-Caveat Lector-
[HardGreenHerald] # 15
"Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better.
It's not."
--Dr. Seuss, 'The Lorax'
--A RadTimes production--
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Contents:
---------------
--GM Crops May All Be Unstable
--Animal Rights Groups Attack Lab by Focusing on Banks
--Solid Evidence 'Greenhouse Gas' Heating Up Earth
--Global spread of DU reaches food chain
--Huntingdon Sues Animal Activists
--Greenpeace Amazon Team Catches Illegal Loggers in Brazil
--Foot And Mouth Disease Expected To Hit U.S.
--'Eco-terror' threat to US suburbia
===================================================================
GM Crops May All Be Unstable
ISIS Report April 8, 2001
ISIS has drawn attention to the instability of GMOs and GM constructs all
along. Prof. Joe Cummins offers this latest verdict, all GM crops may be
unstable.
It is repeatedly claimed that genetically modified (GM) crops are altered
with single genes that are stable and equivalent to the genes that have been
selected and bred into the crops. In every case the GM crops originated from
cell cultures that have been know to be vexed with a phenomenon called
somaclonal variation. Somaclonal variation has been encountered in genetic
transformation using both biolistic and Agrobacterium transformation
followed by cell culture to isolate desirable agricultural characteristics.
The phenomenon is that cell cultures leading to isolate individual clones
and plants are plagued by genetic instability caused both by gene mutation
and chromosome rearrangement. In extreme responses plants may be infertile
and the extensive mutation leads to undesirable toxic natural products being
produced. Furthermore, the transgenes introduced into the modified crop are
recognized as invaders by the crop being transformed and the invading genes
are silenced by mechanisms including DNA methylation or gene inactivation at
transcription.
The evidence that the genetic instability resulting in somaclonal variation
is caused by activation of inactive virus like genetic elements called
transposons is currently very compelling (see Courtial et al 2001).
Activated transposons create both gene mutation and
chromosome rearrangement. On top of the somaclonal impact the inserted
transgenes are frequently silenced (see Demeke et al 1999). Even the most
widely distributed commercial GM crops such as Roundup Ready soy were found
to contain unexplained DNA sequences in the gene for herbicide resistance
after ten years of cultivation (Palevitz 2000). The
promised peer review publication on the aberrant DNA sequences was not
located and similar problems with similar transformations in corn, cotton or
canola have not yet been studied. Certainly, government regulators and their
academic satellites seem passive and submissive in dealing with important
findings reflecting on the safety of GM crops.
Even though the stability and long term stability of transgenic crops is of
paramount importance there have been few published studies on the genetic
stability and response to varying environments of transgenic crops. A study
of transgenic barley showed that GM barley was inferior to conventional
barley in a number of genetic backgrounds and
environmental conditions (Horvath et al 2001). Such problems may reflect
somaclonal variation or unexpected gene silencing, or they may reflect other
unpredicted aspects of genetic modification. In conclusion, there should be
a moratorium on the use and distribution of GM crops until the consequences
of genetic instability are fully
explored. Government regulators should not be allowed to ignore the
consequences of allowing sudden revelations about DNA sequences that crop up
unexpectedly in commercial crops sold as unlabelled food to unsuspecting
people.
References
*********
Courtail,B,Fenebach,F,Ebehard,S,Rhomer,L,Chiapello,H,Carilleri,C and Lucas,H
"Tnt 1 transposition events are induced by in vitro transformation of
Aradopsis thaliana, and transposed copies integrated into genes" 2001 Mol
Gen Genomics 265,32-42
Demeke,T,Hucl,P,Baga,M,Caswell,K,Leung,N and Chibar,R "Transgene inheritance
and silencing in hexaploid spring wheat" 1999 Theor Appl Genet 99,947-53
Horvath,H,Jensen,L,Wong,O,kohl,E,Ullrich,S,Cochran,J,Kannangara,C, and von
Wettstein,D "Stability of transgene expression , field performance and
recombination breeding of transformed barley lines"2001 Theor Appl Genet
2001,1-11
Palevitz,B "DNA surprise: Monsanto discovers extra sequence in its Roundup
Ready soybeans" 2000 The scientist 14,20 (july 24)
For further details please constact Prof. Joe Cummins at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*************************************
Visit the Institute of Science in Society homepage
www.i-sis.org
===================================================================
Taking a Bite Out of Backing
Animal Rights Groups Attack Lab by Focusing on Banks
By Dean Schabner
April 4 — When daredevils break into research laboratories
to "liberate" the animals used in experiments it may hamper
the work of scientists, but animal rights activists in
Europe have found it is much more effective to focus on
research companies' wallets, and now they are bringing such
campaigns to the United States.
