|
|
To: All Activists
From: Tiernan
Sittenfeld, US PIRG
Date: April 30, 2002
Subject: Roadless Area Protection
Call In Day Tomorrow
PLEASE
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 1ST, AND URGE THEM TO
BECOME ORIGINAL COSPONSORS OF THE "NATIONAL FOREST ROADLESS
AREA
CONSERVATION ACT!" YOU CAN CALL THE
CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD TOLL FREE AT
888-223-4066 OR AT
202-224-3121 AND ASK FOR YOUR REPRESENTATIVES OR CALL
THEIR OFFICES DIRECTLY.
Our cosponsor drive is off to a great start, but we want to
get as many
original cosponsors onto the bill as we can
in the next few days. Please
call your Representative
and any other Members of your state delegation
who you
think would be interested in cosponsoring the bill and ask them
to sign on in order to represent the wishes of the American
people who
want to protect our last wild
places. Even if your Representative is
already on the bill, please call and thank him or her.
Please call this
Wednesday, May 1st, and urge your
friends and colleagues to call as
well.
SAMPLE RAP (please adjust this as
you see you fit):
Hi, my name is _____ and I'm a constituent calling from
_______ (city or
town). I'm calling to ask
Representative _______ to become an original
cosponsor
of the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act.
This bill would simply codify the
roadless rule that was shaped by the
greatest outreach
in federal rulemaking history, including the more than
2.2 million comments submitted by the American
public. The
administration has failed to
implement the roadless rule, so we're
looking to
Congress to help protect our last wild places.
Will Representative _______ sign
on before May 8th? (If the staffer
says the
Member is already on, just say thank you.)
For more information please see http://www.americanlands.org/ or
http://www.ourforests.org Thanks!
Steve
Holmer
Campaign Coordinator
American Lands
726 7th Street SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
202/547-9105
202/547-9213 fax
mailto:wafcdc@americanlands.org
http://www.americanlands.org
1. CALL-IN DAY, TOMORROW!
2. TONGASS
WILDERNESS PLAN TO BE ISSUED BY MID MAY
3. JUDGE ORDERS
CONTINUED BAN ON MOST HARVESTING IN THE TONGASS
****
WILD
FORESTS CALL-IN DAY – WEDNESDAY, MAY 1
Just ONE FREE CALL
Helps Protect Roadless Areas in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests and
other wild forests nationwide. (Phone number and sample message included below.)
With the Bush Administration still
dragging its heels nearly a year after its pledge to implement the National
Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Congress is ready to say enough is enough and
ensure the Roadless Rule takes effect. The Roadless Rule protects the last
remaining untouched, unprotected wild areas of America’s National Forests –
one-quarter of which are within the Tongass and Chugach in
Alaska. Alaska’s rainforest has the most to gain from roadless
protection and the most to lose by anti-conservation
rollbacks. America’s National Forests in Alaska have the most
existing logging roads, the most areas without roads, and face the overwhelming
threat of 33 timber sales in roadless areas that should be protected by the
Rule.
In the next few weeks,
leaders in the House of Representatives will introduce legislation to codify the
Roadless Rule. Led by Reps. Jay Inslee (D, WA-1) and Sherwood Boehlert (R,
NY-23), the drive is on to get as many original cosponsors onto the bill as
possible in the next few days and you can help!
On WEDNESDAY, MAY 1 wild forest supporters from across the
country will be participating in a CALL-IN DAY to urge their Representatives to
become original cosponsors of the “National Forest Roadless Area Conservation
Act.” Take part by calling the Capitol switchboard TOLL FREE at 888-223-4066 or
at 202-224-3121. Ask for your Representative and tell them you want their
support on the bill. (Don't worry if you miss the May 1 date - go ahead and call
in. Every call counts!)
Sample
message:
Hi, my name is _____
and I'm a constituent calling from _______ (city or town). I'm
calling to ask Representative _______ to become an original cosponsor of the
National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act. This bill would
simply codify the roadless rule that was shaped by the greatest outreach in
federal rulemaking history, including the more than 2.2 million comments
submitted by the American public. The administration has failed to
implement the roadless rule, so we're looking to Congress to protect our last
wild places including the Chugach and Tongass National Forests in Alaska, the
crown jewels of the National Forest System. Will Representative
_______ sign on before May 8th? (If the staffer says the Member is
already on, just say thank you.) Thanks!
