wolves from the brutal practice of aerial gunning. Adopt a wolf for the holidays http://go.care2.com/e/Her/df/Exrg and help protect these majestic and threatened animals!
Adopt a wolf today!
When the snow begins to fall in Alaska this winter - and it's not so far away now - wolves will once again be in the crosshairs. Last winter, hundreds of wolves were killed through the brutal practice of aerial gunning.
Easy targets against fallen snow, wolves can be gunned down from airplanes or chased to exhaustion and then shot from the ground. It's unthinkable, yet in Alaska, it's legal.
The Alaskan public doesn't support this awful practice - they've voted twice to ban it. Yet the Alaskan government continues to thwart the will of the public and allow the slaughter of innocent wolves.
As Defenders gears up for another critical media and grassroots campaign to stop the aerial gunning of wolves this winter, they need your help. You can help save wolves this winter - adopt a wolf as a holiday gift and help Defenders stop the cruel killing of these beautiful animals.
Defenders will send that special someone on your holiday gift list a plush wolf and a certificate of adoption. Your tax deductible adoption will provide resources for our wolf efforts and you'll enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you're making a difference.
A year ago this month, when the Alaska Board of Game wanted to expand the area where wolves could be hunted from airplanes, Defenders of Wildlife successfully blocked it. Defenders has a long and proven history of protecting wolves, from working tirelessly to restore wolves to Yellowstone to campaigning in Alaska to end aerial gunning.
Reader's Digest named Defenders "America's Best Wildlife Charity." When you adopt a wolf today through Defenders, you can know that your gift will fund effective, on-the-ground conservation work to protect wolves.
The Alaska Board of Game plans to allow aerial hunters to kill hundreds more wolves which could become the greatest wolf massacre since the 1950's. Defenders has petitioned Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to enforce the federal Airborne Hunting Act in Alaska to stop the killing. This year, you can count on continued grassroots, legal, and public education efforts from Defenders.
Please consider adopting a wolf today and make this holiday season special by helping Defenders of Wildlife stop aerial gunning and protect Alaska's wolves.
Thank you for all of your work to protect wolves,
Rebecca Young, Care2 and ThePetitionSite team
Thank you for signing up to receive Animals & Environment Alerts via ThePetitionSite or Care2 website! Your email address has not been bought from other sources. If you learned something interesting from this newsletter, please forward it to your friends, family and colleagues. |
Nahanni
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
( Subscription )
We hold the Nahanni in trust for the world. Let's protect it
By JUSTIN TRUDEAU
Monday, November 7, 2005 Page A17
If he wanted to, Prime Minister Paul Martin could take a decision right now that would protect one of Earth's most magnificent, yet fragile, places -- the Northwest Territories' boreal forest. There, eagles soar, and woodland caribou, Dall's sheep and grizzly bears roam; there, more than 300 kinds of lichen grow in mist-shrouded valleys, clinging to cliffs that soar higher than those of the Grand Canyon. But the Prime Minister doesn't have time to waste. Today, a mining company is pushing to begin operations in the Nahanni wilderness.
Revered in the traditional stories of local aboriginal people, the Nahanni is 35,000 square kilometres that local first nations want protected from industrial development. And it's a place for which the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has been advocating with increasing urgency.
At its heart, Nahanni National Park Reserve and World Heritage Site protects a corridor along part of the South Nahanni River. The park only covers one-seventh of the South Nahanni watershed. Less than 35 kilometres upstream from the park reserve, on the banks of Prairie Creek, a small mining company, Canadian Zinc Corp., is itching to fire up a mine site developed in the 1980s, but abandoned prior to startup. The world does not need this mine. Local first nations communities do not support it; it has not had a recent environmental impact assessment. And it's within an ecosystem that Canada promised the world to protect.
The federal government has already committed to expanding Nahanni National Park Reserve. Parks Canada is studying the area and consulting with local communities about how far the park's boundaries should be extended. But that process will take at least another year to complete. Meanwhile, Canadian Zinc's owners are doing all they can to get the mine operating as soon as possible.
But there's a catch: The mine does not yet have permission to operate beyond exploration activities. If Ottawa so chose, it could say no to this mine. There are abundant reasons for the government to take this route, and to take it now, while there is still time.
Canadian Zinc's proposed mine poses a serious environmental threat: The mine site is perched right beside Prairie Creek, in a region vulnerable to landslides, flash floods and earthquakes. The mine's haul road would cross a landscape that is highly vulnerable to potential chemical spills and groundwater contamination. Forty tonnes of cyanide sit in rusting barrels a few hundred metres from the creek -- part of the legacy of the failed startup more than 20 years ago, and a prime example of some mining companies' lack of commitment to environmental responsibility.
