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Natural Resources Defense Council's
CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST NETWORK
SPECIAL ALERT
NRDC's
California Activist Network was formed to mobilize and provide
action tools to Californians and others concerned with
protecting the
state's extraordinary wealth of natural
treasures and the health of
its citizens.
July 16, 2002
========================================
SPECIAL ALERT FOR CALIFORNIA
ACTIVIST NETWORK MEMBERS:
**Urge Governor Davis to sign
California's landmark clean cars bill**
Take action now
at
http://www.nrdcaction.org/index.asp?step=2&item=1284
========================================
Thanks in large part to the
efforts of NRDC's California Activist
Network and other
concerned citizens, California's historic clean
cars
bill is awaiting Governor Davis' signature. AB 1493 (formerly AB
1058) passed the Senate on June 29 and the Assembly on July
1,
despite an intense, expensive lobbying campaign by
the auto industry.
The clean
cars bill would create the nation's first restrictions on
global warming pollution from automobiles. The bill would
authorize
the California Air Resources Board to
regulate carbon dioxide and
other global warming
emissions from passenger vehicles (including
SUVs and
minivans), light-duty trucks and all other personal vehicles
in California, while allowing automakers flexibility in
meeting these
requirements (the bill prohibits the
outlaw of vehicle types, so
automakers' claims that AB
1493 would ban SUVs in California are
simply untrue).
Scientists agree that existing technologies can cut
these emissions while actually *reducing* vehicle operating
costs,
and without sacrificing the safety and size of
vehicles that
Californians depend on.
The bill will not become law,
however, unless Governor Davis signs
it, and every day
the auto industry is increasing the pressure on him
not
to do so.
== What to do ==
Send Governor Davis a message *today* urging him to stand
firm
against industry pressure and sign AB 1493 into
law.
== For background ==
California's Clean Car Legislation
http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/fcacars.asp
== Contact information ==
You can
send an email or fax to Governor Davis directly from NRDC's
Earth Action Center at
http://www.nrdcaction.org/index.asp?step=2&item=1284 . Or use the
contact
information and sample letter below to send your own message.
Governor Gray Davis
State Capitol Building
Sacramento,
CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
Email: graydavis@governor.ca.gov
== Sample letter ==
Subject: Sign the clean cars bill
now!
Dear Governor Davis,
I urge you to sign AB 1493, which
would reduce global warming
pollution from cars and
light trucks, into law. AB 1493 sets forth a
reasonable
program in which the California Air Resources Board would
develop regulations to achieve the maximum feasible
cost-effective
reductions of greenhouse gas pollution
emitted by passenger vehicles
and light trucks sold in
California.
Vehicles in
California produce a higher percentage of global warming
pollution than in any other state. At the same time,
federal clean
air law gives California unique authority
to develop
pollution-control strategies. That's why it
makes sense for
California to lead the way in
developing innovative strategies to
curb global warming
pollution and to protect the state's environment,
public health and economy from the effects of unchecked
global
warming. The California Legislature has worked
long and hard to pass
a reasonable bill that sets a
workable, cost-effective process for
achieving this
goal.
California's leadership
in controlling vehicle emissions has brought
smart
technology to market in the past and can do so again. By
signing AB 1493 into law, you would help protect
California's
environment and economy and start
Americans down the road of working
together to reduce
the threat of global warming.
Again, please sign AB 1493 now.
Sincerely,
[Your name and address]
==================================================
The CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST NETWORK
ACTION ALERT is distributed monthly
to members of
NRDC's California Activist Network and provides action
tools to Californians and others concerned with protecting
the
state's natural resources and the health of its
citizens. To change
your subscriptions or update your
email address or other information,
go to: http://www.join.nrdcaction.org/profileeditor
To
unsubscribe from the California Activist Network Action Alert,
send an email message to wildcalifornia@nrdcaction.org with
REMOVE in
the subject line.
==========
About NRDC
==========
The Natural Resources Defense
Council is a nonprofit environmental
organization with
over 500,000 members nationwide and a staff of
scientists, attorneys and environmental experts. Our
mission is to
protect the planet's wildlife and wild
places and ensure a safe and
healthy environment for
all living things.
For more
information about NRDC or how to become a member of NRDC,
please contact us at:
Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY
10011
212-727-4511 (voice) / 212-727-1773 (fax)
General email: nrdcinfo@nrdc.org
California Activist Network email: wildcalifornia@nrdc.org
http://www.nrdc.org
Also
visit:
BioGems -- Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org
To: Northeast Activists
From: John
Demos
Date: July 17, 2002
Contact me at
demos@americanlands.com
ROADLESS VOTE FINALLY ON THE ROAD
PLEASE USE THE TOLL FREE NUMBER TO
ASK CONGRESS TO PROTECT ROADLESS
AREAS
- 1-888-569-8906
Last minute wrangling to have the Roadless Area Protection
amendment pulled from introduction seems fortunately to have failed. Many in
Congress are fearful of a vote because of the recent controversy surrounding the
forest fires out West. This despite the fact that the Roadless Rule will not
prevent fire treatment and that the roadless areas are least likely to burn.
The vote will be very
close. Those folks in NY please call your
Representatives. Several are still sitting on the fence. Sweeney,
Fossella, Grucci, McHugh, Walsh, Reynolds, and Quinn are undecided.
Others can help shore up their
Representatives (or in the case of NH express your
dissatisfaction). Calls into Minority Leader Dick Gephardt’s office
are also helpful to urge him to take a leadership role.
The Interior Appropriations bill
is now coming up today. We expect that Reps. Inslee (D-WA) and
Christopher Shays (R-CT) will offer an amendment
to
protect National Forest roadless areas. Calls are urgently needed in
support of the Roadless Area Conservation Amendment.
This amendment would halt over
50 new development projects being planned
in
inventoried roadless areas that would be prohibited by the Roadless
Conservation Rule. This amendment will build on
the support generated
for the Roadless Area
Conservation Act by maintaining the moratorium on
roadless projects that has been in place since former Chief
Michael
Dombeck announced a "time-out" on new roadless
projects in 1999.
PLEASE USE
THE TOLL FREE NUMBER TO ASK CONGRESS TO PROTECT ROADLESS
AREAS - 1-888-569-8906
Please urge Your Representative
to:
1. Support the
Roadless Area Conservation Amendment which allows for
fire management, and
2. Support protecting homes and communities from
fire by directing fire
funding to the Wildland/Urban
Interface and away from roadless areas
which are not a
priority for fuel reduction treatments.
PLEASE USE THE TOLL FREE NUMBER TO ASK CONGRESS TO PROTECT
ROADLESS
AREAS -1-888-569-8906
1. STOP THE FREEDOM TO FISH ACT!
Legislation now before the U.S. Congress, with the innocent
sounding title of "Freedom to Fish Act," (FFA) is
actually an
anti-conservation bill that will undermine
our ability to
protect ocean life. Please respond to
this alert and urge
U.S. Representatives to oppose this
dangerous legislation.
Click here: http://www.care2.com/go/z/1602
The
FFA will:
1) Place the right of people to fish anywhere
above the
government's ability to completely protect
some Marine
Sanctuaries.
2) Impair federal fishery protection by putting in place
almost
insurmountable obstacles before the
establishment of marine reserves.
3) Undermine two Presidential initiatives established under
the
Clinton Administration and supported by the Bush
Administration: one to establish the Northwestern
Hawaiian
Islands Coral Reef Reserve and another to
establish a
comprehensive national system of marine
protected areas.
4) Leave
marine reserves unprotected before national commissions
currently reviewing U.S. ocean conservation policy are able
to
announce their recommendations.
WHY WE NEED MARINE RESERVES:
Overfishing and habitat destruction have damaged ocean
ecosystems; currently, nearly one-third of known stocks
are considered overfished and urgently need time to
rebuild.
Over two-thirds of those stocks are
still experiencing
overfishing, which means more fish
are being removed
than the stock can regenerate.
Strong scientific evidence
suggests that fully protected
marine reserves, where
all extractive activities such as
fishing and oil
drilling are prohibited, are very effective
at
restoring damaged and depleted marine ecosystems.
The
National Academy of Sciences has endorsed the
increased
use of these and other types of marine protected
areas
as an important tool for rebuilding fisheries and
enhancing marine biodiversity.
Click here to take action: http://www.care2.com/go/z/1602
2.
ACTIVIST TIPS
* Use a chlorine shower filter in your
shower. Chlorine levels
are often higher during the
summer, and you can be exposed
to dioxin when the
chlorine diffuses in the air.
* And while we're on the subject of showers... Save water
-- shower
with friends :o)
* Don't use pesticides in your garden. Runoff from
pesticides
pollutes our beaches and lakes.
3. INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
"It is good to realize that...if we can teach our children
to honor
nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the
outdoors will be here
forever."
-- Jimmy Carter
 |
 |
 |
After completing a court-ordered review of more than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service is recommending that none of this spectacular land receive permanent wilderness protection -- a designation that would, among other things, ban new logging and roadbuilding. The Tongass spans much of southeastern Alaska, and is home to huge numbers of grizzly bears, bald eagles and wild salmon. Continued logging would destroy wildlife habitat and could silt up world-class salmon streams in the still-pristine sections of the earth's largest, intact temperate rainforest. But the Forest Service's recommendation, which heavily favors the timber industry, isn't final yet. The agency is accepting public comments on its proposal until August 17. »Tell the Bush administration to protect the Tongass! |
 MACAL RIVER DAM CHALLENGED IN COURT Belize's Public Utilities Commission acknowledged in court last month that it never approved plans for a hydroelectric dam that would flood the Macal River Valley, a critical wildlife corridor sheltering tapirs, howler monkeys and rare scarlet macaws. The admission was made in response to one of two lawsuits brought by Belizean environmentalists with support from NRDC; the second suit challenges the government's environmental review of the project, which largely ignored the dam's impact on wildlife. In response, environmentalists are continuing to push for the Belizean government and Fortis Inc., the Newfoundland-based backer of the dam, to be held accountable for violating the country's laws. In the meantime, dam opponents are getting some help from Belize's tropical weather: the start of the rainy season means construction will be delayed for several months. LOGGERS PROTEST PERU'S NEW FORESTRY RULES Peru's efforts to reform logging practices and protect indigenous cultures in its lush Tahuamanú rainforest have sparked vandalism and violence in recent weeks by small groups of loggers with ties to larger timber companies. The remote Tahuamanú region is known for its rare animals and plants, including old-growth mahogany and cedar trees that are rapidly being cut down by companies such as U.S.-based Newman Lumber. Despite the skirmishes, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo remains committed to sustainable forestry practices, which are designed to protect both the forest and the indigenous groups living within it. |
 |
To: All Activists
From: Steve Holmer
Date: July 16, 2002
Roadless Amendment Not Able to Be Offered Due to House
Rules
The amendment we
expected to see offered to protect roadless areas is
not being allowed under the House rules. If a
vote had taken place, it
was going to be too close to
call.
Despite the lack of a
vote this year, we have made tremendous progress
to
move the roadless protection effort forward. A significant number of
offices who have not cosponsored the roadless bill,
H.R. 4865, indicated
that they would have supported the
amendment, so we continue to build
support.
Many thanks to all of you for all
the calls over the last few weeks. We
would
also like to thank Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) for his strong
leadership on the roadless issue. His number is
202/225-6311. Rep.
Christopher Shays (R-CT)
also deserves thanks for being the Republican
champion
of the roadless amendment. His number is 202/225-5541.
If your Representative indicated
their support for the amendment, please
thank them at
202/224-3121. Rep. Inslee is committed to forcing a vote
on this issue in the House next year. Please let
any uncommitted
offices know that this issue is not
going away and that there will be a
vote on this issue
next year.
Thanks for all your
efforts.
On July 19, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
- on which your Senator
serves - will vote on ratification
of the historic
Women's Treaty! Urge your Senator to
vote "Yes" on this
important issue!
You can take
action on this alert either via email
(please see
directions below) or via the web at:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Womens_Treaty/ee3bxz058tm
Visit
the web address below and tell your friends to
take
action on this important campaign!
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Womens_Treaty/forward/ee3bxz058tm
We
encourage you to take action by August 9, 2002
CEDAW Action Alert
----------------------
Thanks to the leadership of Senators Barbara Boxer
(D-CA) and Joseph Biden (D-DE), the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee will soon hold (as early as tomorrow)
a vote on the historic "Women's Rights Treaty." The
treaty, known as the United Nations Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW), was adopted by the UN General Assembly
in 1979 and has been ratified by 170 countries. CEDAW
is one of the most widely accepted international women's
rights treaties. Despite this overwhelming support,
the U.S. remains one of 21 countries that have not
ratified this important treaty! Please contact your
Senator who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee
and urge them to ratify the "Women's Rights Treaty."
----------------------
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE
WEB:
If you have access to a web browser, you can take
action
on this alert by going to the following URL:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Womens_Treaty/ee3bxz058tm
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA EMAIL:
Just choose the "reply to sender" option on your email
program, and edit the letter below as you wish. Do
not delete "-YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER BELOW-" and "-END
OF LETTER-". Please do not add your name and address
to your letter. Our system automatically does this
for you.
We STRONGLY encourage you to make edits directly to
our sample letter below, and put the alert talking
points into your own words. An individualized letter
is worth ten computer generated letters. Of course,
hundreds of unedited letters will still create a large
impact, so please reply even if you don't have time
to personalize the letter.