Police say 14 beagles were taken from the Huntingdon Life
Sciences lab in East Millstone, N.J., on Sunday, and
demonstrators gathered outside the company's office on
Monday, but that is a minor annoyance compared to what
animal rights activists have done in their focus on the
banks and brokerage houses that deal with the lab's
finances.
Huntingdon drew animal rights activists' attention in 1997,
when undercover films made at the lab by British television
showed beagles being hit in the mouth and thrown against the
wall by laughing workers, monkeys being operated on as they
screamed in pain and other horrors. Investigations in both
England and the United States as recently as 1996 found
violations at the labs.
On this side of the Atlantic the campaign has been
relatively quiet, but having been successful in getting a
handful of British financial institutions to drop their
involvement with Huntingdon, which contracts drug testing
for pharmaceutical firms, animal rights organizations say
they are now turning their attention to a pair of U.S. firms
that have stood by the lab.
The Animal Defense League, the Animal Liberation Front and
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty save their fiercest tactics
in the battle against the lab for the banks that provide its
backing, battering away with e-mails, threats,
demonstrations and bad publicity to convince investors to
pull out.
And it has been effective.
Finely Focused Campaigns
In 17 months of intensive action focused on Huntingdon, the
activists have convinced Merrill Lynch, Citibank, HSBC, the
Royal Bank of Scotland, Dresdener Kleinwort Wasserstein and
Trimark to discontinue their involvement with the lab. When
the Arkansas-based Stephens Group Inc. stepped forward in
January to provide backing, the lab's opponents sicced their
troops on them, and they have also identified the Bank of
New York as a target.
"The campaign isn't just a few people standing outside with
placards," said a spokesman for Huntingdon, who asked that
his name be withheld for fear of violence against himself
and his family. "These people have been entirely focused on
one company at a time. They use abuse, intimidation,
threats, visits to people's homes. There have been cars
blown up, two people beaten outside their homes. And as soon
as people pull away, they move on to the next supporter and
the next supporter."
A recent posting on one animal rights Web site called for
animal rights activists to turn their focus on Stephens
Inc., which according to a statement from Huntingdon helped
the research company refinance and avoid bankruptcy after
other banks had pulled out.
The posting calls for an all-out e-mail campaign against the
investment firm, offering a lengthy list of addresses and a
proposed letter to be sent.
"I am writing today to express my outrage at Stephens Inc.'s
decision to support animal cruelty," the suggested letter
says in part. "Stephens Inc. is the primary financer and
largest share holder in Huntingdon Life Sciences, a
controversial animal testing laboratory that kills roughly
180,000 animals every year in painful and unnecessary
chemical tests. Huntingdon has been exposed 5 times since
1997 for animal abuse. Undercover video footage shows
workers punching frightened beagle puppies in the face,
taunting animals who were undergoing painful tests, and, on
one occasion, conducting a supposedly post-mortem dissection
on a live monkey. On the job drunkenness, drug use,
lateness, and other staff ills have been exposed as recently
as December 2000."
Another posting advised that Warren Stephens, the chairman
of the firm, was going on vacation and gave phone numbers of
the golf club where he would be staying.
"Ask the people at the club how they feel about their
position on animal cruelty," the posting advised. "How do
they feel about the fact that they have a puppy killer as
one of their members."