I'll admit to strong bias here. Nahanni is very special to me. My father, as prime minister, was instrumental in creating Nahanni National Park Reserve in 1972 to protect the river from a proposed hydro-electric dam. A few years later, the United Nations selected Nahanni as one of the first World Heritage Sites, recognizing its
significance as a unique boreal wilderness area.For years, scientists have warned that the park is just too small.
Too small to protect the woodland caribou and grizzly bears, and too small to protect the fragile and unparalleled karst limestone landscapes that lie north of the current park. Karst is one of the features that makes the Nahanni a globally significant natural area. World-renowned karst expert Derek Ford has called the Nahanni karst the most important example of Arctic or subarctic karst known on the planet. By its very nature, this landscape of caves, canyons, sinkholes and underground rivers and streams is extremely vulnerable to groundwater contamination. Water moves swiftly through its "secret landscape," feeding directly into the South Nahanni River. Canadian
Zinc wants to build a haul road through the heart of the karstlands to carry chemicals and metal concentrates to and from the Prairie Creek mine site.
Two years ago, I stood for the first time above the Nahanni's Virginia Falls, on a journey organized by CPAWS. Those falls are twice the height of Niagara. When I stood there, I pledged to see completed the work my father started more than 30 years ago -- the expansion of the national park to protect the entire South Nahanni Watershed, including the Nahanni karstlands.
This magical place inspired my father to act. I, too, am inspired to do what I can, because the Nahanni offers us the opportunity to show that Canada values its natural wealth and knows how to take care of it -- for our children, and for the world.
Justin Trudeau speaks tonight at the launch of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society's national Nahanni Forever tour in Toronto.
Letter to the Editor
Save the Nahanni
From RITA GRIFFIN-SHORT,
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 Page A18
Hamilton, Ont. -- After reading Justin Trudeau's plea to say no to the zinc mine in the Nahanni, I felt a need to echo it (We Hold The Nahanni In Trust For The World. Let's Protect It -- Nov. 7). There is absolutely no need for this mining company to do what it seems bent on doing in such a precious landscape. Have we lost complete respect for our indigenous peoples? If they don't want this project, why allow it? Have we learned anything from past irresponsible, dollar-driven activities?
Shut down this unwise, unnecessary project now before it becomes another blot on our precious landscape. The continuing rape of our natural resources must be prevented within protected areas. --
Jamie Kneen
Communications & Outreach Coordinator ofc. (613) 569-3439
MiningWatch Canada cell: (613) 761-2273
250 City Centre Ave., Suite 508 fax: (613) 569-5138
Ottawa, Ontario K1R 6K7 e-mail:
jamie@miningwatch.ca
Canada
http://www.miningwatch.ca
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Cuddalore, India
Dear friends,
Please join me in signing your organization on to the attached letter(and copied below) supporting community members fighting a proposed PVC plant in Cuddalore, India. Please respond by 2:00pm (EST) December 2nd if your organization can sign on to the attached letter.
Community members need our help to stop this facility, which was recently approved by an "expert" environmental committee. The proposed PVC plant would be located near community residents who are already overburdened with major chemical plants. The Tamilnadu State Human Rights Commission has declared that public health in the area "cannot take more burden than that which has already ensued by the existing chemical industries." Make no mistake about it, residents are fighting for their health and livelihoods, and already complain of noxious odors and health problems from the chemical industry. Parents are concerned their children are suffering from physical, mental and sexual development problems. To learn more, log onto www.sipcotcuddalore.com
Similar PVC facilities across the globe have poisoned workers and fenceline neighbors, polluted the air, contaminated drinking water supplies, and even wiped entire communities off the map. For more information about the hazards of PVC, log onto www.besafenet.com/pvc.htm and www.pvcinformation.org
Please circulate this sign on letter far and wide, sign on to the letter, and support this critical fight for environmental health and justice. Please respond by 2:00pm (EST) December 2nd if your organization can sign on to the attached letter.
Sincerely,
Mike Schade
PVC Campaign Coordinator
Center for Health, Environment and Justice
Center for Health, Environment and Justic.
AID-Austin .
Alaska Community Action on Toxics .
Calhoun County Resource Watch .
California Communities Against Toxics .
Center for Environmental Health .
Clean Water Action .
Department of the Planet Earth .
Ecology Center .
EAGLE (Environmental Association for Great Lakes Education) .
Environmental Community Action .
Environmental Health Fund .
Green Delaware .
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Greenpeace .
Healthy Building Network .
Learning Disabilities Association of Oregon .
Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation .
Organic Consumers Association (USA).
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility .
Oregon Toxics Alliance
Pesticide Action Network in Mexico (RAPAM) .