Your letter will be addressed and sent to:
Senator Jesse Helms
-------YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER
BELOW---------
When the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee takes up
the Treaty for the
Rights of Women, also known as CEDAW,
I urge you to
vote yes in support of this important
treaty. It is a
shocking that 170 other nations have
ratified this
treaty and the United States remains
the only
industrialized nation that has not done so.
Since its adoption by the U.N.
General Assembly in
1979, women all over the globe have
used CEDAW as a
tool to build partnerships with their
governments in
order to improve the status of women.
The treaty has
helped to secure educational
opportunities, elected
office, healthcare services, and
legal protection for
women and girls.
By not ratifying the Women's
Treaty, the United States
is put in a weaker position
when criticizing foreign
governments for human rights
abuses. By signing the
Treaty for the Rights of Women,
the U.S. will lead
by example as it has in ratifying
treaties pertaining
to torture, genocide, and civil
rights.
Again, I
urge you to support the Treaty for the Rights
of Women.
I look forward to hearing your views on this
issue.
-------END OF
LETTER-------------------------
If you are a World Wildlife Fund Conservation Action
Network member,
you can take action by following the
simple steps below. If you
received this
email from a friend, visit
http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/action.asp?step=2&item=1712 to
take action. If you
are from Florida, please respond to both this
alert and
the other Everglades alert we sent you.
Action deadline: July 22, 2002
Dear Margie:
Restoration of the world class
Everglades ecosystem is in serious
jeopardy. Recently a U.S. House congressional
committee chose not to
resolve a longstanding obstacle
to restoring life-giving water flows
to the Everglades
and Florida Bay.
There's still a chance the resolution could be included
when the
Senate takes action on the Interior
appropriations bill within the
next few
days. We need your help to urge Secretary of the Interior
Gale Norton to push Congress to include the language as the
bill moves
forward.
Roseate spoonbills, Florida
manatees, and American crocodiles are just
a few of the
many species dependent on a healthy Everglades and
Florida Bay. Two years ago, Congress gave restoration of
the
Everglades a big boost by approving the first
phases of an $8 billion
restoration -- the world's
largest environmental restoration project.
Without
adequate water flow, however, the Everglades and Florida Bay
will continue to decline. Once known for its
clear waters, lush
seagrass beds, abundant fish and
game, and famous wading bird
populations, the Florida
Bay ecosystem collapsed in the late 1980s,
primarily
due to lack of freshwater flow.
Please forward this email to your friends and urge them to
take
action.
**************************TAKE ACTION NOW!
************************
TO
TAKE ACTION QUICKLY -- hit "reply" to this email and then "send"
and we will automatically send the message below, as is, to
Secretary
Norton.
MUCH BETTER YET, ADD YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND GREATLY INCREASE
YOUR
IMPACT -- Log in to your Personal Action Center
--
http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/login.asp -- with your email
address
(alerts@earthhopenetwork.net) and your password. Once you are in your
Personal Action Center, click on "Save the Everglades"
and follow the
instructions for adding your own
thoughts to your message.
If
you have any questions or problems with taking action, contact us
at actionquestions@takeaction.worldwildlife.org for help.
****************************LETTER
TEXT******************************
Dear Secretary Norton:
I write to urge you to communicate to key members of
Congress that the
Department of the Interior strongly
supports the restoration of
freshwater flows through
the Everglades to Florida Bay. Such flows
are needed to save this irreplaceable international
treasure.
Specifically, I ask that you urge Congress to include in
the Interior
appropriations bill legislative
clarification to technical aspects of
a carefully
crafted compromise ("alternative 6D") regarding water flow
restoration (the Modified Water Deliveries Project) for the
Everglades
and Florida Bay. It is vitally
important that Congress hear from you
with this message
of support.
In order for the
massive Everglades restoration - the world's largest
environmental restoration initiative - to be successful,
the Modified
Water Deliveries Project must be
implemented to reestablish hydrologic
connections
between key parts of the ecosystem and restore flows to
Florida Bay. In 1989, Congress endorsed
restoring flows to Florida
Bay while also providing
flood control for all of what is known as the
8.5
Square Mile Area. Unfortunately, those two goals proved to be
mutually exclusive. After years of contentious
debate, Alternative 6D
was developed as a
compromise. It provides flood protection to most
of the area's residents, requires a relatively small
proportion of
land to be purchased by the government,
and achieves substantial
restoration of historic water
flows.
I appreciate your past
support for restoration of the Everglades.
Now, I ask that you please send a strong message to
Congress regarding
your support for the Modified Water
Deliveries Project and Alternative
6D. Without congressional action, Everglades
restoration will be
paralyzed and this globally
outstanding resource will be lost.
Sincerely,
Your name and address
will be
inserted here
***********************END OF LETTER
TEXT*********************
______________________________________________________________________
Direct any questions about the WWF Conservation Action
Network to
actionquestions@takeaction.worldwildlife.org
______________________________________________________________________
The Conservation Action Network is sponsored by World
Wildlife Fund-
US. Known worldwide by its
panda logo, WWF is dedicated to
protecting the world's
wildlife and the rich biological diversity
that we all
need to survive. The leading privately supported
international conservation organization in the world, WWF
has
sponsored more than 2,000 projects in 116 countries
and has more than
1 million members in the United
States. WWF calls on everyone --
government,
industry, and individuals -- to take responsibility by
taking action to save our living planet.
World Wildlife Fund
1250 Twenty-fourth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.worldwildlife.org
http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org
To: All Activists
From: Steve Holmer & Matthew Koehler,
Native Forest Network
Date: July
17, 2002
Subject: CORRECTION:
Fire Sign On Letter Will Be Sent Tomorrow Please
Respond to mailto:koehler@wildrockies.org
Howdy Folks, Sorry for the
error. If your group has already responded
but your name is not on the list, please resend, your email
may have
bounced since I had an incomplete address on
our alert.
Enclosed is a sign
on letter endorsed by 103 conservation organizations
that will be sent to the Forest Service and released to the
media
tomorrow. There is still time to sign
your group on. Please contact
Matthew Koehler (ASAP) at
mailto:koehler@wildrockies.org or (406)
542-7343 to add
your group.
Chief Dale
Bosworth
USDA - Forest Service
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, DC
20090
July 18, 2002
Dear Chief Bosworth:
In recent weeks, some politicians
and some U.S. Forest Service (USFS)
officials have
repeatedly misrepresented the conservation community's
position on wildfires, home protection and fuel-reduction.
It is our
hope that this letter will clarify our
position on these issues of
critical importance.
First, let us state that the
conservation community has always supported
common
sense approaches designed to effectively protect homes and
communities from fire. The USFS's own fire experts have
found that a
home's survival rate depends almost
entirely on its location, its
condition and its
immediate surroundings, not on more commercial logging
and roadbuilding in the backcountry.
To help support the goal of
effective home and community protection from
forest and
grassland fires, the conservation community has taken a
leading role in educating homeowners about the importance
of treating
flammable material adjacent to homes and
communities.
For example, The
Lands Council in Spokane, Washington received a
National Fire Plan (NFP) grant to educate rural homeowners
about
effective methods they can use to protect their
homes and property from
fires. Another broader
coalition of twelve environmental groups
distributed a
publication about fires and home protection to 50,000
households in Montana and Idaho.
Furthermore, on countless
occasions, representatives of the conservation
community have sat down with USFS officials to discuss
plans and
projects that will effectively protect homes
and communities from
fires. Unfortunately,
the USFS's has chosen to focus their priorities
largely
on commercial logging projects far removed from communities, not
on effectively protecting communities.
Over the last two years,
conservation groups have been advocating that
Congress
should increase funding for community protection and fire
education, and that Congress should continue to direct the
agencies to
spend National Fire Plan money to protect
communities at risk in the
wildlands urban interface.
For example, in American Lands
Alliance's 2003 Appropriations
Initiative, over 70
conservation organizations have proposed that
Congress
increase spending for the Cooperative Fire Protection program
by $200 million in 2003 and direct fuel-reduction funds to
be spent in
the wildlands urban interface, not on more
commercial logging in
backcountry forests. As you know,
the Cooperative Fire Protection
program provides
technical and financial assistance to states and local
fire agencies to promote efficient wildland fire protection
with a focus
on mitigating hazards and protecting homes
in the wildland urban interface and
reducing
suppression costs. This program has the potential to direct
funds to help homeowners fireproof their homes.
While we are supportive of
effective home and community protection
efforts, what
we are finding "on the ground" is that National Fire Plan
funds have been misused by the USFS to promote commercial
logging, have
not been targeted towards the highest
risk areas, and have failed to
effectively protect
homes and communities from fires.
For example, according to a November 2001 report released
by the
Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector
General (OIG), the USFS
inappropriately used NFP funds
intended for fire restoration to conduct
commercial
timber sales - including the nation's largest timber sale on
the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana. That OIG report
also stated
that, "commercial timber sales do not meet
the criteria for forest
restoration."
In April, a report by the John
Muir Project revealed that 83% of all
USFS projects
funded by NFP brush reduction funds in the Sierra Nevada
are actually commercial timber sales. Congress provided
these funds to
reduce flammable brush adjacent to
communities, however the USFS has
misused these funds
for commercial timber sales located an average of 6
miles from the nearest town. Equally alarming, nearly 75%
of these
NFP-funded timber sales focus on the removal
of large, fire resistant
trees, and 94% of the timber
sales take place within suitable habitat
for imperiled
species such as the California spotted owl, northern
goshawk, Pacific fisher and Bald Eagle.
This blatant USFS abuse of NFP
funds is occurring despite NFP warnings
that the
agency's wildland fire policy "should not rely on commercial
logging or new road building to reduce fire risks." The NFP
also states
that "the removal of large, merchantable
trees from forests does not
reduce fire risk and may,
in fact, increase such risk." Unfortunately,
the USFS has not heeded the advice of the NFP, but instead
is pushing
forward with commercial logging projects in
the backcountry that target
large, fire resistant
trees.
Even though the GAO
reported that the greatest fire threat is found in
the
West, so far this year, 80% of all prescribed fire acres have
occurred in the southeast. While the conservation community
supports
appropriate prescribed fires in the
southeast's fire dependent
ecosystems, we are concerned
that the appropriate use of prescribed
fires for
fuel-reduction is not being effectively utilized in the West.
Further, the General Accounting
Office (GAO) reported in February 2002
that the USFS
and Department of Interior have failed to identify
communities that face a high risk of wildfire, and have not
reported on
what was accomplished with appropriated
funds. The GAO report also
criticized the USFS and
Interior Department for failing to effectively
coordinate their activities.
We would also like to call your attention to the results of
an
independent assessment of the Rodeo-Chediski fire in
Arizona conducted
by Pacific Biodiversity Institute.
The assessment highlights two basic
facts that
contradict statements blaming the fires on environmental
organizations. First, that the fires started and burned
extensively on
tribal land before entering the national
forests -- most of the land
burned by the fires (60%)
is on tribal land, only 37% is in National
Forests and
3% is on private and state land.
And second, that much of the area burned by these fires is
land that has
been subjected to extensive commercial
logging and road building over
the last 50 years. For
example, the assessment identified more than
2,100
miles of logging roads in the fire area. If commercial logging and
roadbuilding prevents fires - or at least reduces their
intensity - as
the Forest Service claims, then why did
the Rodeo-Chediski fire burn so
fiercely?
The
assessment also highlights the national wildfire situation and calls
attention to the fact that most wildfires nationwide are
burning on
private, tribal, and state land - not on
national forest land as
commonly
believed. Federal wildfire statistics reveal that over the
last decade, less than 18% of the nationwide wildfire burn
area is in
the national forests. It is also important
to note that over the past
ten years nearly 90% of all
wildfires were started by people - usually
on or
adjacent to a road. The full assessment is available on-line at
www.pacificbio.org/wildfire2002.html.
When it comes to restoring the
ecological integrity of our nation's
national forests,
the conservation community again has been at the
forefront of developing a new approach - including safely
restoring fire
to fire-dependent ecosystems outside of
the wildland urban interface.
During the past year, the conservation community - together
with input
from forest practitioners and community
forestry groups - has drafted
Restoration Principles to
promote ecological forest restoration and to
implement
ecologically sound restoration policies and projects on
national forests. The Restoration Principles clearly
distinguish
hazardous fuel-reduction projects designed
to effectively protect homes
and communities from
fuel-reduction projects designed to restore
ecological
integrity in fire-dependent ecosystems, a distinction
overlooked by the USFS.
As you can clearly see, the conservation community is
deeply committed
to the protection of homes and
communities. We will continue to expand
our efforts to
safeguard communities, while at the same time, promote
and support ecologically-based restoration projects on our
national
forests. If the Forest Service supports these
goals, we feel strongly
that we can work together.
However, if the Forest Service continues to
misuse
National Fire Plan money, the conservation community will
continue to hold your agency accountable. The American
people and our
nation's public lands deserve no less.