Burning, Beating to Stop Cruelty
But writing letters and making phone calls expressing
disapproval and "liberating" lab animals are not the only
ways the activists have of achieving their ends.
Monday night, the car of one of the directors of the New
Jersey lab was overturned, as American activists picked up
on the techniques long employed in Europe. Last year in
England, nine people connected with Huntingdon — either
workers or investors — had their cars burned. The violence
has not been confined to machines, either.
On Feb. 22, three people wielding baseball bats attacked
Brian Cass, the managing director of Huntingdon, outside his
Cambridgeshire, England, home.
"I feel angry that there are people who pretend to be
concerned about animals but then they go and attack someone
in this sort of manner," he told the Press Association. "It
is totally hypocritical and cowardly."
ALF and SHAC both denied involvement in the attack and
issued statements saying they do not condone violence
against humans any more than they do against
animals.
But when demonstrations outside a London brokerage,
Winterflood Securities, that dealt in the lab's shares
failed to get the desired results, some activists turned to
a campaign of domestic terror against the company's
executives.
After the family members of many of the firm's officers
received threatening phone calls, and one came home one
Sunday to find a crowd of protesters "in balaclavas and
death masks" waiting for him and his two young children,
Winterflood capitulated and dropped the lab's stocks.
Resisting the 'Bully Boys'
A similar campaign could soon be waged against the Bank of
New York, which is the custodian for the lab's shareholders
in the United States.
"The bank could now expect to find its corporate events
crashed, protesters in its offices, and directors targeted,"
SHAC spokesman Greg Avery told the Daily Telegraph.
The Huntingdon spokesman said that the Bank of New York has
been one of the lab's mainstays, and that generally U.S.
firms have been more resistant to the pressures of the
activists.
"The companies that have been most robust are in the U.S.,
and the one that has been most robust is the Bank of New
York in saying we will not be pushed around by these bully
boys," he said.
Roughly 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Huntingdon
lab in New Jersey on Monday to protest the treatment of
animals there. Police said the protest was generally
peaceful, though three people were arrested and one had to
receive treatment after officers used pepper spray to quell
a few demonstrators who allegedly threw a barricade that had
been set up to contain the marchers.
"We're just a group of passionate people who care about the
plight of animals in HLS laboratories, and the police, it
really goes to show that the police are the violent ones,
and they are protecting the people that are murdering
animals every year," said Lance Morosini, an animal rights
activist.
===================================================================
Solid Evidence 'Greenhouse Gas' Heating Up Earth
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/13/MN211246.DTL&type=printable>
by David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Friday, April 13, 2001
The studies are being published as the international debate over
global warming intensifies, prompted by President Bush's recent
decision to abandon an international agreement limiting emissions of
heat-trapping gases.
Records show that global temperatures have risen by as much as 1.4
degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. And a United Nations
scientific panel has warned that average global temperatures could
rise by as much as 10 degrees by the end of this century.
For years, however, controversy has focused on how much of the
warming trend has been because of pollution from industrial sources
and how much is merely typical of natural long-term cycles of climate
change that the Earth has experienced since the last ice age, 12,000
to 18,000 years ago.
In reports published in the journal Science today, two teams of
researchers using different computer models conclude that greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide and methane play a major role in
"forcing" the Earth's surface temperature higher and higher.
One of the teams is headed by Sydney Levitus, director of the federal
government's Ocean Climate Laboratory in Silver Spring, Md., and the
other by Tim P. Barnett, a leading climate researcher at the
University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La
Jolla.
Both groups combined millions of ocean temperature measurements made
over the past 50 years by observers all over the world. Then they
looked for what could account for their dramatic rise with and
without the presence of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
They also factored in the effects of fine aerosol compounds, such as
sulfur dioxide in acid rain and volcanic ash, that reflect sunlight
back into space and thereby act to cool the Earth's surface.