Physicians for Social Responsibility - Louisiana .
Protect All Children's Environment .
Taiwan Watch Institute .
Toxics Action Center .
Women's Voices for the Earth . |
Mr. A Raja,
Minister of Environment & Forests
R No. 423, Paryavaran Bhavan
CGO Complex
Lodi Road, New Delhi 110 003
November 29, 2005
Dear Mr. Raja:
We are writing to strongly urge you to reject the proposed Chemplast PVC facility in SIPCOT Cuddalore. We understand this is a VCM-PVC unit and not an integrated unit, however even the best-designed PVC facilities pose irreversible health and environmental threats to surrounding communities.
An array of poisonous chemicals such as vinyl chloride, ethylene dichloride, and dioxins are used and/or inadvertently produced during the manufacture of PVC. Vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen that affects the central nervous system and damages the liver. Besides cancer, workers and residents alike are vulnerable to a range of ailments associated with vinyl chloride exposure, including damage to the liver, lungs, blood, nervous system, immune system, cardiovascular system, skin, bones and reproductive system. There appears to be no safe level of exposure to vinyl chloride, as it is considered to be "genotoxic" meaning it causes irreversible damage to DNA. Any exposure increases the risk of developing cancer, a birth defect or a genetic disorder.
PVC manufacturing facilities have poisoned workers and fenceline neighbors, polluted the air, contaminated drinking water supplies, and even wiped entire neighborhoods off the map. Consider some of the following brief examples of these very real threats:
Air pollution:
- In Mossville, Louisiana, air monitoring conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1999 showed vinyl manufacturing facilities emitted concentrations of vinyl chloride more than 120 times higher than the ambient air standard.
- In Delaware City, Delaware, air-monitoring has revealed high concentrations of vinyl chloride near a PVC manufacturing facility, which is under close state and federal scrutiny for pollution violations.
Water pollution:
- An air sample taken above Chemplast's effluent outfall into the River Kaveri in Mettur revealed the presence of high levels of cancer-causing chemicals like chloroform, vinyl chloride and ethylene dichloride -- some of which were well above guidelines or standards. This facility has been accused of polluting hundreds of wells and thousands of acres of agricultural land in Mettur, and has been caught discharging highly poisonous effluents into the River Kaveri upstream of TWAD Board's drinking water intake wells.
- In Lake Charles, Louisiana, a jury found one of the United States' leading PVC manufacturers liable for "wanton and reckless disregard of public safety", caused by one of the largest chemical spills in the nation's history which contaminated the groundwater underneath the surrounding community.
- In Pennsylvania, the federal government is working to clean up highly contaminated groundwater and contaminated lagoons at an OxyChem PVC plant.
- In Texas, vinyl chloride has been discovered in wells nearby a PVC plant, which was forced to spend one million dollars cleaning up the contaminated groundwater. This same company was fined in 1991 for over $3 million (U.S.) for hazardous waste violations related to the groundwater contamination.
Harm to Workers:
- Studies have documented links between working in vinyl chloride production facilities and the increased likelihood of developing diseases including angiosarcoma of the liver, a rare form of liver cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, lymphomas, leukemia, and liver cirrhosis.
- On April 23, 2004, a PVC plant in Illinois exploded, sending a plume of toxic smoke for miles around surrounding communities. Five workers were killed, four towns were evacuated, several highways closed, a no-fly zone declared, and three hundred firefighters from twenty-seven surrounding communities battled the flames for three days.
- An explosion at the Formosa Plastics Corporation plant in Point Comfort Texas in December 1998 injured 26 workers and rattled windows 35 miles away.
- These explosions at PVC plants are of great concern, especially in light of the close proximity of the proposed Chemplast plant to Palldian Chemicals, a manufacturer of highly explosive rocket fuel, which together may pose a Bhopal-like hazard to area residents.
PVC Fenceline Communities Wiped Off the Map
- In 2003, in Plaquemine, Louisiana, a trailer park development was relocated after being contaminated by vinyl chloride groundwater contamination, but only after women suffered from an abnormal number of miscarriages in the tainted area.
- Reveilletown, Louisiana, was once a small African-American town adjacent to an EDC/VCM facility owned by Georgia-Gulf. In the 1980s, after a plume of vinyl chloride in groundwater began to seep under homes in the area, Georgia-Gulf agreed to permanently evacuate the entire community of one hundred and six residents. Reveilletown has since been demolished.