Sincerely,
Alabama
Wilderness Alliance (AL)
Alaska Center for the
Environment (AK)
Allegheny Defense Project (PA)
Alliance for the Wild Rockies (MT)
Ambience Project (MT)
American
Lands Alliance (DC)
Appalachian Voices (NC)
Bark (OR)
Blue Mountains
Biodiversity Project (OR)
Big Wild Advocates (MT)
Biodiversity Northwest (WA)
Boulder Environmental Activists' Resource (CO)
Bradford Environmental Research Institute (WY)
Buckeye Forest Council (OH)
Cascadia Fire Ecology Education Project (OR)
Cascadia Forest Alliance (OR)
Center for Biological Diversity (AZ)
Central Oregon Forest Issues Committee (OR)
Cherokee Forest Voices (TN)
Cold
Mountain, Cold Rivers (MT)
Colorado Wild (CO)
Columbia Gorge Audubon Society (OR)
Columbia Lands Institute (WA)
Committee for Idaho's High Desert (ID)
Concerned Friends of Ferry County (WA)
Cooperative Resources and Services Project (CA)
CU Sinapu (CO)
Deerlodge Forest
Defense Fund (MT)
Dogwood Alliance (NC)
Endangered Species Coalition (DC)
Flagstaff Activist Network (AZ)
Forest Watch (VT)
Forest
Conservation Council (NM)
Forestry Monitoring Project
(CA)
Friends of the Bitterroot (MT)
Friends of the Clearwater (ID)
Friends of the Earth (DC)
Gifford
Pinchot Task Force (WA)
Green America (FL)
Headwaters (OR)
Heartwood (IN)
Hells Canyon Preservation Council (OR)
High Uintas Preservation Council (UT)
Idaho Conservation League (ID)
Idaho Sporting Congress (ID)
Indiana Forest Alliance (IN)
John
Muir Project (CA)
Kentucky Heartwood (KY)
Kettle Range Conservation Group (WA)
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (OR)
Kootenai Environmental Alliance (ID)
Last Great Wilderness Project (NC)
League Of Wilderness Defenders (OR)
Leavenworth Audubon Adopt-a-Forest (WA)
Los Angeles Eco-Village (CA)
Michiana Watersheds (IN)
Mt. Baker
Group, Sierra Club (WA)
National Forest Protection
Alliance (MT)
Native Forest Network (MT)
Native Forest Network - Southwest (NM)
North Group, Redwood Chapter, Sierra Club (CA)
Northwest Ecosystem Alliance (WA)
Northwest Environmental Defense Center (OR)
Northcoast Environmental Center (CA)
Northwoods Wilderness Recovery (MI)
Payette Forest Watch (ID)
Pilchuck
Audubon Society (WA)
Regional Association of Concerned
Environmentalists (IL)
Religious Campaign for Forest
Conservation (CA)
Santa Fe Forest Watch (NM)
Santiam Watershed Guardians (OR)
Selkirk Conservation Alliance (ID)
Sequatchie Valley Institute at Moonshadow (TN)
Sequoia ForestKeeper (CA)
Sequoia
Forest Alliance (CA)
Sinapu (CO)
Siskiyou Project (OR)
Southern
Appalachian Biodiversity Project (NC)
Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance (UT)
Sublette Riders Association
(WY)
Superior Wilderness Action Network (MN)
Taxpayers for Common Sense (DC)
The Ecology Center (MT)
The Lands
Council (WA)
The Society for Natural Resources
Conservation (NY)
Tule River Conservancy (CA)
Ventana Wilderness Alliance (CA)
Virginia Forest Watch (VA)
Umpqua
Watersheds (OR)
Upper Columbia River Group, Sierra Club
(WA)
Utah Environmental Congress (UT)
Washington Wilderness Coalition (WA)
Western Fire Ecology Center (OR)
Western Nebraska Resources Council (NE)
Western North Carolina Alliance (NC)
Wild Alabama (AL)
Wild South (AL)
Wild Wilderness (OR)
Wilderness Study Group (CO)
Wilderness Watch (MT)
Wildlands
Center for Preventing Roads (MT)
WildLaw (AL)
Wisconsin Environmental Jewish Initiative (WI)
World Stewardship Institute (CA)
JULY
2002
Here's
the action you've been waiting for:
tell
the U.S. Forest Service what you think
about
its decision that not a single acre of
precious,
old-growth forest in the Tongass
is
worth protecting as federally designated
wilderness.
We've said it before: your
comments
matter! Click
here to take
action today. And now for something
completely different: your comments and
questions
in response to my past columns. "I understand that Smith was
passed by the Senate Judiciary
committee
because of the defection of three democrats. It
must
be
impressed upon everybody that these are lifetime
appointments.
That once these fanatics gain their judgeships,
this
country will be in a world of hurt. I am not a
religious
man
but God help us all." "I read in the paper that the
Supreme Court recently ruled
against
the "takings" concept. (The Lake Tahoe case.) Does
that
mean
the concept is dead? Or was that just for that one
case?
Can
other plaintiffs try the concept again in other
courts?" "Well I sure hope that
Earthjustice's attorneys are successful
in
opposing the current Forest Service's
no-wilderness-in-the-Tongass
proposal.
There's absolutely nothing I as a voter can do
since I
live
in Idaho, which has one of the worst congressional
delegations
in the USA so far as the environment is concerned.
They
are all FOR opening up wilderness and cutting it
all down.
As
a resident of Idaho I have no voice at all on the
level of
federal
laws and appointments." Keep those comments coming to
tturner@earthjustice.org.
Thanks, and talk to you next
month.
- Tom Turner,
Senior
Editor
AIR
FORESTS
HEALTH
&
COMMUNITIES
INTERNATIONAL
OCEANS
PUBLIC
LANDS
WATER
WILDLIFE
IN
THIS
ISSUE:
Scientists get in on the
Act
Alabama
breathes a sigh of relief
Cows feeding at the
public trough? BOO-OOO
Take action to protect the
Tongass!
Leading the charge in
Alaska
Match extension!
Double your gift today!
ABOUT
EARTHJUSTICE
Founded as the Sierra
Club Legal Defense Fund in 1971,
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EARTHJUSTICE E-BRIEF
Thanks for taking time
for the latest environmental news in
this month's Earthjustice e-Brief, friend!
What's new this month? The Endangered
Species Act is, well, endangered; a
sneaky proposal that would increase
overgrazing damage is making its way through
Congress; and Tom Turner responds to your
questions and comments. Read on!
Scientists get in on
the Act. . .
...the Endangered Species
Act, that is! GOP-led legislation that
would limit the ability of scientists to use
the best available science to conserve
endangered species has provoked
outrage among scientists across the
country. In a letter to Congress, more than
300 scientists note that "there are many
species hovering on the brink of extinction
and they need scientifically based action to
help in their recovery." Find out more
about this latest threat to wildlife.
Alabama breathes a sigh
of relief
Smoggy
air in Birmingham has violated federal health
standards for years, but the EPA has
dragged its feet in requiring stronger
ion controls. Not anymore! A recent federal
court decision will force the EPA to decide
whether to reclassify the area to a stricter
air pollution category. "This sort of delay
threatens people's health and flouts the
Clean Air Act," said Earthjustice attorney
David Baron. "Children, asthmatics, and others
with lung ailments should not have to wait years
for EPA to make these
decisions."
More...
Sea turtle plan holds great
potential
Sea turtles are on the verge
of extinction because of human activities such as
shrimp fishing, hunting for meat and eggs, and
trade in tortoise shell luxury items. Now, an
international treaty has great potential to
protect sea turtles - and even set precedent for
the way in which modern societies collaborate on
environmental issues. Will it work? We're hopeful.
More...
Cows
feeding
at the public trough? BOO--OOO!
A sneaky
proposal buried deep within the 2003 Interior
Appropriations bill would allow
cattle ranchers and corporations to overgraze
some of America's most valuable natural
public lands. Citing overgrazing as the
primary cause of wild species loss
in parts of the
Southwest, Earthjustice has joined every
major environmental organization in opposing
the measure. Get the
scoop on this latest example
of special interest influence.
Take action to protect
the Tongass!
Into the woods with Buck
Parker
What happens when an
environmental leader gets up close in the Tongass
National Forest? Find out
about the seals, sea lions,
humpbacks, orcas, porpoises, and eagles
Earthjustice Executive Director Buck Parker
encountered on his recent trip - and how he
returned with a renewed sense of purpose in
protecting the untouched grandeur of the Tongass.
Leading the charge in
Alaska!
As we continue
our efforts to protect Alaska's Tongass National
Forest, it's good to know the lwyers leading the
charge. "I am struck by a feeling of wonder for
this place and gratitude that I get to spend my days
trying to protect it," says Eric Jorgensen,
managing attorney of Earthjustice's Juneau office,
as he contemplates what keeps him
going
in the fight to preserve some of our last wild places.
More...
Match extension! Double your
gift today!
Threats to endangered
species, preserving public lands, protecting
public health...today's
e-Brief contains many good reasons why making
a gift to Earthjustice makes sense. Here's
another: our matching gift deadline has
been extended to July 31st! That means your gift of
$35 is worth $70, $50 is worth $100 and so
on. Thank you to those of you who've already
responded...now you can tell a friend! And if
you haven't participated yet, now's your chance!
Click here
Tom Turner
is Earthjustice's
Senior
Editor, and our newest e-brief columnist. E-mail
him
at
tturner@earthjustice.org.
E-mail, I get e-mail. .
.
"Thanks for the heads-up on
the nomination of Judge Smith. I am
offended
that my own senator, John Edwards, voted in
committee
to
approve the nomination. He also voted Yea on the
FTAA even
though
the Chapter 11 ruling was not removed, as well as
on the
bankruptcy
bill, which is really designed to stick it to the
little
guy. And I thought he was going to vote for the
people! I
intend
to express my disapproval on this issue as well.
Thank
God
for people and organizations like you and yours.
The world
needs
more of them."
-Barbara Coulson
Tom: Thank you. The world
needs lots more people like you all
as
well.
"Just a short note to thank
you for your concise summary on
Bush's
judicial appointments. All I can say about Bush is
we
might
as well be living on Mars for all he and a
majority of his
cabinet
care about the health of Earth. That said, I have
been
spending
most of my time trying to get Iowans to talk to
their
legislators
about manure and fertilizer spills here in Iowa.
I've
enjoyed fishing for nearly four decades but won't
buy a
license
or fish this year because I don't get any pleasure
from
catching
and stressing a fish I won't keep because of the
toxins
we
have poured into its home waters. Our global
environment is a
closed
system from Everest to the Amazon and all of us
are
downstream
somewhere in the cycle. Thanks again for keeping
us
informed
of issues which affect all of us for
decades."
- K.R.
Cox
Tom: And thanks to you as
well. Keep beating on those Iowa
legislators.
- Walter Barbuck,
Jr.
Tom: It may
not be too late to stop the Smith nomination.
Please
be sure your senators know your feelings on this
nomination.
Click
here
to send your senator a
letter.
- Sheila
Ferrari
Tom: The
takings decision by the Supreme Court was very
encouraging,
and should eliminate some of the more extreme
claims
that have been rattling around in the lower courts
for
many
years. The battle is by no means over, however.
There's
little
question the takings zealots will be back to try
again.
And
again.
- Jo Kirkpatrick
Tom: Hang in there, Jo. We
need allies in Idaho. Especially
in
Idaho. And your comment to the Forest
Service carries just as much weight
as anyone else's, whether you're
from
Idaho, California, Alaska, or Texas. Even
Texas.
tturner@earthjustice.org
2002
Earthjustice
| 426 17th St., 6th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612 |
510-550-6700
|
enews@earthjustice.org
Good Morning,
Here is more information I received regarding the wolf
situation in Norway.
Thank
you,
Donna
Ranchers howl over rise in wolf
attacks
Wolves have killed four times as many freely
grazing sheep in Norway as
they did last year at this
time. Ranchers are up in arms, while state
officials
are urging them to fence in their flocks.
Norway's actual wolf population is believed to have been
cut in half,
because of natural migration into Sweden
and controversial wolf hunts.
The last counts indicate
11 to 16 in Norway and 60 to 69 in Sweden, with
another
22 roaming over both sides of the border.
"We're a bit unsure exactly how many wolves are out there
right now,"
said wildlife official Erling Maartmann for
the county of Hedmark in
eastern Norway.
Those remaining, however, have
attacked 91 sheep in Hedmark, 77 in
Oppland, 50 in
Oestfold, two in Akershus and 15 in the East and West
Agder. All told that's less than 1 percent of the sheep
that disappear
every year, but the documented wolf
attacks have shaken ranchers in
affected areas.
"Here in Oppland, we hardly had
any wolves earlier, so the attacks are
interpreted as a
lot," wildlife management official Egil Soglo told
newspaper Aftenposten.
The sheep, vulnerable because of an age-old tradition of
open grazing in
Norway, also are attacked by other
predators including foxes and lynx.
And on Tuesday one
rancher in Trysil found 20 of his flock lying dead
under a tree, apparently killed by lightening during a
fierce electrical
storm last week.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=365687
Dear U.S. PIRG supporter,
I'm writing to let you know the latest on the post-Enron
accounting and corporate responsibility reforms in Congress.
This week, thanks to intense
pressure from small investors upset with news of the latest corporate scandals,
the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Sarbanes-Leahy Accounting Reform
Bill. The Senate bill is much stronger than the companion House
legislation. Although not all of the strengthening amendments we
sought were added, the Senate bill is landmark legislation, and it is remarkable
that such a strong bill has gotten this far. Now we need to make sure
that the bill isn't weakened.
Unfortunately, accountants, the Chamber of Commerce and
others powerful interests are working with Congressional opponents of reform,
led by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, to weaken the bill. They've
decided to delay their efforts until the bill gets to a conference committee.