The greenhouse gases bear their name because they are known to trap
the warmth of the sun at the Earth's surface -- much the way the
glass panes of the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco's Golden
Gate Park have done.
HIGH ATMOSPHERE COOLER
One anomaly in past estimates of the Earth's rising heat has been the
fact that weather balloons and satellites have consistently shown
lower temperatures higher in the atmosphere than the "greenhouse
effect" should have produced.
Last year, however, Levitus and his colleagues found that much of the
Earth's surface heat is actually being stored in the oceans rather
than on land. The result, they found, is that the oceans have grown
warmer by about one-tenth of a degree in the upper two miles during
the past 40 years, and more than half a degree in the top 1,000 feet
or so.
"We've looked for the causes of that warming, and you can only get
this type of heat increase if you add in the effect of greenhouse
gases," Levitus said in a telephone interview. "Greenhouse gases are
the only possible explanation."
SOME WOULD BE SKEPTICAL
Levitus conceded that if his group's report in Science had to stand
alone, based as it is on a single climate model, then "people would
certainly be skeptical."
But the fact that Barnett's group at Scripps independently arrived at
the same findings, and based on a different computerized climate
model, "then our conclusions are pretty robust," said Levitus, who
works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Levitus would not comment on the Bush administration's recent
decision to withdraw American support for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a
treaty which would have committed the United States and other
industrialized countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 to
8 percent over the next decade.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman said
earlier this month that Bush believes not enough is known about the
causes of global warming to support a treaty whose effects would
damage the U.S. economy. "We have no interest in implementing that
treaty," Whitman said.
Barnett agreed that the new findings bolster the argument for a human
factor in global warming.
"The changes in temperature that we've observed are consistent with
greenhouse forcing, and I can say that with high confidence," he
said. "Of course, there may well be other factors in the observed
pattern of global warming, but I don't know of any.
Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, has long been noted for his climate expertise and also
for his outspoken skepticism about the importance of greenhouse gases
in the globe's rising temperature.
In an e-mail message yesterday commenting on the Barnett and Levitus
reports, Lindzen agreed that in response to rising surface
temperatures of the past 50 years there has also been an increase in
the heat content of the oceans. "Nothing controversial here," he said.
But he called their conclusions "spurious" and insisted that the
models of climate change used by the two groups do not account
properly for the many uncertainties in the cooling effects of
aerosols like volcanics and sulfate particles.
-------
E-mail David Perlman at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
===================================================================
Global spread of DU reaches food chain
By Torcuil Crichton and Felicity Arbuthnot
Apr 15 2001
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/newsi.hts?section=News&story_id=15480
Depleted uranium from shells fired by British and American forces
during the Balkan wars has found its way into the food chain and has
been detected among the civilian populations of Kosovo and Bosnia.
A study of the local population in three locations in the two Balkan
regions has found samples of the highly radio active particles in the
urine of all those tested.
The investigation comes amid growing concern about the possible
effects of depleted uranium in the Balkans both on foreign troops and
on the local population.
A survey for the Sunday Herald has found that depleted-uranium
weaponry has been used or tested in 41 countries worldwide. They
range from Britain - where DU shells are test-fired on the Solway
Firth - to Japan, where unauthorised firing by the United States
military led to a massive clean-up operation. Eleven of the countries
affected by DU are in the Balkans.
Nato warplanes dropped 10,000 rounds of DU ammunition in Bosnia in
1994 and 1995. Soldiers from several troop-contributing countries -
including Italy, Portugal and France - have fallen ill with what is
being called Balkan syndrome but this is the first time that the
civilian population has been tested for contamination.
Spain has reported at least eight cases of cancer among personnel
deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo. Belgium, France, Germany, Greece,
Italy and Poland are among other countries to have acknowledged a
problem. There was an outcry in Portugal when Hugo Paulino, a young
corporal, died of cancer three weeks after returning from duty in
Kosovo.
The health of returning Italian personnel was of such concern that
five different regions have appointed senior judiciary to open
inquiries.