****
TONGASS
WILDERNESS PLAN TO BE ISSUED BY MID MAY
According to reports from the Tongass National Forest
supervisor’s office, the Tongass Wilderness Plan will be issued by mid-May,
commencing a 90-day public comment period.
We will alert everyone as soon as we are made aware of the
exact date of the release. In the meantime, we still have limited quantities
available – free of charge – of fact sheets and pre-printed postcards that
organizations and individuals can use to participate in the comment period. If
you and/or your organization are interested in receiving a supply of the
postcards, please contact Laurie Cooper (laurie@alaskacoalition.org) with your
request in multiples of 20 for the postcard and/or flyer.
Background:
The development of a new Tongass Wilderness Plan will
provide Alaska Wilderness supporters with the opportunity to help safeguard the
remaining unprotected temperate rainforest wildlands on the Tongass National
Forest. By court order, the U.S. Forest Service has had to revisit its
management blueprint for the Tongass National Forest. Originally developed in
1997, the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) was ruled illegal because it
failed to consider new wildlands eligible for long-term protection under the
National Wilderness Preservation System. As a result, the USFS will issue a
supplemental plan which we expect to include an Alaska Rainforest Conservation
alternative. Stay tuned for information on how you can participate in the
upcoming 90-day public comment period.
*****
NEWS ON THE TONGASS: Judge's order continues to bar harvest
in most Tongass wilderness
04/28/2002 - Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2002. The Associated
Press. All Rights Reserved.
Judge allows
limited Tongass timber harvests
KETCHIKAN (AP) - Right-of-way clearing for the Swan
Lake-Lake Tyee electrical intertie and five other timber harvests on the Tongass
National Forest can proceed, according to a ruling Friday by U.S. District Court
Judge James K. Singleton.
They
were the only exemptions granted by Singleton in an injunction that otherwise
prohibits the U.S. Forest Service from permitting timber harvest or road
building in roadless areas until 45 days after the agency completes the final
supplemental environmental impact study ordered by Singleton in March 2001.
The agency has said the supplemental
environmental impact statement should be finished later this year.
The five timber sales to proceed are
the Upper Carroll, South Lindy, Four Leaf, South Arm and King George, according
to the Forest Service.
The sales
contain about 62 million board feet of timber in the Craig, Ketchikan and
Wrangell areas.
The ruling is
similar to what the industry and Forest Service had requested at a hearing
earlier this year.
Singleton
ruled a year ago that the Forest Service violated federal law when it failed to
consider some areas for wilderness designation in issuing the 1997 Tongass Land
Management Plan. At the time, he issued an injunction that halted logging on the
Tongass. He lifted it two months later, pending a hearing on the issue.
At the February hearing,
conservation groups argued that an injunction would protect high-value
wilderness from irreparable harm.
Tom Waldo, attorney for the environmental law firm
Earthjustice, said the environmental groups in the case are pleased with
Friday's order, although it didn't go as far as they had hoped.
"It gives some breathing room ... so
there's some possibility of protecting these areas in the wilderness
review that's taking place right now," Waldo said.
The order Friday may not stop the Forest Service from
planning timber sales in areas under review for wilderness designation, but
would stop a decision in such cases, Waldo said.
Pat Veesart, executive director of the Sitka Conservation
Society, said his group is focusing its attention on the wilderness review.
"Can the Forest Service make a fair
decision on these areas while they are simultaneously planning timber sales in
them?" he asked. "We'll see."
Singleton's ruling comes at a critical time for Southeast
Alaska's timber industry, said Alaska Forest Association President George
Woodbury, who runs a forest products consulting business in Wrangell. Timber
companies are preparing to enter the woods to replenish their wood supply, he
said.
"I think we're in good
shape for the shape we're in," he said. "Winter inventory is getting low and
interruptions would be difficult. We're very happy to have that decision."
Right-of-way clearing for the
57-mile Swan Lake-Lake Tyee electric intertie is scheduled to start this summer.
The overland power line will connect Ketchikan with Petersburg and Wrangell.
Copyright (c) 2002 Dow Jones &
Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
*****
Greenpeace's
Positive Energy
Newsletter
April 22-28, 2002
v
2.14
Time for Greenpeace’s CLEAN
ENERGY NOW! campaign’s
weekly good news update!!!