Conference committees are
where the House and Senate negotiate differences between bills each has passed
and where negotiations on the final shape of the accounting reform bill will
take place. While the conference committee has a token open session,
that usually occurs after all the deals are cut behind closed
doors. Special interest lobbyists are hoping to convince conferees to
drag out deliberations for months, in the hope that the public will forget about
Enron, forget about WorldCom, and forget about all the other scandals on the
front pages today.
For real
reform to happen, we need to keep our reform platform moving quickly toward the
President's desk. Already, some House Republicans are urging the
House leadership to accept the Senate bill as an alternative to going to
conference.
Please take a
moment to ask your representative to tell the House leadership to hold a House
vote on the Senate Accounting Reform bill now instead of going to a slow,
special-interest dominated conference committee process. Follow the
link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail your representative.
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=315&id4=ES
BACKGROUND
In the wake of the 2001 Enron
scandal, Congress began to consider legislation to reform accounting oversight
and guarantee corporate responsibility. Then, in April 2002, the House passed a
weak accounting reform bill. Following new revelations about more corporate
scandals, particularly the $3.8 billion WorldCom fiasco, the full Senate took up
both accounting and corporate responsibility legislation in July and passed a
broad reform package. Both the House and Senate bills separate the auditing
function of accounting companies from their consulting operations and establish
a new public oversight board for the accounting industry. The Senate bill also
includes a number of anti-fraud provisions championed by Senator Leahy and the
Judiciary Committee. It includes whistleblower protections, creates new
securities fraud crimes, and lengthens the amount of time defrauded investors
can sue companies that cook the books.
Following passage of the Senate bill, the House moved
quickly this week to pass its own weaker anti-fraud bill. While the House is
claiming its securities fraud penalties are much longer (20 years instead of 10
years in the Senate bill) the House has also erected numerous hurdles that will
make it nearly impossible to win a lawsuit, so no one would serve those longer
terms. If the bills go to conference, the two House bills will be negotiated
with the broader Senate bill.
On the other hand, the House could simply vote to pass the
Senate bill. When both the House and Senate pass the same bill, it can go right
to the President without a conference committee. In several speeches this week
on corporate responsibility, the President has indicated he will sign either
bill.
So, it is critical that
House members join the call urging their leadership to bring the stronger Senate
bill up for a vote. Alternatively, the House could hold a vote "instructing" its
conferees to accept certain parts of the Senate bill that are stronger. But the
best solution is not to have a conference in the first place. Behind the closed
doors of a conference committee, pernicious amendments written by industry
lobbyists are routinely inserted into legislation that should have been voted on
in the light of day. As the distinguished Justice Louis Brandeis said: "Sunlight
is the best disinfectant; the electric lightbulb the best policeman."
The Senate bill isn't everything
we want. The Senate refused to allow Senator Carl Levin a vote on his amendment
to force companies to treat stock options as expenses. The Senate refused to
allow Senator Richard Shelby a vote on his amendment to make it possible for
defrauded investors to sue lawyers and accountants who act as accomplices to
corporate crooks. And the Senate failed to consider several amendments by
Senators McCain, Boxer, Dorgan and others to strengthen the bill's auditor
independence standards to better guarantee that audit firms act as public
watchdogs instead of management lapdogs. Nevertheless, the Senate bill is
landmark legislation and it is remarkable that such a strong bill has gotten
this far. We need to ensure that it is not weakened further; that's why a
conference committee is a bad idea.
Please take a moment to ask your representative to support
a House vote on the Senate Accounting Reform bill now instead of going to a
slow, special-interest dominated conference committee process. Follow
the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail your representative.
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=315&id4=ES
Sincerely,
Gene Karpinski
U.S. PIRG Executive Director
http://www.USPIRG.org
JUST IN:
A wolf was shot today in Stor Elvdal municipality. The man
who shot it
claims it was when the wolf attacked a
sheep. Then it's legal to kill
wolves in Norway. It was
a 1 year old male . The Police confirm this,
and the
wolf will be taken to a local high school , where experts will
look at it !
Donna
Natural Resources Defense Council's
LEGISLATIVE WATCH
July 18, 2002
******************************
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questions or comments.
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Contents:
1) Legislative Watch
2) About Our Bulletins/How to Subscribe & Unsubscribe
3) About NRDC/How to Contact Us
The information in this bulletin
is also available on our website at
http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/legwatch.asp The web version links
to the text
of bills and congressional web pages. To take action on
these and other environmental issues, visit NRDC's Earth
Action
Center at http://www.nrdc.org/action, where you can use our online
activism tools or subscribe to Earth Action, our biweekly
activist
bulletin.
1) LEGISLATIVE WATCH
This is a status report on congressional action on the
environment.
To make new or updated sections easy to
find, we've highlighted them
with:
= N O T E ! =
7/18/02
Congressional attention is currently focused on homeland
security
legislation that includes a provision that
could weaken enforcement
of environment and public
health laws. Funding bills are moving
rapidly, with the
House finalizing the Interior Department bill,
which
funds parks and land conservation. Also, a House-Senate
conference committee is continuing to negotiate differences
in the
energy bill.
...
Budget/Appropriations
= N O T E ! =
The Bush
administration is working with congressional leaders to
strike a deal that would limit funding for the supplemental
spending
bill. The Senate version of the bill (S. 2551)
primarily addresses
defense and emergency spending
priorities, but also includes funding
for hazardous
materials management, drinking water system
vulnerability assessment programs, and economic assistance
for New
England fishing communities. The House bill
(H.R. 4775) includes a
provision written by Rep. Kolbe
(R-AZ) that would exempt the
Department of Defense from
complying with the Endangered Species Act
when species
or their habitats are threatened by increases in water
consumption in areas surrounding military installations.
Environmentalists are concerned that the language could
specifically
allow over-use of water from the San Pedro
River in Arizona, harming
reptiles, mammals and
migratory birds that depend on the river. The
Senate
bill does not include this language.
= N O T E ! =
On 7/17, the House
passed the Interior Department's FY 03 funding
bill,
H.R. 5093. The House added modest funds for conservation
programs -- most of which were allocated to state wildlife
grants and
cooperative endangered species programs --
and for fire management.
Rep. Hinchey (D-NY) added a
provision that would prohibit funding of
oil and gas
drilling in the Finger Lakes National Forest in New York.
A few environmentally-friendly amendments were adopted,
including a
provision offered by Rep. Capps (D-CA) and
Rep. Rahall (D-WV) to
prevent federal funds from being
used to develop 36 California
offshore drilling leases.
An amendment from Rep. Blumenauer (D-OR) to
ensure that
commercial farmers who lease land in national refuges
reduce their use of pesticides and comply fully with refuge
regulations was defeated. The Senate version of the
Interior bill (S.
2708) was approved in committee on
6/27. Both bills contain language
that would expand
damaging grazing practices on public lands.
Environmentalists want the final bill to include increased
funding
for the Land Conservation, Preservation, and
Infrastructure
Improvement program, and are hoping to
prevent money slated for the
Land and Water
Conservation Fund from being siphoned off to cover
other expenses.
= N O T E ! =
On 7/17, under
pressure from fiscal conservatives, the House
Republican leadership decided to revisit the spending
allocations in
the budget plan passed by the House
Appropriations Committee on 6/23.
Environmentalists are
concerned that the decision increases the
likelihood
that environmental spending will be further reduced in
future bills.
= N O T E ! =
On 7/11, the House
Appropriations Committee approved a bill to fund
the
Agriculture Department. The bill would restore funding for
watershed protection initiatives that was cut in President
Bush's
budget request, but would limit a new program
that would pay farmers
for implementing conservation
practices and setting up wetland
reserves.
= N O T E ! =
On 6/27, the House approved the FY '03 Department of
Defense spending
bill (H.R. 5010) by a vote of 413-18.
The bill includes money for
departmental pollution
prevention programs as well as the cleanup of
contaminated DoD sites.
See NRDC's analysis of the Bush budget.
http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/abudget03.asp
For a step-by-step guide to our annual odyssey through
resolutions,
reconciliations and appropriations, see
NRDC's budget process fact
sheet.
http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/fbudg.asp
...
Clean Air and Energy
= N O T E ! =
House-Senate energy conference committee meetings started
slowly
during the July 4th recess, initially taking up
less controversial
provisions of the energy bill
dealing with Indian energy production,
low-income home
energy assistance, and nuclear research and insurance
subsidies. During August and September, the committee plans
to take
up the more controversial provisions relating
to renewable energy and
energy efficiency, electricity
deregulation, climate change, ethanol
mandates, fuel
economy standards, and oil drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. While the Senate defeated
attempts to
include provisions for Arctic drilling in
its version of the bill (S.
517), the House bill (H.R.
4) would allow drilling in the refuge.
Unlike the House
bill, the Senate bill includes a provision
increasing
the use of renewable fuels -- mostly ethanol -- in
gasoline by five billion gallons by 2012. The Senate bill
also would
ban MTBE (a gasoline additive that has
contaminated drinking water),
require companies to
report their emissions of greenhouse gases, and
require
electric providers to produce 4-5 percent of their energy
from new, renewable resources. The House bill includes over
$33
billion in tax incentives that are largely for the
oil, coal, and
nuclear energy industries. The Senate
bill includes $15 billion in
incentives, about half of
which would be available to improve energy
efficiency
in vehicles, appliances, and buildings, as well as to
increase the use of solar, wind, and other cleaner
alternative energy
sources.
= N O T E ! =
On 7/16, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
held a
joint hearing with the Senate Judiciary
Committee on the Bush
administration's recent proposed
changes to the "New Source Review"
provisions of the
Clean Air Act. Witnesses included high-level
representatives from the EPA and the Department of Justice
and the
New York Attorney General. On 6/27, the
committee postponed a vote on
issuing a subpoena to the
EPA to gain access to documents related to
the New
Source Review changes. Power plants are currently required to
install pollution-control devices when they modernize, but
the rule
change weakens these protections and would
allow old, dirty power
plants to generate more
pollution than under the existing rules.
On 6/27, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
approved
S. 556, a bill co-authored by committee chair
Sen. Jeffords (I-VT)
and Sen. Lieberman (D-CT), by a
vote of 10-8. The bill seeks to
reduce four types of
power plant emissions by imposing mandatory cuts
in
carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury
emissions. No action has been taken on the House companion
bill (H.R.
1256), which was introduced on 3/27/01 by
Rep. Waxman (D-CA) and Rep.
Boehlert (R-NY). The Bush
administration opposes regulating carbon
dioxide
emissions, arguing that the costs on the economy would be too
high. The administration has announced a proposal that
would regulate
only three of the four worst power plant
pollutants, reversing a Bush
campaign promise to
regulate carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas
that
contributes to global warming.
NRDC has detailed an energy policy that would provide a
secure energy
future without destroying wilderness or
rolling back environmental
safeguards in reports
including Dangerous Addiction: Ending America's
Oil
Dependence (http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/oilsecurity/securityinx.asp)
and A Responsible Energy Policy
for the 21st Century
(http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/rep/repinx.asp).
...
Clean Water
On 6/6, the Senate Environment and
Public Works Subcommittee on Clean
Air, Wetlands, and
Climate Change held a hearing to examine the
impact of
Bush administration changes to the Clean Water Act that
could make it easier for mining companies and other
industrial
operations to dump waste into U.S. waters.
On 5/3, the Bush
administration finalized a change to
Clean Water Act rules that would
expressly allow
dumping of waste from mountaintop removal coal mining
into streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and other waters.
Five days
later, on 5/8, a federal district court
blocked the Army Corps of
Engineers from issuing any
additional permits for disposal of
mountaintop removal
mining waste in these waters (the administration
is
appealing the court's decision). Also on 5/8, Rep. Pallone (D-NJ)
and Rep. Shays (R-CT) introduced H.R. 4683, which would
reverse the
administration's changes.
On 6/5, the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee approved
Sen. Boxer's
(D-CA) and Sen. Feinstein's (D-CA) bill to reauthorize
CALFED (S. 1768), an important federal and state
partnership in
California that provides water for urban
and agricultural users, as
well as for wildlife and
habitat restoration. The committee approved
an
amendment to the bill, crafted through negotiations among Sen.
Feinstein, Sen. Kyl (R-AZ), and Sen. Murkowski (R-AK), to
limit the
program's duration and level of funding.
Environmentalists want to
ensure that, as the bill goes
to the Senate floor for debate,
agricultural water use
is not given priority over the environment. On
5/2,
Rep. Tauscher (D-CA) and Rep. Napolitano (D-CA) introduced a
similar bill (H.R. 4657) in the House. Environmentalists
oppose a
related bill (H.R. 3208) by Rep. Calvert
(R-CA) that would allow the
construction of new dams in
California without appropriate review,
and could give
agricultural water users priority over the
environment.
On 5/16, the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee passed the
Water
Investment Act of 2002 (S. 1961) by a vote of 13-6. The bill,
which was introduced by Sens. Graham (D-FL), Jeffords
(I-VT), Smith
(R-NH), Warner (R-VA), and Crapo (R-ID),
authorizes significant
increases in funding for cleaner
water. Environmental groups are
seeking to ensure that
the bill provides incentives for states and
cities to
fund water quality projects that are good for the
environment, such as stream buffers, wetlands restoration,
and
stormwater controls. Environmentalists are also
eager to prevent the
funds from supporting sprawl or
noncompliance with environmental
regulations. The
committee approved an amendment from Sen. Reid
(D-NV)
that would create a grant program to help small public
drinking water systems comply with new environmental
regulations, and
one from Sen. Voinovich (R-OH) that
would reauthorize a wet-weather
grant program to help
remedy sewage overflows. The committee also
accepted
amendments from Sen. Wyden (D-OR) to make funding available
for water conservation projects and provide
loan-forgiveness for
projects that address pollution
runoff. On 4/17 and 3/20, the House
Ways and Means and
Transportation and Infrastructure committees,
respectively, considered the House companion bill (H.R.