The civilian study was carried out by Professor Nick Priest of
Middlesex University, for E~rpa, BBC Scotland's European-affairs
programme. It looked at people in one location in Bosnia and two
locations in Kosovo.
"So far, all the results for every single one of the samples
collected in Kosovo is showing some depleted uranium in the urine,"
he said. "That is completely abnormal because normally you would
expect no DU to be in the urine samples."
Priest's conclusion was that it was likely that the metal was present
in the food chain. The study did not investigate possible health
problems.
Previous studies have found no evidence of a link, although a recent
United Nations report acknowledged that there remain "considerable
scientific uncertainties".
Despite that concern, a proposed voluntary testing programme for
Kosovan civilians has been shelved following the intervention of the
World Health Organisation.
Campaigners against the use of DU, which will remain radioactive for
four-and-a-half billion years, argue the tiny particles of DU dust
emitted from shell explosions will still be mutating genetics of
fauna, flora and humanity "when the sun goes out". Teenager Vlora
Marleku told the programme makers: "I am worried. I don't know what
to say. This is something that touches you very deeply."
Civilian populations and refugees returning to the Balkans are also
experiencing severe health problems, according to local reports.
Journalist Svetlana Stankovic Lala of Greece's Athens News said: "In
Kosovska Mitrovica, [in the] north of Kosovo, the number of malignant
diseases increased 200% in 2000 compared to 1998, the year before the
bombing."
Doctors in the area estimate that birth deformities have increased by
250% over 1998 figures.
Dr Aleksandra Veljovic, of the Cancer Foundation in Yugoslavia,
talked of "a doubling of incidence of cancer" by June 2000 - exactly
a year after the war's end.
In January 2000, she said, "almost 2000 people died from a flu
pandemic, corpses [remained unburied] for 10 or more days and in
numbers from pneumonia".
Like Iraq, medication and facilities were unavailable due to
sanctions. Like Iraq, an epidemic occurred shortly after the bombing.
In Iraq, at least 5000 people died of measles within months of the
end of the Gulf war. Radiation damages the immune system - a link
that the Gulf veterans have made with their proven immune
deficiencies.
No studies have been made in bordering countries, although there are
concerns that radiation travels via the wind, water and fauna.
An A-10 Thunderbolt, which carries DU weapons, crashed in Albania. A
missile thought to be carrying DU landed in Bulgaria. Another landed
in Macedonia, which has hosted nearly one million refugees and has
already removed 10 tonnes of DU-contaminated topsoil from its border
region.
Britain's Ministry of Defence insisted that the levels of depleted
uranium found in the tests for the E~rpa programme posed no risk to
public health and represent only a tiny fraction of naturally
occurring background radiation. Defence minister Dr Lewis Moonie
said: "It is a very interesting result and one that needs to be
followed up."
===================================================================
Thursday April 19
Press Release
Huntingdon Sues Animal Activists
HUNTINGDON, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 2001--Huntingdon Life
Sciences Group plc announced today that its US subsidiary, Huntingdon Life
Sciences Inc., has joined in the filing of an Amended Complaint in a lawsuit
against various animal rights organizations and affiliated individuals in
response to the defendants' unlawful campaign of violence, intimidation, and
harassment directed at the Company and Stephens Group of Little Rock
Arkansas, one of the Company's significant shareholders. The action, pending
in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, was
originally filed by Stephens Group, and its wholly owned investment banking
subsidiary, Stephens Inc.
The Amended Complaint asserts claims under the Civil Racketeer Influenced
and Corrupt Organization Statute (``RICO'') of the United States and the State
of New Jersey and cited conduct including physical attacks on individual
employees, death threats, bomb threats, destruction of property, burglary,
harassment and intimidation. The Amended Complaint also asserts claims for
interference with contractual relations and economic advantage.
