When I'm rushing, I get careless.
As you know I think these acronymous statistics are of no importance. They are put together by governments for their own satisfaction.
The Nafta report didn't discover the cod disaster - they reported it. The Canadian government didn't treat the cod situation, they stopped the blood-letting when it was probably too late.
Philosophically, open water belongs to the people of the earth. The 3 miles around coastlines - that became 12 miles (maybe more with the discovery of oil) - can belong to individual countries. The rest of the ocean belongs to us all - all of humanity..
We should assert our rights and manage fishing, so as to prevent the depletion of a valuable renewable natural resource.
The US does a great job of managing animals. I haven't looked at this for years. I checked bird, animal, and other figures when I showed that DDT had not practically wiped everything out. That, indeed, it was one of the cheapest, most effective, and SAFEST pesticides ever invented.
Then, I found that in the period from the time of first use to the time it was banned all US wild animal populations were up (except for the mountain sheep that had dropped a small amount - I never followed up to find reason).
I assume Canada manages her wild creatures too - but someone will have to tell me. So, is it a great psychological gap in our thinking that we can't do the same with the ocean?
Harry
__________________________________
Steve wrote:
This is refreshing output for a subsidiary of NAFTA. It indicates, among many things, that overshoot in human impact is occurring. It also suggests that technology isn't sufficient as a fix. At least there is recognition that humanity has a problem.
Steve
--------------------------------------------
Monday, January 7, 2002 - Page A1
The Globe and Mail
GDP value must reflect eco-wealth, report says
By ALANNA MITCHELL EARTH SCIENCES REPORTER
North Americans must radically alter the way they calculate gross
domestic product to take into account the use of each country's
environmental wealth, says a hard-hitting new report from the
international environmental watchdog set up under NAFTA.
That's because North America's natural resources -- from soil and
forests to water and fish, and even clean air -- are being consumed at a
rate that simply cannot be sustained.
The watchdog of the North American free-trade agreement is calling for a
way to assess how long such use can continue before it's too late.
"The health of an environment that sustains 394 million people and an
economy worth $9-trillion [U.S.] is at risk," concludes the first
state-of-the-nations report from the North American Commission for
Environmental Co-operation, to be published today.
The report adds: "North Americans are faced with the paradox that many
activities on which the North American economy is based impoverish the
environment on which our well-being ultimately depends."
As it stands, the internationally accepted system of national accounts
fails to predict how long a country's environmental capital can be used,
and at what rate, before parts of it collapse, the report says.
"Unlike human or fabricated capital such as buildings and machines, the
depreciation of natural capital is not written off against the value of
its production," the 100-page report says.
The planet's assets can be likened to a bank account, it says.
"By 'spending' natural capital without replenishing it, or by damaging
processes and living systems that cannot be fixed by technology, we are
living off our capital rather than the interest," the report says.
That this urging should come from an environmental group set up by the
NAFTA partners, Canada, the United States and Mexico, is a measure of
how seriously the new economic research on this topic is being taken.
"Because of the research, we are becoming more fluent and aware of the
part that ecosystems play," said Janine Ferretti, the CEC's executive
director. "They're the backbone of prosperity."
Mexico has done a pilot study on calculating an ecological GDP. It
showed, for example, that Mexico's GDP calculated the regular way logged
an average annual increase of 2.2 per cent from 1985 to 1992. The
ecological GDP showed an average of 1.3 per cent because it took into
account the depletion of natural assets.
Both Canada and the United States have examined integrating measures of
economy and environment. The United States studied the costs and
savings of the Clean Air Act over 20 years, for example. Implementing
the act cost $524-billion (U.S.), but saved the economy more than
$6-trillion (U.S.).
The fate of the cod fishery on Canada's East Coast is a perfect example
of what happens when natural capital is not taken into account. Past
governments encouraged the use of large fleets to catch and process fish
to build up Newfoundland's economy.
Because too many cod were fished out of the ocean, and too little was
understood about how that system worked, the fishery collapsed. In
1992, Canada banned cod fishing. Stocks have still not rebounded and
many scientists say they never will. It's a similar story with haddock
and pollock.
"Excessive fishing has destroyed a major piece of the environment," the
report says. "In turn, that has destroyed part of the economy."
Not understanding how a natural system worked led to the loss of tens of
thousands of jobs and a special unemployment program that cost Ottawa
$1.9-billion in the first five years. It is expected to cost another
$760-million over the next three years.
The growing sense of urgency in understanding the continent's economy in
this way is borne out by some of the report's other findings. While
there is some good news, such as the increase in protected areas to
about 15 per cent of North America from about 5 per cent in
1970, there is also bad news.
Agricultural practices such as no-till planting are lessening the degree
of soil erosion in parts of the agricultural belt, yet soil is still
disappearing. Now it's because farmers rely heavily on chemical
fertilizers that erode soil structure instead of the compost and manure
that build it up, the report says.
As well, high use of fossil fuels is polluting the air and helping to
damage the planet's climate. In the United States, the number of
kilometres travelled by passengers on transit, rail and intercity bus
has dropped by half since 1970 even as the appetite for bigger cars and
longer trips increased.
Old-growth forests in North America continue to disappear, replaced in
part by planted trees that are not as resistant to disease. Mexico, for
example, has already lost 95 per cent of its tropical humid forests and
is losing forests at the fifth-quickest rate of any country in the
world.
Environmental groups have often accused the three governments of
creating the CEC only to ignore its recommendations.
Source url:
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/Ful
lStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=BigAdVaria
bleGenerator&date=20020107&dateOffset=&hub=environment&title=Environment&cache_k
ey=environment¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1
================================
Significant biodiversity loss across North America, NAFTA body's State
of the Environment report says
http://www.cec.org/news/details/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=2441
Highlights from The North American Mosaic: A State of the Environment
Report
http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=616
Compete Report - The North American Mosaic: A State of the Environment
Report
http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=629
Janine Ferretti Executive Director Commission for Environmental
Cooperation Bus: 514-350-4318 Fax: 514-350-4314 Email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
393 rue St-Jacques Ouest, bureau 200 Montr�al QC H2Y 1N9 Web Site:
http://www.cec.org
******************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
*******************************