3930). This
bill would increase the level of funding
available to states for
clean water projects under the
Clean Water Act by $1 billion per
year, up to a total
of $6 billion in 2007. The Bush administration
objects
to the cost of these bills, claiming that it needs the money
to fund the war on terrorism.
...
Climate Change
= N O T E ! =
On 7/11, the Senate
Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing on
the
Bush administration's climate change plans. Facing criticism from
senators about the administration's decision to withdraw
from the
international agreement to address climate
change, administration
officials defended the decision
and suggested the need for a
long-term policy.
On 5/2, Rep. Olver (D-MA)
introduced a bill (H.R. 4611) that would
require
companies to report their global warming pollution emissions
to a federal database.
On 4/17, the House Science Committee held a hearing to
address the
funding and direction of federal climate
science and technology
programs. Rep. Boehlert (R-NY),
committee chair, addressed the
administration's
proposal to create and fund two new research
programs,
the Climate Change Research Initiative and the National
Climate Change Technology Initiative, voicing concern that
the
programs are not yet clearly defined. Researchers
testifying at the
hearing stressed the need for better
coordination between scientists
who conduct climate
change research and develop related technologies
and
consumers, policymakers, and industry.
...
Coastal and Marine Resources
= N O T E ! =
On 7/11, the House
Resources Committee approved Rep. Gilchrest's
(R-MD)
bill to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation
and Management Act (H.R. 4749), the primary law governing
fisheries
management in the United States. The bill
includes an amendment from
Rep. Saxton (R-NJ) to limit
longline fishing in parts of the
mid-Atlantic in order
to protect dwindling white marlin populations.
The
committee rejected an amendment introduced by Rep. Rahall (D-WV)
that would have promoted both sustainable management of
marine
fisheries and recovery of depleted fish stocks.
Environmentalists
oppose the reauthorization bill in
its present form, primarily
because it contains
language that could lead to continued overfishing
and
destroy important fish habitat.
On 6/13, the House Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries
Conservation,
Wildlife, and Oceans held a hearing on
H.R. 4781, a bill to
reauthorize the Marine Mammal
Protection Act, introduced on 5/17 by
Rep. Gilchrest
(R-MD), subcommittee chair. While the bill does not
change current legal definitions and standards that protect
marine
mammals, the Department of Defense has tried for
years to weaken this
act for years by changing
definitions to exempt its activities.
Environmentalists
argue that altering the definition would limit the
circumstances under which activities potentially harmful to
marine
mammals could be reviewed or restricted.
...
International Environmental Protections
= N O T E ! =
Both the House and the Senate have now appointed their
conferees to
negotiate a final version of the
international trade bill. On 5/23,
the Senate passed
its version of the bill, S. 1209, by a vote of
66-30,
after accepting language granting "fast-track" authority to
the president to negotiate new trade agreements. The House
version,
H.R. 3005, passed on 12/6/01 by one vote.
Environmentalists oppose
"fast-track" authority
legislation because it contains weak
environmental
standards and safeguards and inadequate protection for
international environmental agreements. The Senate bill
also raises
new barriers to environmental regulation,
and hinders consumer
labeling that would provide
information on genetically modified
products. On 5/21,
the Senate rejected 55-41 an amendment offered by
Sen.
Kerry (D-MA) and supported by environmentalists that would have
strengthened the bill's environmental and public health
protections,
laying out specific criteria that foreign
investors would be required
to meet in order to
challenge environmental regulations in the U.S.
...
Lands
Due to mounting opposition,
the National Monument Fairness Act (H.R.
2114),
sponsored by Rep. Simpson (R-ID), was abruptly pulled from the
House floor debate schedule on 6/20. The bill is opposed by
Democrats
on the committee because it would restrict
the president's authority
to create national monuments
under the Antiquities Act by requiring
congressional
consent within two years after a president designates
any national monument over 50,000 acres, thereby preventing
quick
presidential action to protect significant and
environmentally
sensitive public lands and resources.
On 5/16, Rep. Shays (R-CT) and
Rep. Rahall (D-WV) introduced a bill
(H.R. 4748) to
reform the 1872 Mining Law. The bill would for the
first time require mining companies to pay royalties for
minerals
taken from public lands, and to use that
revenue to fund reclamation
and restoration of
abandoned mines. The bill would also strengthen
the
law's environmental protections and cleanup standards for
projects on Interior Department lands.
The House and Senate passed the
final version of the farm bill (H.R.
2646) on 5/2 and
5/8, respectively, and President Bush signed the
bill
on 5/13. Conservation programs -- including funding for energy
efficiency and renewable energy programs on farms -- total
about $9
billion of the bill's $45 billion in new
spending. But
environmentalists claim that commodities
subsidies and
environmentally damaging provisions in
the bill will outweigh
conservation funding. For
instance, the bill raises the payment cap
on funding
that giant livestock farms, whose waste management
practices pose a threat to local water supplies, will be
able to
receive. Several other environmentally damaging
provisions, including
language that would have provided
incentives to log national forests,
were ultimately
eliminated from the bill.
On
3/20, the House Resources Committee approved, along a nearly
party-line vote, technical amendments to a national parks
bill (H.R.
3853) offered by Rep. Radanovich (R-CA). The
amendments would
effectively overturn a Clinton
administration policy banning
recreational jet skis in
national parks by delaying the deadline for
the ban for
two years.
...
Nuclear
= N O T E ! =
On 7/9, the Senate approved by a vote of 60-39 a resolution
to
designate Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the sole
repository for the
nation's high-level radioactive
waste (S.J. Res. 34). The House
approved its version of
the resolution (H. J. Res. 87) on 5/8. With
these
votes, Congress has overruled Nevada governor Kenny Guinn's (R)
veto of the site recommendation (Nevada's congressional
delegation
also opposed the site designation).
Opponents of the selection of
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
from Las Vegas, believe that the proposed
facility
would not adequately protect the public and the environment
from radiation contamination.
...
Public Health
= N O T E ! =
After many
terrorism-related hearings, the House Select Committee on
Homeland Security will take up H.R. 5005, the Homeland
Security Act
of 2002, on 7/19. The Senate plans to take
up its version of the bill
the week of 7/22. The bill
includes provisions that would suppress
public
disclosure of information and provide companies with immunity
from the civil consequences of violating laws when
information
relating to national security is
voluntarily submitted.
Environmentalists argue that the
provisions are not necessary and
that the language
would hinder enforcement of environmental and
public
safety laws. Environmentalists are also concerned that the
proposed legislation lacks provisions to reduce the
vulnerability of
chemical plants. Missing from these
current bills are proposals such
as Sen. Corzine's
(D-NJ) Chemical Security Act (S. 1602), a bill that
would require the EPA to conduct vulnerability assessments
of
chemical plants, which would then be required to
take steps to reduce
hazards and improve security.
On 6/27, the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee approved a
bill (S. 351),
introduced by Sen. Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Kerry
(D-MA), that would ban the sale of mercury thermometers and
provide
grants for a thermometer exchange program.
Mercury is a dangerous
neurotoxin that causes brain
damage and developmental disabilities.
On 6/13, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a
pipeline
safety bill, H.R. 3609 after adding more
stringent inspection and
enforcement measures, while
retaining current environmental
protections. The
changes to the bill make it significantly different
from the version passed on 5/22 by the House Transportation
and
Infrastructure Committee, which rejected similar
amendments. The two
versions of the bill will likely be
considered in the House-Senate
energy bill conference
committee in the coming months.
On 6/12, President Bush signed a final compromise
bioterrorism bill
(H.R. 3448). The bill, which
authorizes bioterrorism-related funds
for public health
infrastructure, food inspection and nuclear
security,
includes language requiring drinking water facilities to
assess their vulnerability to terrorist attacks that could
threaten
water supplies. The bill also authorizes $20
million to facilitate
cooperation between the EPA and
drinking water facilities to improve
basic security,
reduce chemical threats, and develop emergency
response
plans. The House approved the final version of the bill on
5/22 by a vote of 425-1, and the Senate followed suit the
following
day with a vote of 98-0.
On 6/4, the House passed the
Brownfields Redevelopment Enhancement
Act (H.R. 2941)
by a voice vote. The bill seeks to expand the cleanup
of abandoned lands. Environmentalists oppose language in
the bill
that would weaken cleanup requirements for
severely contaminated
sites.
...
Smart Growth
On 6/20, the House Financial Services Committee considered
H.R. 3995,
a housing bill introduced by Rep. Roukema
(R-NJ) that includes a
provision that would require
federal agencies to conduct an
affordable housing
impact analysis when proposing new rules.
Environmentalists argue that the provision would prevent
new
environmental, labor, and public health rules from
moving forward,
and would not help low-income families.
The bill could also have a
negative impact on smart
growth initiatives by undermining emerging
alliances
between affordable housing and environmental advocates.
...
Wilderness and Wildlife Protection
= N O T E ! =
On 7/10, along a nearly party line vote, the House
Resources
Committee approved H.R. 4840, a bill
introduced by Rep. Hansen (R-UT)
that would require
additional scrutiny of data when extending extra
protection to an endangered species, but not when
withholding extra
protection. Environmentalists oppose
the bill, along with two others
(Rep. Pombo's (R-CA)
H.R. 3705 and Rep. Walden's (R-OR) H.R. 2829)
that
would modify the Endangered Species Act, making it harder for
the government to protect endangered and threatened
species. These
bills would impose a higher burden on
federal agencies to obtain
additional scientific
information on species and mandate additional
review of
that data, resulting in delay and additional hurdles before
protections could be put in place.
= N O T E ! =
The House and Senate have appointed conferees to finalize
the $393
billion Defense Authorization bill. The House
version of the bill
(H.R. 4546) includes provisions
that would give the Department of
Defense broad
exemptions under the Endangered Species Act and the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, as well as language that would
reduce
protections for Utah wilderness lands. The
provisions were part of a
larger proposal by the
Department of Defense that also included
exemptions
from the Clean Air Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act,
Resource Recovery and Conservation Act, and Superfund.
Democratic
leaders and environmentalists argue that the
exemption provisions
have not received adequate review,
that stakeholders have not been
allowed to comment on
the provisions, and that language in existing
laws
already provides flexibility for the Defense Department to seek
exemptions on a case-by-case basis. The Senate version of
the bill
(S. 2514) does not contain these harmful
exemptions.
On 5/16, the House
Government Reform Committee held a hearing at
which the
General Accounting Office presented its findings from a
study on the impact of environmental regulations on
military
readiness and training. The GAO report
concludes that the Department
of Defense has achieved
readiness and has failed to demonstrate how
and to what
extent environmental laws have negatively affected its
mission.
...
For
information on the environmental voting records of members of
Congress, see the League of Conservation Voter's National
Environmental Scorecards at http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/index.asp
...........
2) About Our Bulletins/How to Subscribe & Unsubscribe
NRDC distributes three
bulletins by email. To subscribe to any or all
of them
or to join our activist networks, go to
http://www.join.nrdcaction.org/subscribe.asp
EARTH ACTION is sent biweekly and
calls out urgent environmental
issues requiring
immediate action. To unsubscribe from Earth Action,
send an email message to earthaction@nrdcaction.org with
REMOVE in
the subject line.
LEGISLATIVE WATCH is sent biweekly
when Congress is in session and
tracks environmental
bills moving through the federal legislature. To
unsubscribe from Legislative Watch, send an email message
to
legwatch@nrdcaction.org with REMOVE in the subject
line.
The CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST
NETWORK ACTION ALERT is distributed monthly
to members
of NRDC's California Activist Network and provides action
tools to Californians and others concerned with protecting
the
state's natural resources and the health of its
citizens. To
unsubscribe, send an email message to
wildcalifornia@nrdcaction.org
with REMOVE in the
subject line.
...........
3) About NRDC/How to Contact Us
The Natural Resources Defense
Council is a nonprofit environmental
organization with
over 500,000 members nationwide and a staff of
scientists, attorneys and environmental experts. Our
mission is to
protect the planet's wildlife and wild
places and ensure a safe and
healthy environment for
all living things.
For more
information about NRDC or how to become a member of NRDC,
please contact us at:
Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
NY, NY 10011
212-727-4511 (voice) / 212-727-1773 (fax)
General information: nrdcinfo@nrdc.org
Email subscription questions: nrdcaction@nrdc.org
http://www.nrdc.org
Also
visit:
BioGems -- Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org
CAPITOL HILL UPDATE:
1. ROADLESS RULE AMENDMENT NOT OFFERED in U.S. House of
Representatives (July 17, 2002)
2. WAYS TO ACT NOW TO
PROTECT AMERICA'S RAINFOREST (http://www.protectwildalaska.org)
1. ROADLESS RULE AMENDMENT
Many, many thanks to everyone who demonstrated the broad,
popular support for roadless protection of our national forests by sending
letters and making phone calls. Through your efforts, we were able to build upon
the solid support that now exists in Congress for protecting our last wild
national forests.
Unfortunately, despite our efforts, the "politics" of fire
and procedural roadblocks prevented Congress from talking immediate action to
protect roadless areas. Representative Inslee made the decision not to offer an
amendment at this time.