The complaint names as defendants Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC),
Voices for Animals, Animal Defense League, In Defense of Animals, and
certain individuals. The suit requests injunctive relief to stop the
defendants and
those acting in concert with them from engaging in acts and threats of force,
violence and intimidation directed at the Company, Stephens, and their
respective employees, customers, shareholders and investors. It also seeks an
award of monetary damages for losses incurred as a result of the defendants'
unlawful conduct.
Huntingdon's Executive Chairman, Andrew Baker, stated: ``This suit represents
a next step in the Company's initiatives to reign in the campaign of a small
band of animal rights extremists who are seeking to destroy our Company and
undermine the fields of scientific discovery which rely on the Company's
crucial work. Unlike the activists, who defy the law to terrorize people and
entities to bow to their demands, we will seek proper redress in the US legal
system.'' Brian Cass, Huntingdon's Managing Director, said ``Many of our
stakeholders have been subject to appalling threats and intimidation from
these extremists and firm action now needs to be taken. The defendants are
involved in a campaign not just aimed at Huntingdon but at all scientific
animal research. However, we are the primary target today and we intend to
show that we shall not merely cave in to their onslaught. For the benefit of
all of us, this campaign of violence and intimidation of individuals, often
at their homes, must be stopped. We and our clients and fellow researchers
everywhere must be allowed to go about our crucial, and lawful endeavors
free from fear.''
Cass added: ``This lawsuit sends a powerful message that Huntingdon is
standing up for its right to conduct its lawful and socially vital business.
We greatly appreciate the support shown by our employees, customers, service
providers and shareholders, as well as those in government, law enforcement,
and the media. This lawsuit states unequivocally that no one has the right
to replace dialogue and debate with extortion and terrorism.''
HLS filed a similar RICO lawsuit in 1997 against People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals and certain affiliated individuals. That lawsuit
resulted in the defendants entering into a settlement agreement in which
they agreed to give up their campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences Inc.
Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc is one of the world's leading Contract
Research Organizations providing product development services to the
pharmaceutical, agrochemical and biotechnology industries. Huntingdon brings
leading technology and capability to support its clients in non-clinical
safety testing of new compounds in early stage development and assessment.
Huntingdon operates research facilities in the United Kingdom (Huntingdon
and Eye, England) and the United States (The Princeton Research Center, New
Jersey).
This announcement contains statements that may be forward-looking as defined
by the USA's Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are
based largely on Huntingdon's expectations and are subject to a number of
risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond Huntingdon's control, as
more fully described in Huntingdon's Form 10-K for the year ended December
31, 2000, as filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
---------------
Contact:
Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc
Richard Michaelson
Phone: UK: +44 (0) 1480 892194
US: (201) 525-1819
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
===================================================================
Greenpeace Amazon Team Catches Illegal Loggers in Brazil
Environment ENS -- Environment News Service
MANAUS, Brazil, April 18, 2001 (ENS) - Acting on information supplied by
Greenpeace, the Brazilian Environmental Agency (IBAMA) has seized three
rafts of illegal logs on the Amazon River and two tugboats used to transport
them.
After an unannounced inspection over the holiday weekend, IBAMA officials
seized rafts containing over 1,000 illegal logs, approximately 2,100 cubic
metres of wood.
According to IBAMA, the softwoods in the rafts, primarily samauma and virola
logs, were destined for the Manaus based, Chinese owned, plywood factory
Compensa. A smaller volume of hardwood was being transported to two locally
owned companies.
IBAMA officials fined two loggers the equivalent of US$200,000 for illegal
logging.
The Brazilian Amazon is the largest continuous region of tropical forest in
the world, containing nearly 31 percent of the global total. Deforestation
due to logging and clearing for agriculture increases atmospheric carbon
dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases, possibly contributing to climate
change.
Conversion of forests to cropland and pasture results in a net movement of
carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because the concentration of carbon in
forests is higher than that in the agricultural areas that replace them.
Although they occupy less than seven percent of the Earth's land surface,
tropical forests provide homes to at least half of all plant and animal
species. The primary adverse effect of tropical deforestation is massive
extinction of species, according the U.S. National Aeronatics and Space
Administration which monitors the Amazon by satellite.