Residents living near the SIPCOT industrial area are already overburdened by polluting facilities and can not afford to face such risks. The Tamilnadu State Human Rights Commission declared public health in the SIPCOT industrial estate "cannot take more burden than that which has already ensued by the existing chemical industries." Additionally, the local government (Panchayat) and the Panchayat Union have resolved against setting up polluting factories in SIPCOT. A legislative assembly member from your own party has written to you requesting the proposal be shelved. Residents living in and around the SIPCOT chemical industrial estate have already complained of intense chemical odors and health disorders which may be linked to the pollution. Residents believe there are high rates of morbidity among the region's children, who may be suffering from physical, mental and sexual development deficits. The SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitors (SACEM) have documented the presence of numerous cancer-causing chemicals in the air near SIPCOT due to current industrial operations.
Recognizing the myriad of environmental health threats posed by the PVC lifecycle, numerous governments and companies have already enacted PVC restrictions or have policies to eliminate PVC. These companies include Wal-Mart, Nike, Honda, Proctor and Gamble, Toyota, Microsoft, Apple, and Sony.
Given the significant environmental and health threats posed by the Chemplast PVC plant, we strongly urge you to reject the proposed facility. As organizations deeply concerned about and following this proposal from around the world, we look forward to and await your prompt response.
Sincerely,
Lois Gibbs
Executive Director
Center for Health, Environment and Justice
P.O. Box 6806
Falls Church, VA 22046
Michael Schade
Campaign Coordinator
Center for Health, Environment and Justice
BE SAFE
9 Murray Street, Suite 300
New York, NY 10007-2223
Devashree Saha
AID-Austin
SOC # 108
100-C West Dean Keaton
Austin TX 78712
Pam Miller Director
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
505 West Northern Lights Boulevard Suite 205
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
Diane Wilson
President
Calhoun County Resource Watch
Box 1001
Seadrift, Texas 77983
Jane Williams
Executive Director
California Communities Against Toxics
P.O. Box 845
Rosamond, CA 94560
Michael Green
Executive Director
Center for Environmental Health
528 61st Street, Suite A
Oakland, CA 94609
Lee Ketelsen
Campaign Director
Clean Water Action
262 Washington Street, Room 301
Boston, MA 02108
Erik Jansson
Executive Director
Department of the Planet Earth
701 E Street,SE, Ste. 200
Washington, DC 20003
Jan Conley
Board President
EAGLE ( Environmental Association for Great Lakes Education)
394 Lake Av. S #222
Duluth MN 55802
Tracey Easthope, MPH
Director, Environmental Health Project
Ecology Center
117 N. Division
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Yomi Noibi
Director of Training
Environmental Community Action
The Grant Building
44 Broad St. NW
Suite 711
Atlanta, GA 30303
Gary Cohen
Executive Director, Environmental Health Fund
Co-Executive Director, Health Care Without Harm
41 Oakview Terrace
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 |
Alan Muller, Executive Director
Green Delaware
Box 69
Port Penn, DE 19731 USA
Rick Hind
Legislative Director, Greenpeace Toxics Campaign
Greenpeace
702 H Street, NW #300
Washington, DC 20001
Bill Walsh
National Coordinator
Healthy Building Network
927 15th Street NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Mryna Soule
President
Learning Disabilities Association of Oregon
David Ludder
President
Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation
1114 Thomasville Road, Suite E
Tallahassee, FL 32303-6290
Angela Crowley-Koch
Executive Director
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility
921 SW Morrison, Suite 308
Portland, OR 97205
Lisa Arkin
Oregon Toxics Alliance
P.O. Box 1106
Eugene OR 97440
Ronnie Cummins, National Director
Organic Consumers Association (USA)
6771 South Silver Hill Drive
Finland MN 55603
Fernando Bejarano G
Pesticide Action Network (RAPAM)
Amado Nervo 23, int. 2
Col. San Juanito
Texcoco, Edo. de Mexico
CP 56121 MEXICO
Johanna Congleton
Physicians for Social Responsibility - Louisiana
E.M.T. O'Nan
Director
Protect All Children's Environment
396 Sugar Cove Road
Marion, North Carolina 28752
Herlin Hsieh and George Chen
Taiwan Watch Institute
Musin Road, Sec. 3, No. 148, 2F
Taipei City 116,Taiwan
Alyssa Schuren
Director
Toxics Action Center
44 Winter Street
Boston, MA 02108
Ms. Bryony Schwan M.S.
National Campaigns Director
Women's Voices for the Earth
P.O. Box 8743
Missoula, MT 59807
Balachandran Ramachandran
5115 Garden Way,
Fremont, CA-94536
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CC: Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests. Email: prodipto_ghosh@nic.in
Mike Schade PVC Campaign Coordinator Center for Health, Environment and Justice 9 Murray Street, Floor 3, New York, NY 10007-2223 Phone: (212) 964-3680 Fax: (212) 349-1366 mike@besafenet.com www.besafenet.com/pvc.htm www.chej.org
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