However, with more than 175 cosponsors on legislation to
codify the roadless rule, a growing group of bipartisan champions, and -- most
importantly -- the tremendous efforts and energy of all of you, this fight will
continue.
Congress
has a long track record of support for national forest
protection. More than 175 members of Congress - from both political
parties - demonstrate that support again this year with their proposed National
Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2002. The bill would codify
the roadless rule to protect 58.5 million acres of wild national forest land
from most commercial logging and road building.
Such overwhelming support will continue to allow our effort
to move forward as we continue the fight to protect our last wild national
forest lands including the Chugach and Tongass National Forests in Alaska.
2. STILL
TIME TO PROTECT ALASKA'S FOREST
Current efforts are
underway to protect Wilderness in these forests. There is still time to
participate in the U.S. Forest Service's public comment period on the Tongass
Wilderness Plan and let you Members of Congress hear from you about support for
the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act (HR 2908).
Take Action at http://www.akrain.org
***
For more information about protecting the Tongass and
Chugach – the two largest National Forests – visit http://www.akrain.org . Or contact Laurie Cooper,
laurie@alaskacoalition.org.
If
at anytime you wish to unsubscribe please visit http://www.akrain.org/howtohelp/default.asp where you can easily remove yourself from the
list.
Thanks for
your support.
Alaska
Rainforest Campaign Staff.
Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"
Eight environmentalists
including Julia Butterfly, a citizen of the United
States were detained without charges on July 16, 2002 by
the security
forces in Ecuador while peacefully
demonstrating in front of US oil
company,
Occidental. There has been a history of environmental destruction
and secret dealings, which have left indigenous groups and
environmentalists distrustful of multinational oil
companies and the
government of
Ecuador. Below is an Urgent Action developed by Amnesty
International USA on behalf of the
detainees. Please take immediate
action. Write the Ecuadorean authorities to
express concern for the
welfare of the
detainees. Urge the authorities to charge them with
recognizable offences or release them immediately and
unconditionally. For
more information on the
oil project the detainees were protesting, please
visit
Amnesty's Just Earth! website at http://www.amnesty-usa.org/justearth/countries/ecuador.html
Global
Response is forwarding this alert as part of the Just Earth! Network.
=======================================================================
UA 222/02 18 July 2002
Fear for safety/ Incommunicado detention/possible prisoners
of conscience
ECUADOR Luis Muñoz (m)]
David
Conrado (m)]
Juan
Pablo Barragán (m)]
Jose
Luis Proaño
(m)]
environmentalists
Alberto
Saltos (m)]
Stalin
Saltos (m)]
Ivon
Ramos (m)]
Julia
Butterfly (f) US citizen]
The
eight environmentalists named above were detained without charge on 16
July 2002 in Quito, the capital. They are being held
without charge, and
Amnesty International fears that
they may be at risk of torture or
ill-treatment.
Amnesty International believes
that they may be prisoners of conscience as
they appear
to have been detained while they were exercising their right to
demonstrate peacefully.
They were part of a group of demonstrators who were
protesting in front of
the US oil company Occidental's
headquarters in Quito, in opposition to the
construction of an oil pipeline which will run from the
eastern amazon
basin to the northwestern coast in the
Pacific.
After they were
detained by the police, the eight environmentalists were
taken to the Centro de Detención Provisional, Provisional
Detention Centre
in Quito. According to
INREDH, the non-governmental organization working
on
the case, the environmentalists have not been told the charges for which
they have been detained. When representatives from INREDH
went to the
Provisional Detention Centre requesting
that the detainees be given the
right to speak to their
lawyer and relatives, they were denied the request.
Amnesty International considers that incommunicado
detention is conducive
to torture and ill-treatment.
Throughout the last few years, the
organization has
documented numerous cases of torture and ill-treatment in
detention.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In June
2001 the Ecuadorean government gave the go-ahead to a consortium of
foreign petroleum companies (Occidental Petroleum (USA)
Alberta Energy
(Canada) Kerr McGee (USA, now selling to
a French petroleum company) AGIP
(Italy), Repsol-YPF
(Spain), and Perez Companc and Techint (Argentina,
which are reported to be in the process of merging into a
larger
conglomerate)) to begin construction of an oil
pipeline to deliver heavy
crude oil from oil
concessions in Ecuador's eastern rainforest region to
refineries in the town of Esmeraldas on the Pacific
coast. The crude oil
will then be shipped to
international markets from there via an offshore
loading facility at the port of Balao, near Esmeraldas.
The pipeline's route runs through
nature reserves and private property
whose access has
to be negotiated by the consortium. There have been
organized protests to block the construction of the
pipeline since the
Ecuadorean government gave the go
ahead. In particular, there are concerns
that the route cuts through several protected areas
including the Mindo
Nambillo Cloud Forest
Reserve. International environmentalists have joined
the Ecuadorians to buy scores of hectares lying in the path
of the pipeline
going through
Mindo. However, the Ministry of the Environment has given
the consortium permission to continue construction through
the protested
area. In June 2001 Amazon
Watch published an action against the
construction of
the pipeline stating: "This pipeline is likely to destroy
fragile areas and spread contamination and disease. It will
also increase
reliance on oil -- the main fossil fuel
responsible for climate change.
Instead of expanding
oil development into intact rainforest, we call upon
the Ecuadorian government to consider economic alternatives
based on
permanent protection of its forests and
biodiversity."
RECOMMENDED
ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- expressing concern for the detention of Luis Muñoz, David
Conrado, Juan
Pablo Barragán, José Luis Proaño, Alberto
Saltos, Stalin Saltos, Ivon
Ramos, and Julia Butterfly
(a US citizen);
-stating that according to the
information received by Amnesty
International these
people were exercising their right to demonstrate
peacefully;
-urging the
authorities to charge them with a recognizable offence or to
release them immediately and unconditionally;
-reminding the authorities that incommunicado detention is
conducive to
torture and ill-treatment, and seeking
assurances that the eight
environmentalists will be
safeguarded from any form of ill-treatment or
torture;
-urging the authorities to ensure that they have access to their lawyers,
families, and any medical care they may need.
APPEALS TO:
Minister of the Interior:
Ministro
de Gobierno y Policía
Dr. Marcelo Merlo Jaramillo
Ministerio de Gobierno y Policía
Benalcázar y Espejo
Quito, Ecuador
Telegrams: Ministro de Gobierno y Policía, Quito,
Ecuador
Fax: 011 593 2 2583966
Salutation: Sr Ministro/Dear Minister
Minister of Tourism and
Environment:
Ministra de Turismo y Medio Ambiente
Sra. Rocío Vásquez
Avds. Eloy
Alfaro y Amazonas
Edificio del MAG, 7mo. Piso Quito,
Ecuador
Telegrams: Ministra de Turismo y Medio
Ambiente, Quito, Ecuador
Fax: Int'l code+ 593 2
2500041
Salutation: Sra Ministra/Dear Minister
COPIES TO:
Human Rights Organization:
INREDH
Tamayo 957 y Foch
Quito,
Ecuador
Casilla 17 -03-1461
Quito, Ecuador
Ambassador Ivonne A-Baki
Embassy
of Ecuador
2535 -15th St. NW
Washington DC 20009
Fax: 202 667 3482
Email: mecuawaa@pop.erols.com
Please send appeals immediately. Check with the Colorado
office between
9:00 am and 6:00 pm, Mountain Time,
weekdays only, if sending appeals after
August 29,
2002.
********************************
Paula Palmer, Executive Director
Global Response
P.O. Box 7490
Boulder CO 80306
USA
TEL: 303-444-0306
FAX:
303-449-9794
Email: paula@globalresponse.org
Website: http://www.globalresponse.org
Global Response empowers people of
all ages, cultures, and nationalities to
protect the
environment by creating partnerships for effective citizen
action. At the request of indigenous peoples and
grassroots organizations,
Global Response organizes
international letter-writing campaigns to help
communities prevent environmental
destruction. Global Response involves
young
people as well as adults in these campaigns, to develop in them the
skills for global citizen cooperation and earth
stewardship.
Greenpeace Plutonium
Campaign Update
Very
soon, the "Nuclear Free Seas" flotilla of small boats will be in place to
peacefully protest the transit of the Pacific Pintail and its cargo of dangerous
plutonium MOX fuel. Please support their brave stand out in the wintry Tasman
sea (between Australia and New Zealand) by sending them a letter.
You can send a letter from here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=flot&s=vf
You can read more about the campaign here:
http://archive.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/bnfl
So far, more than 1800 people have registered their virtual
ships in our virtual flotilla. You can join the Greenpeace virtual flotilla
against plutonium by sending a letter to the Japanese foreign minister from
here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ams/e?a=vf1&s=vf
You can see the rapidly growing virtual flotilla here:
http://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/vf/maps/front_page.html
You can discuss this campaign here:
http://act.greenpeace.org/1026314250
Please inform all your friends and colleagues about this
campaign and the virtual and real flotillas by forwarding them this message.
(Remember to delete your account links below first!)
VISIT THE CYBERCENTRE
Please don't forget to visit the
Greenpeace Cyberactivist Community at:
http://act.greenpeace.org
Greenpeace's Positive Energy Newsletter
July 15 - July 22, 2002
v 2.24
Time for Greenpeace's CLEAN ENERGY
NOW! campaign's
weekly good news update!!!
Inside this edition:
- Making Bets With Bush for a Sustainable Future
- Attorneys General Urge for Federal Environmental
Regulation on Global Warming
-
Utility Districts in California Offer Green Power
+++++
Making Bets With Bush for a
Sustainable Future
There are
exactly 13 days left to win the bet with
President
Bush. The youth environmental group, SustainUS
has made
a bet with President Bush to reduce 20,000 tons
of
carbon dioxide by July 31. Youth across the nation are
rallying their states for support. If this bet
is won,
President Bush has promised to take this group
of students
to the World Summit on Sustainable
Development this August
where Greenpeace is demanding
clean affordable renewable
energy for the 2 billion
people across the world who
currenlty live without
electricity.
Help them win the
bet while also helping
to stop global warming by going
to:
http://www.SustainUS.org
+++++
Attorneys General Urge for
Federal Environmental
Regulation on Global Warming
Eleven attorneys general from
across the Nation are
urging the Bush administration to
take a stronger
stance on global warming. A letter
being sent out this
week criticizes Bush for ignoring
the problem and
weakening environmental
regulations. In the the letter
the attorneys
general suggest a market-based approach,
calling for
the administration to put a cap on greenhouse
gas
emissions and allowing industry to buy and sell
emissions credits.
To read more, check out the full story at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/781493.asp?0bl=-0&cp1=1
+++++
Utility Districts in
California Offer Green Power
The second largest utility district in
California has joined the clean energy
revolution. The East Bay Municipal Utilities
District (EBMUD) serves 1.4 million people in
Northern California and is known for providing water
and waste-water treatment. Now they are making
plans
to offer customers renewable energy services.
Proposals
consist of buying solar photovoltaics in
bulk, using
solar and wind energy within their own
facilities,
and helping the California Power Authority
to provide
renewable energy technologies to customers.
Stay tuned for further updates
on EBMUD on their website:
http://www.ebmud.com
The "Positive Energy" newsletter and our web site,
http://www.cleanenergynow.org, will give you good news
about
ways to achieve clean air, climate justice, and
renewable energy solutions to our ongoing energy
crisis.
Want to do more? Become a Greenpeace member
today!
To give online, go to:
https://www.greenpeaceusa.org/join2/cen.htm
VICTORY! 30,000 messages to Governor Gray Davis and
over $10,000 raised helped make California the first
state to adopt landmark global warming legislation.
***************************
Action Network from Environmental Defense
finding the ways that work
***************************
(Monday, July 22) - Today California Governor Gray
Davis signed into law groundbreaking environmental
legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the
state's automobiles. This historic new law will have
a big impact on California's - and the nation's - fight
against global warming. Thanks to e-mail activists
like you, Environmental Defense Action Network generated
over 30,000 messages to the governor supporting this
bill! You also helped us raise over $10,000 to counter
the auto industry's attempt to block this new law.
THE LEGISLATION'S POTENTIAL
IMPACT:
The millions of cars and trucks on the road
each day
in America are among the largest sources of
greenhouse
gas pollution, spewing out 40% of all
greenhouse gas
emissions in California alone. This new
law calls for
regulations to reduce these emissions by
2009. And
because more cars and trucks are sold in
California
each year than in any other state, once the
regulations
go into effect, overall greenhouse gas
emissions across
the United States should decrease.
For more information about this
victory, visit our
website at:
http://actionnetwork.org/ct/Y71-AS11mcJB/ca_globalwarming
WHAT'S NEXT:
- A National
Movement? California Sets the Stage
California's new
law also opens the door for other
states across America
to pass similar legislation.
Already, several states
are leaning towards measures
modeled on the California
bill. In the face of Washington's
dismal inaction on
climate change and its failure last
March to pass
meaningful fuel efficiency legislation,
this landmark
legislation marks a turnaround in the
fight against
global warming in which California and
other states are
taking the lead.
- Auto
Industry to Mount Another Counterattack:
Stay tuned.
The powerful auto industry will continue
its resistance
with court challenges or even ballot
initiatives in an
attempt to undercut this landmark
global warming law.
We'll keep you posted on how you
can take action to
foil the auto industry's fight.
HOW YOU CAN CONTINUE TO HELP:
Help
us ensure that other states follow California's
lead.
Please give a gift today.
http://actionnetwork.org/ct/Yp1-AS11mcJX/donate
Tell a
friend about Environmental Defense Action Network.