In May 1999, with the approval and support of the Brazilian government,
Greenpeace set up a permanent base in Manaus, from which it is conducting
investigations in remote areas of the Amazon to document and expose illegal
cutting and transport of timber. The data on the origin of the logs,
location of rafts, volume, species, owners and intermediaries is cross
checked against official data from IBAMA.
"The result of this investigation confirms that illegal logging in the
Amazon continues to be the rule, and not the exception," said Paulo Adario,
Greenpeace Amazon campaigner.
In mid-February, early in the investigation, two tugboats were spotted by
the Greenpeace team on the Tapaua River, some 600 kilometres from Manaus.
The Greenpeacers monitored their collection of logs and the construction of
the rafts with the aid of an airplane, Global positioning systems equipment
and digital cameras. The information gathered was passed to IBAMA as soon as
the evidence was conclusive.
The seized logs will be donated to build low income housing projects in
Amazonas State.
Both Compensa and one of the loggers, Raimundo Santos, have previous records
for dealing in illegal timber. Compensa was fined twice in 1999 for buying
illegal logs, and Santos was fined four times in 1977.
"The logging industry's long standing and customary practice of ignoring the
law, and of ignoring the fragility of the ecosystem itself, has virtually
legitimised a pattern of destruction in the Amazon," said Adario. "When this
is coupled with the government's inability to enforce the law, the final
result can only be the destruction, with impunity, of this last great
tropical rainforest."
Adario says a shortage of money for salaries and equipment allows IBAMA to
capture but a fraction of the illegal timber cut in the Amazon.
Data from the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies shows that of the US$32
million of federal funds allocated for forest protection in Brazil in 2000,
only US$19 million was actually spent on forest protection.
The Brazilian Amazon takes in the states of Acre, Amap, Amazonas, Mato
Grosso, Par, Rondia, Roraima, Tocantins and portions of Maranhco and
Goias, totaling an area of approximately five million square kilometers,
about equal to the area of all Western Europe.
The latest report by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research,
issued last April after extensive satellite monitoring of forest cover,
shows that the mean rate of gross deforestation across the Brazilian Amazon
has slowed slightly from 17.38 percent in 1998 to 16.92 percent in 1999.
Greenpeace has proposed to the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Amazonas State
that the logging sector be regulated according to forestry certification
standards. Under the proposal, the industry would have four years to get
their operations up to the standards defined by the Forest Stewardship
Council for logging in an environmentally, socially and economically viable
manner.
The plywood companies and saw mills would have 12 months to legalize their
contracts with loggers and suppliers, and would be obliged to help them to
comply with current Brazilian forestry legislation.
===================================================================
Foot And Mouth Disease Expected To Hit U.S.
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-19-09.html
WASHINGTON, DC, April 19, 2001 (ENS) - The Environmental Working Group has
sent formal requests to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeking
documentation of a closed door meeting in which the agency discussed the
probability that foot and mouth disease will strike in the U.S.
"We are given to understand from government sources that the plan, if
activated, will likely have profound implications for consumers,
environmental quality, the non-farm rural economy, and wildlife," wrote
Environmental Working Group president Kenneth Cook in a letter to Agriculture
Secretary Ann Veneman requesting information under the Freedom of Information
Act.
"Our request is urgent because, during an interagency briefing just last
week, USDA officials stated to an audience of federal officials that the
department considers it likely that an outbreak of foot and mouth disease
(FMD) will occur in this country," said Cook. "Participants at the meeting
were asked by USDA officials not to inform the media that the briefing had
taken place, nor to discuss the substance of the meeting, in order to avoid
"public panic" about the likelihood of an FMD outbreak and the impacts of the
contingency plan."
Cook said that he has been informed that emergency contingency plans for an
outbreak of FMD would grant "what amounts to martial authority to state and
federal agencies, including emergency waiver of such federal laws as the
Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Safe Drinking
Water Act, among others."