Invite your friends and family to sign up to help us
win future legislative victories like these:
http://actionnetwork.org/join-forward.html?domain=EDF_Action_Network&r=M11-AS11mqDu
Take
action on other urgent alerts. Visit your Subscription
Management Page and scroll down to "Take Action Now":
http://actionnetwork.org/pvtm/index.tcl?nkey=wk8bxn2078xm87
The ETC Group announces the release of a new, 8-page
Communique entitled, "No Small Matter: Nanotech Particles Penetrate Living Cells
and Accumulate in Animal Organs."
Discussions of the potential dangers of nanotechnology
(that is, manipulating matter on the scale of the nanometer, one billionth of a
meter) have been carried out in the realm of theory or in the safe, fictional
realm of Hollywood movies: will scientists someday be able to create
self-assembling nanobots programmed to produce commercial goods and food and new
forms of life? What might happen if they do? There has
been virtually no discussion, however, of the potential danger of today's
applied nanotechnology (that is, manipulating matter on the scale of the
nanometer to produce useful materials)--until now. Researchers have
just begun to ask the most basic questions about the impact of new
nano-materials on human health and the environment. Evidence of
nanoparticle contamination in living organisms and unanswered questions about
potential dangers of new forms of carbon require urgent societal review.
The full text of "No Small Matter"
is available on the ETC website:
http://www.etcgroup.org
Summary:
Issue: At a mid-March fact-finding meeting at
the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA), researchers reported that
nanoparticles are showing up in the livers of research animals, can seep into
living cells, and perhaps piggyback on bacteria to enter the food
chain. The commercial use of nanoscale carbon was likened to either
"the next best thing to sliced bread or the next asbestos." Despite
these revelations, there is no regulatory body (and no plans for one)
dedicated to overseeing this potent and powerfully invasive
new technology.
Context: Touted as the greenest and greatest
techno-fix ever, proponents claim that these atomic-scale manipulations will
solve our environmental woes and guarantee - not only sustainable, but perpetual
- development. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter, working
with elements in the Periodic Table (atoms and atom clusters [molecules] in the
range of a nanometer [nm], one billionth of a meter). At the
nanoscale, atoms function in the fabled realm of quantum physics, where ordinary
elements can exhibit extraordinary strength, temperature tolerance, colors,
chemical reactivity, and electrical conductivity - characteristics inconceivable
at micro or macro scales. Companies are already cranking out tons of
commercial nanomaterials for use as catalysts, in cosmetics, paints, coatings,
fabrics, and to provide added strength. Some of the materials are
familiar compounds that have never before been marketed on the nanoscale; other
materials are atomically-modified elements that do not exist in
nature. Some new forms of carbon (a component of all living things) -
called nanotubes and fullerenes - are being manufactured for the
first time and their impact on the environment
is
unknown.
Implications: Nanotechnology - including
nanobiotechnology - has been pegged by industry and governments to become the
world's largest and fastest industrial revolution - dwarfing history's past
technological upheavals. More than 450 dedicated nanotech enterprises
are already in the marketplace manufacturing a host of "old-nano" products
(e.g., particles used in cosmetics and sprays) and "new-nano" products (e.g.,
chips, sensors and new forms of carbon). Global R & D spending is
at US$4 billion. The US National Science Foundation predicts that
within ten years the entire semiconductor industry and half of the
pharmaceutical industry will rely on nanotechnology and that, by 2015, the
global market will be US$1 trillion. Industry will fight hard to make
sure that health and environmental concerns do not derail the progress of
nanotech, as has happened with biotech.
Policy: Because nanotech generally works with
the elemental building blocks of life - rather than with life directly - it has
largely evaded social, political and regulatory scrutiny. The US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) has thus far established no policies or protocols
for considering the safety of nano-particles in products already on the
market. Given the concerns raised over nanoparticle contamination in
living organisms, Heads of State attending the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg (Aug. 26-Sept. 4, 2002) should declare an immediate
moratorium on commercial production of new nanomaterials and launch a
transparent global process for evaluating the socio-economic, health and
environmental implications of the technology.
NRDC's EARTH ACTION:
The Bulletin
for Environmental Activists
July 23, 2002
========================================
In This Issue:
--Action alerts--
1. MARINE MAMMAL PROTECTION: Don't let the Navy blast
whales and
other marine mammals with dangerous sonar
2. NATIONAL FOREST PROTECTION:
Tell the Forest Service to protect
Alaska's Tongass
rainforest
3. HOMELAND
SECURITY LEGISLATION: Tell Congress that national
security doesn't require corporate secrecy and immunity
--Updates on Previous alerts--
1. California clean cars bill
2. New York City recycling
======================================================
You will also find these alerts in NRDC'S Earth Action
Center, which
includes tools for taking action easily
online, at
http://www.nrdc.org/action
(Please do not reply to this message; see the instructions
below for
how to unsubscribe or contact NRDC with
questions or comments.)
=============
Action alerts
=============
1. MARINE MAMMAL PROTECTION
Don't
let the Navy blast whales and other marine mammals with
dangerous sonar
Last week the Bush administration granted the Navy a permit
to harm
whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals
while using its Low
Frequency Active sonar system in as
much as 80 percent of the world's
oceans. The
high-powered submarine detection system will operate at
noise levels billions of times more intense than those
known to
disturb the migration and communication of
large whales. Although the
administration agreed to
impose some requirements on the Navy, the
permit it
issued remains far too broad to protect marine life in any
meaningful way. As the Navy has failed to answer even some
of the
most fundamental questions about the system's
potential threats to
marine mammals and the ecosystem,
this new permit is especially
alarming.
== What to do ==
Send a message to Gordon R. England, Secretary of the Navy,
urging
him to halt plans to deploy LFA sonar until the
long-term safety and
protection of the oceans' wildlife
is assured.
== For background
==
Navy Sonar System Threatens Marine Mammals
http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp
== Contact information ==
You can
send a fax to Secretary England directly from NRDC's Earth
Action Center at http://www.nrdc.org/action/ Or use the contact
information and sample letter below to send your own
message, and
please include your own reasons why we
should protect whales and
other marine life from the
harmful effects of LFA sonar.
Hon. Gordon R. England
Secretary
of the Navy
Washington, DC 20350-1000
Fax: 703-614-3477
== Sample letter ==
Subject: Don't deploy LFA sonar!
Dear Secretary England,
I am deeply concerned about the
U.S. Navy's plan to deploy Low
Frequency Active sonar,
a dangerous new system, in as much as 80
percent of the
planet's oceans. LFA poses an unacceptable risk to
marine mammals and other ocean life around the world.
At close range, the noise that LFA
generates is millions of times
more intense than the
Navy considers safe for human divers and
billions of
times more intense than levels known to disturb large
whales. And because that noise spreads so far, its
environmental
impact could be enormous. It is expected
to cause hearing loss and
disruptions in communication
and breeding in animals whose lives are
governed by
sound. And, in the worst case, it could result in
strandings, serious injury, or death, as in the Bahamas,
where many
whales stranded themselves and died after a
Navy sonar exercise.
Yet the Navy is seeking to deploy LFA without addressing
some of the
system's worst potential impacts, such as
the internal injury that is
believed to have occurred
in the Bahamas whales; without adequately
examining the
connection between active sonar and mass strandings;
and without evaluating the system's long-term, cumulative
effects on
populations of whales, dolphins, porpoises,
sea turtles, and other
marine animals.
To deploy LFA under these
conditions would be unconscionable. In
light of the
substantial risks it presents to marine species and
habitat around the world, I strongly urge you to halt
deployment of
the system until the long-term safety of
ocean wildlife can be
assured.
Sincerely,
[Your name and address]
2. NATIONAL FOREST PROTECTION
Tell the Forest Service to protect Alaska's Tongass
rainforest
Alaska's Tongass
National Forest is a remote coastal rainforest
landscape of ice-capped peaks, hanging glaciers,
fog-shrouded
islands, wild and scenic rivers and
towering groves of ancient trees.
The Tongass supports
the world's largest concentrations of grizzly
bears and
bald eagles and provides critical habitat for wolves, wild
salmon, and other wildlife that have disappeared from many
other
parts of the country.
For 40 years until 1997, the U.S.
government fueled the Tongass'
destruction by
subsidizing giant pulp mills there. In a landmark
decision in 2001, however, the Clinton administration
banned
commercial logging and roadbuilding in large
roadless areas of
national forests, including the
Tongass, creating an opportunity to
save the millions
of acres of this ancient rainforest still standing.
But this national treasure is once again in peril. The
timber
industry and logging proponents in the Bush
administration want to
reverse the Clinton ban, and
numerous Tongass timber sales are
already being planned
in roadless areas. And in yet another assault
on this
spectacular region, the Forest Service, after completing a
court-ordered review of over nine million acres of the
Tongass, is
recommending that *none* of them receive
permanent protection as
wilderness (as part of its
review, the Forest Service considered
eight different
alternatives, ranging from complete to partial to no
protection).
The Forest Service is accepting public comments on its
proposal
through August 17th.
== What to do ==
Send a message to the Forest Service before the August 17th
comment
deadline, urging the agency to protect the
wildlands of the Tongass
National Forest.
== Contact information ==
You can send an official comment directly from NRDC's Earth
Action
Center at http://www.nrdc.org/action/ Or use the contact information
and sample letter below to send your own message, and
please include
your own reasons why protecting these
stunning lands is important to
you.
Tongass National Forest - Content
Analysis Team
USDA Forest Service
P.O. Box 9079
Missoula, MT 59807
Fax: 406-329-3556
== Sample letter ==
Subject: Tongass National Forest
SEIS - Increase protection for wild
forests
Dear Forest Service Chief
Bosworth,
I oppose the Forest
Service's recommendation that no new wilderness
be
designated in the Tongass National Forest, and urge you to instead
select Alternative #6 -- the Alaska Rainforest Conservation
Wilderness proposal.
The Tongass is the crown jewel of the National Forest
System -- a
remote coastal rainforest unparalleled
anywhere on the planet, home
to awe-inspiring
landscapes and healthy populations of grizzly bears,
bald eagles, wild salmon, and other wildlife. Yet after the
Forest
Service evaluated over 9 million wild, pristine
acres in the Tongass,
it proposes that *none* of these
areas receive permanent protection
as wilderness.
The "no action" alternative would
open enormous stretches of wild
forest lands to
development and activities that would damage
ecosystems, endanger wildlife, and diminish recreational
opportunities. This recommendation also ignores the
wishes of the
vast majority of Americans like me who
support protection of roadless
areas in our national
forests.
Again, I urge the
Forest Service to choose Alternative #6 to
permanently
protect all roadless areas in the Tongass National
Forest.
Sincerely,
[Your name and address]
3. HOMELAND SECURITY LEGISLATION
Tell Congress that national security doesn't require
corporate
secrecy and immunity
Both houses of Congress are
working furiously to pass a massive
homeland security
bill before the one-year anniversary of the
September
11th terrorist attacks. Buried deep within the legislation,
however, is a provision -- supported by the Bush
administration and
its congressional allies -- that
would shield private companies who
voluntarily give the
government information related to "critical
infrastructure," including chemical plants, dams and
computer
networks, from public disclosure and civil
liability laws. While this
may sound innocuous, the
effect would be to broaden corporate secrecy
and
immunity at the expense of the environment and public health and
safety.
A
provision in the bill proposes an exemption under the Freedom of
Information Act that would bar the federal government from
disclosing
information regarding a company's
environmental and health hazards,
product defects and
other dangers, including accidental chemical
spills.
The exemption also would shelter a company from the
consequences of violating the nation's environmental,
consumer
protection, and health and safety laws. All a
corporation would need
to do to avoid public disclosure
-- and keep damning data off-limits
to enforcement
actions -- would be to designate the information as
related to critical infrastructure and voluntarily submit
it to the
government.
The House will vote
on the legislation this week; the Senate is
expected to
begin work on the bill on July 24th.
== What to do ==
Send a message to
your senators and representative urging them to not
allow the Bush administration to use the guise of national
security
to squelch the public's right to know about
corporate practices that
threaten its health and
safety.
== Contact information
==
You can email or fax your senators and
representative directly from
NRDC's Earth Action Center
at http://www.nrdc.org/action/ If you
prefer to call, the
Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
==========================
Updates
on Previous alerts
==========================
1. CALIFORNIA CLEAN CARS BILL
Last week we asked those of you living in California to
send messages
urging Governor Gray Davis to sign a
landmark bill that would make
the state the first in
the nation to reduce global warming pollution
from
automobiles. More than 1,900 of you responded and, despite
fierce opposition from the auto industry, on Monday Gov.
Davis signed
the legislation into law. The new law,
which represents a huge
victory far beyond the Golden
State's borders, directs the California
Air Resources
Board to adopt emissions-reductions standards by 2005,
and automakers to comply by 2009. Perhaps just as
important, the law
is likely to become a national model
as other states adopt its
provisions. The auto industry
is considering submitting the bill as a
voter
referendum on November's ballot (so stay tuned), but for now,
thanks to all of you who helped make this historic law a
reality.
2. NEW YORK CITY
RECYCLING
In April we asked those of you living in New
York City to contact
City Council Speaker
Gifford Miller and urge him to reject Mayor
Bloomberg's
budget proposal to suspend the recycling of metal, glass
and plastic for 18 months. At the end of June (in the midst
of the
city's worst budget year in decades), the mayor
and the city council
reached a compromise on this
issue. Most importantly, the compromise
calls for
continued recycling of metals (as well as of paper, which
was not targeted for cutbacks), but the recycling of
plastics and
glass will be suspended for one and two
years, respectively. Although
the plastic and glass
suspensions are a setback, the outpouring of
support
from NRDC activists and others helped preserve metals
recycling and limit the plastic suspension to one year, and
lead to
the creation of a task force aimed at improving
the efficiency of the
city's program. Thanks to all who
took action.
==================================================
About Our Bulletins/How to Subscribe & Unsubscribe
==================================================
NRDC distributes three bulletins
by email. To subscribe to any or all
of them or to join
our activist networks, go to:
http://www.join.nrdcaction.org/subscribe.asp
EARTH ACTION is sent
biweekly and calls out urgent environmental
issues
requiring immediate action. To unsubscribe from Earth Action,
send an email message to earthaction@nrdcaction.org with
REMOVE in
the subject line.
LEGISLATIVE WATCH is sent biweekly
when Congress is in session and
tracks environmental
bills moving through the federal legislature. To
unsubscribe from Legislative Watch, send an email message
to
legwatch@nrdcaction.org with REMOVE in the subject
line.
The CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST
NETWORK ACTION ALERT is distributed monthly
to members
of NRDC's California Activist Network and provides action
tools to Californians and others concerned with protecting
the
state's natural resources and the health of its
citizens. To
unsubscribe, send an email message to
wildcalifornia@nrdcaction.org
with REMOVE in the
subject line.
==========
About NRDC
==========
The Natural Resources Defense
Council is a nonprofit environmental
organization with
over 500,000 members nationwide and a staff of
scientists, attorneys and environmental experts. Our
mission is to
protect the planet's wildlife and wild
places and ensure a safe and
healthy environment for
all living things.
For more
information about NRDC or how to become a member of NRDC,
please contact us at:
Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY
10011
212-727-4511 (voice) / 212-727-1773 (fax)
General email: nrdcinfo@nrdc.org
Earth Action email: nrdcaction@nrdc.org
http://www.nrdc.org
Also
visit:
BioGems -- Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org
Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"
Many thanks to all who wrote
letters on behalf of B.N. Jagdish, an activist
in
India's Movement to Save the Narmada River. Thanks to both local and
international protests, Mr. Jagdish was released on
bail. Here's an update
from the JustEarth!
Network, and a request for follow-up letters to Indian
government authorities. Thanks for helping in
this critical effort to stop
human rights abuses of
environmental activists in India's Narmada Valley. --
Paula Palmer
**************
Good
news! Amnesty's Prisoner of conscience and environmentalist, B.N.
Jagdish, an activist with the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA),
Movement to
Save the Narmada, was released on bail on
July 7, 2002.
He had been
picked up by the police at a bus stop in Khedi Balwadie, Dhar
District, in the state of Madhya Pradesh on June
25. His whereabouts were
unknown until June
27. Prior to this he had spent several hours at Amjhera
police station.
B.N. Jagdish was detained under a piece of legislation
aimed at preventing
vagrancy. Under this legislation
however, an individual should not be
arrested. Prior to
his release, B.N. Jagdish's bail application was also
obstructed for several days by the Sub-Divisional
Magistrate (SDM) in Dhar
district before finally being
granted.
B.N. Jagdish's
detention and the obstruction of his bail application are
forms of intimidation directed at the whole NBA movement
and contribute to
a climate of fear aimed at silencing
further protests of the Narmada Valley
dam project.
Take action!
Over the past decade, human rights
and environmental advocates have
documented the use of
preventive arrest, excessive force during arrest,
detention, physical abuse, and threats by the Indian police
against
opponents of the Narmada Valley dam project.
Call on the Indian government
and the three state governments of Gujarat,
Madhya
Pradesh and Maharashtra to protect the human rights of protesting
villagers and activists. Government authorities must
respect the right to
freedom of expression and
association; discontinue the use of preventative
detentions; and ensure that the civil and political rights
of activists and
those affected by dam construction are
not violated and that they are not
subjected to cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment.
Write to the Indian Ambassador:
Ambassador Lalit Mansingh
Embassy of India
2107
Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
USA
Phone: (202)939-7000
Fax: (202)483-3972
Write to the Governors of the three Indian states involved
in the Narmada project:
Mr.
Narendra Modi
Chief Minister of Gujarat,
Office of the Chief Minister,
Ghandinagar, Gujarat, India
Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh
Chief
Minister of Maharashtra,
Mantralaya, Mumbai 400 032,
Maharashtra, India
Mr. Digvijay Singh
Chief Minister
of Madhya Pradesh
Raj Bhavan
Bhopal
Madhya Pradesh
India
********************************
Paula Palmer, Executive Director
Global Response
P.O. Box 7490
Boulder CO 80306
USA
TEL: 303-444-0306
FAX:
303-449-9794
Email: paula@globalresponse.org
Website: http://www.globalresponse.org
Global Response empowers people of
all ages, cultures, and nationalities to
protect the
environment by creating partnerships for effective citizen
action. At the request of indigenous peoples and
grassroots organizations,
Global Response organizes
international letter-writing campaigns to help
communities prevent environmental
destruction. Global Response involves
young
people as well as adults in these campaigns, to develop in them the
skills for global citizen cooperation and earth
stewardship
Thank you for taking ACTION, Care2's eco-alerts newsletter.
Care2 finds the most important environmental alerts,
supported by the world's leading environmental
nonprofit
organizations, to empower you to help our
environment.
This week we partnered with WCS to bring
you a report on
the Bushmeat crisis in Africa. Check it
out!
1. LOWLAND GORILLAS FACE
POSSIBLE EXTINCTION!
2. ECO-TIPS: HELP SAVE GORILLA
HABITAT
3. QUOTE OF THE DAY
*****************************************************
1. LOWLAND GORILLAS FACE POSSIBLE EXTINCTION!
http://www.care2.com/go/z/1677
Western gorillas are
increasingly being hunted and eaten
as the "bushmeat"
crisis escalates in Africa. It isn't
starving villagers
who are behind the crisis, it is the
wealthy patrons of
African restaurants who have a preference
for wild
bushmeat that are the driving force behind this
highly
organized commercial poaching industry.
Thousands of lowland gorillas are killed each year across
central and west Africa. Wildlife Conservation Society
scientists and other gorilla researchers believe that
if
the illegal hunting is not stopped, lowland gorillas
could
face extinction within two years!
Hunting combined with the rapid
expansion of logging, civil
unrest, destruction of
habitat and lack of management have
placed the lowland
gorillas in an extremely vulnerable state.
Already,
estimates show that there are less than 100,000
animals
remaining and that is dropping quickly.
Fortunately, lowland gorillas have a friend in PATTYCAKE...
a 30 year old lowland gorilla who calls the Bronx Zoo
her
home. Pattycake is a symbol for the crisis with
gorillas in
the wild. All admissions paid to visit
PattyCake during the
summer of 2002 will be directed
towards anti-poaching efforts
in Africa in the hopes of
helping to save Pattycake's lowland
gorilla family!
However, more help is needed. We
need YOUR help to save these
beautiful creatures. Sign
this FREE petition to urge President
Bush to increase
support for the Great Ape Conservation Fund!
Your signature can make a difference. SIGN NOW, IT'S FREE!
http://www.care2.com/go/z/1677
*****
2. ACTIVIST TIPS
* Support Eco-Travel. On your next vacation considering
taking
an eco-adventure trip to see the lowland
gorillas. Supporting
industries like these help people
make money by PROTECTING
the lowland gorillas instead
of killing them.
* Make sure
the wood you buy is grown from certified sustainable
producers. Logging roads which criss-cross Africa's
lowlands are
aiding hunters in their constant search
for lowland gorillas.
* Check
out what else the Wildlife Conservation Society is doing
to help lowland gorillas at http://WCS.org !
*****
3. INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All
things connect. Chief Seattle
Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"
Thanks to all who wrote
letters to the Ecuadorean government on behalf of
arrested protesters including Julia
Butterfly. Here's an update from
AmazonWatch/Accion Ecologica....
For immediate release: July 18,
2002
Contacts: Lucy Braham
(510) 419-0617 or cellular (310) 420-8245
Alexandra
Almeida, Accion Ecologica in Ecuador, 011 593 2-254-7516
Julia Butterfly to arrive in Los
Angeles tonight after forcible deportation
from Ecuador
Julia to hold press conference
10.30am tomorrow outside Occidental’s LA offices
**footage and photos of Julia’s arrest and visit to Ecuador
will be
available at the press conference**
(Quito, Ecuador)—Environmental
activist Julia Butterfly Hill will arrive at
Los
Angeles International Airport at seven tonight, after being forcibly
deported from Ecuador at dawn. The deportation
occurred just two hours
before a Habeas Corpus hearing
set for Ms. Hill and the seven Ecuadorian
activists
with whom she was arrested Tuesday during a peaceful protest
outside Occidental Petroleum (OXY)’s Quito offices against
Ecuador’s new OCP
pipeline.
As she was dragged through the
Quito airport this morning by immigration
police,
peacefully resisting deportation until the end, Julia called out to
bystanders:
“I’m being deported against my will. I was never told what
I’m being charged
with. I was never once read my
rights. I was shown a piece of paper in
Spanish but was
refused a translator. I was refused a lawyer and the only
reason I’m being deported is because I’ve lent my
solidarity to the forests
of Ecuador and the
communities defending their lands and their basic human
rights.”
Such was the haste of the Ecuadorian government to deport
Julia before the
hearing, that the police car carrying
her to the airport speeded, lost
control and crashed
into another vehicle, leaving her with minor injuries.
“The decision to deny due process to Julia Butterfly is
clearly influenced
by a desire on the part of the
Ecuadorian government and OCP to avoid the
spotlight
being shined on the OCP pipeline,” declared Atossa Soltani,
Executive Director of Amazon Watch. “Those
pushing this destructive project
know that it will not
bear being exposed to international scrutiny.”
Speaking on the phone from Panama this morning, en route to
the US, Julia
added, “Although I am
completely exhausted and in pain from my mistreatment
at the hands of the police, it is very important to me that
people
understand why I was in Ecuador. I
call upon people in the US and worldwide
to support the
courageous resistance of these communities against the
degradation caused by oil development.”
At the Tuesday protest where the
arrests took place, 50 community members
from Mindo,
Lago Agrio, Esmeraldas and Shushufindi, who are adversely
affected by the new pipeline, rallied outside the offices
of Occidental and
the OCP to demand an end to the
escalating destruction of their lands. The
seven Ecuadorians arrested were all released in Quito this
afternoon, with
all charges dropped.
Ms. Hill, best known for her 738
day tree-sit 200 feet atop a 1000-year old
threatened
California old-growth redwood tree has been in Ecuador since July
9, joining the national struggle to resist Ecuador’s new
OCP pipeline. On
Monday she accompanied Mindo community
members to re-occupy OCP’s
construction site in the
Mindo Nambillo Cloudforest Reserve. Construction
has now trespassed 200 meters inside community-owned
property. A judge will
visit the site tomorrow,
accompanied by local community members, to issue a
ruling on the property demarcation.
The OCP pipeline has been mired in
controversy since its inception, with
hundreds of
protests over the last few months along its route, which crosses
fragile ecosystems and 11 protected areas. Los
Angeles-based Occidental
Petroleum is a key member of
the OCP consortium, and is planning significant
expansion of its Ecuador operations in pristine Amazon
ecosystems, in
expectation of the pipeline’s
completion.
The majority of
Amazon crude that will flow through the pipeline is destined
for US West Coast markets. The OCP Consortium includes:
Alberta Energy
(Canada), Occidental Petroleum (OXY-
USA), AGIP (Italy), Repsol-YPF (Spain),
Perez Companc
(Argentina), and Techint (Argentina). German bank WestLB is
lead financer of the project.
********************************
Paula Palmer, Executive Director
Global Response
P.O. Box 7490
Boulder CO 80306
USA
TEL: 303-444-0306
FAX:
303-449-9794
Email: paula@globalresponse.org
Website: http://www.globalresponse.org
Global Response empowers people of
all ages, cultures, and nationalities to
protect the
environment by creating partnerships for effective citizen
action. At the request of indigenous peoples and
grassroots organizations,
Global Response organizes
international letter-writing campaigns to help
communities prevent environmental
destruction. Global Response involves
young
people as well as adults in these campaigns, to develop in them the
skills for global citizen cooperation and earth
stewardship.
Oppose So-called “Partial Birth Abortion” Ban
Anti-choice legislators are pushing the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion” Ban Act of 2002 (H.R. 4965) quickly through the House of Representatives and a vote could come as early as tomorrow. H.R. 4965 is in flagrant violation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Stenberg v. Carhart that restrictive abortion procedure bans violate a woman’s constitutional right to choose. Take action!
Many medical and legal experts agree that H.R. 4965 has several fatal flaws. The definition of so-called “partial-birth abortion” is broad and would ban more than one safe abortion procedure. Additionally, the bill contains no exception to preserve the health of the woman — which the Supreme Court has declared a necessity since Roe v. Wade. And perhaps most disturbingly, the bill would criminalize doctors for providing their patients with appropriate medical care.
The reappearance of this unconstitutional bill during an election year can only mean one thing: anti-choice legislators are again willing to sacrifice women’s health to advance their own political agenda. Urge your representative to defeat the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion” Ban Act of 2002. Take action!