"The emergency waiver authority clearly contemplates potentially major
impacts on wildlife and environmental quality," Cook wrote. Cook and the
Environmental Working Group want Veneman to make its contingency plans public
and seek input from other groups before taking any action.
Although no cases of foot and mouth (FMD) disease have been found in the
U.S., based on recent outbreaks in the European Union and South America,
wildlife health officials have issued a wildlife health alert.
The alert from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) advises natural resource and
conservation managers that some wildlife species are susceptible to FMD. Foot
and mouth disease could affect white tailed deer, other deer species, feral
wild pigs, bison, moose, antelope, peccaries, musk ox, caribou, sheep and
elk.
USGS wildlife disease specialists are working with the USDA to develop
outbreak prevention and containment strategies.
The USGS Wildlife Health Alert is available at: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov
===================================================================
Friday, 13 April, 2001
'Eco-terror' threat to US suburbia
Nine fires have been set in the Phoenix area
By the BBC's Tom Carver in Phoenix, Arizona
Radical environmentalists are adopting increasingly extreme
tactics in what they say is a battle to save America's
desert landscapes from destruction.
Within the last few months, dozens of luxury homes in states
stretching from Oregon to Long Island have been torched in
an attempt to stop suburban sprawl spreading into the
desert.
Such attacks have become increasingly common in Phoenix,
Arizona.
On the edge of the city, nine houses have been deliberately
razed in the same area because they were encroaching on the
mountain desert.
Suburban sprawl
Flying by helicopter over Phoenix gives you a good idea of
the problem. The city covers nearly 500 square miles, and
it's expanding every day.
This being the American West, people in Phoenix still
believe that land is basically limitless, and that you are
entitled to as much of it as you can afford.
They say the desert around Phoenix is being eaten up by
housing at the rate of one acre an hour, and looking down on
the city from above you can believe it.
The original indigenous ecosystem of this desert has gone
forever in many places.
Huge swathes of topsoil are being ripped out and replaced by
houses, and in some cases, fake desert - more human,
acceptable desert with little waterfalls and gullies.
'No suitable habitat'
"A couple years ago, none of this was here," said student
Ray Lein-Neeler.
Mr Lein-Neeler and Christian Rosendahl, two students, took
me through one new development on the edge of the city.
They support the arson attacks because the urban sprawl is
forcing out the desert's original occupants.
"As far as the bigger wildlife population - elk, deer,
mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes - this is no longer
suitable habitat for them," said Mr Lein-Neeler.
He asks: "Where will these species go?"
Suburban love affair
But despite these concerns, most Americans are in love with
the suburban way of life.
Some 80,000 people move to Phoenix every year, and every one
of them wants a detached family home with a carport and a
garden.
A proposition to limit new building in Phoenix failed to
pass a referendum last year, forcing environmentalists like
Christian Rosendahl to support more drastic measures.
"In that sense, yeah, it was a failure. It was a window of
time, an opportunity, to decide for the future, how far we
want to grow," says Mr Rosendahl.
No one has so far been arrested for the attacks, and the
arsonists are nothing if not persistent.
In one case, they left a message warning: "You build again
we burn again".
The owner did rebuild, and they returned to burn it down.
'No professionals'
Bob Kahn of the task force investigating the fires says this
is hardly the work of professionals.
"There was some strategy just because of the nature of the
homes and where the fires were started, but if you look at a
house under construction in the desert with exposed wood,
it's extremely vulnerable to fire," says Mr Kahn.
He adds: "I wouldn't say that you have to be overly
strategic or know about arson fires to do something like
this."
For the first time in their history, America's cities are
starting to run out of space.
So far, the attacks in Phoenix have done nothing to halt the
suburban explosion - but they are forcing people to think
about this new and growing problem.
===================================================================
"Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents.
It was loaned to you by your children."
-Kenyan Proverb
======================================================
"We cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same
thinking that created them."
-Albert Einstein
======================================================
"The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders."
-Edward Abbey
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