Inside this edition:
- New Hampshire First State to Tackle Global Warming
- CEC to Fund Feasibility Study of Ocean-Based Energy
Systems
- Never Too Young to Be
Involved
+ + + + +
New Hampshire First State to Tackle Global Warming
New Hampshire lawmakers became the
first in the country to
pass a law to reduce global
warming. The measure is aimed
at reducing
emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide,
and
nitrogen oxide – thus addressing global warming, acid
rain, smog and airborne mercury poisoning contributions by
fossil-fuel power plants. Although some
environmentalists
have opposed a part of the bill that
allows credit-trading
with out-of-state utilities for
those unable to cut local
emissions by 2007, others have
supported the plan and
called the compromise a major
step forward. Even though
the new rules for emissions
pale in comparison to the Kyoto
Protocol, the measure
will serve as a model for other
states and the federal
government to follow New
Hampshire’s initiative and take
action in curbing our role
in climate change.
To read more about New Hampshire’s
initiative, go to:
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-22-06.html
and
http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/local2002/clean_air_law7466_2002.shtml
+ + + + +
CEC to Fund Feasibility Study of Ocean-Based Energy Systems
In the near future, California
could be using ocean-wave
energy systems to meet some of
its energy needs. The
prospects of using wave
actions to generate electrical
energy is not new by any
means, Pacific Gas & Electric Company released a report in 1991 looking into
potential energy conversion of wave energy into usable energy. With
funding from the California Energy Commission, a group
of researchers and experts will survey the California coast to study the
feasibility of using sea swells as a potential
source of
renewable energy in the upcoming weeks. Initial
assessments indicate a potential of 23,000 MW of ocean-
based electricity could be generated along the northern
coast alone, making this technology appealing to conscious
energy users and advocates who want California to adopt
a
diverse clean energy portfolio. Although wave energy
is
effectively non-polluting, there are environmental
considerations that still have to be explored, including
its impact on sea life. In addition, there are still a
few technical challenges that will need to be overcome
to
make this concept economically competitive with
traditional
sources of energy. Even so,
experts are excited about the reality of establishing wave-energy electricity
converters in the near future – the World Energy Council estimates
that the equivalent of twice the global electricity
production could be harvested from the world’s oceans.
Check out this animation showing how
wave energy works:
http://www.techreview.com/articles/visualize0102.asp
+ + + + +
Never Too Young to Be Involved
Not sure if kids can be committed,
effective activists?
Well South Australian Premier Mike
Rann recently announced
that his 11-year-old daughter
convinced him to
go "green" and we believe kids can help
convince their
fellow Californians to go "green" as
well.
More and more, we, at
Greenpeace, hear from kids who want
to get involved, and
we would like to remind our readers
that Greenpeace does
have a Volunteer Network in the
San Francisco/Bay Area.
There are plenty of opportunities
for people of all ages
to work with other Southern
California activists and
political teams or along side
Greenpeace campaigners in
our San Francisco office.
If interested, please contact Ashby Smith, our Outreach
Coordinator, by phone at:
(415) 255.9221 x 314
or via email
at:
ashby.smith@sfo.greenpeace.org.
---------------------------------------
The "Positive Energy" newsletter and our website, 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.
DEN Alert:
Help Protect Our Oceans from Overfishing
A U.S. House committee is about to consider legislation to
stop the
overfishing of our oceans. America's ocean fish
are at serious risk.
Nearly half of all federally
managed U.S. fish populations are at
dangerously low
levels. The fishing industry now has the capacity
to
catch and kill more fish than the oceans can produce. For every
pound of shrimp caught in the Gulf of Mexico, for example,
four
pounds of fish and other marine life are discarded,
dead or dying.
What's more, dredged or bottom-trawled
each year are areas roughly
150 times as large as all
the forests clear-cut worldwide. That is
damaging and
destroying essential fish habitat.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Please send your representative a
FREE fax and tell them there is a
solution - the
Fisheries Recovery Act of 2001 (H.R. 2570) This
legislation is good for the fish, other ocean wildlife,
fishermen,
and fishing communities because it promotes
long-term sustainable
fishing practices. The bill may be
considered as early as MAY 2,
so please send your fax
TODAY. Thanks for helping to protect our
precious marine
resources.
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:
If you have access to the web,
simply click on the link below which
will take you to
the DEN Action Center web site:
http://www.denaction.org
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear Representative:
I am writing to urge you to
co-sponsor the Fisheries Recovery Act
of 2001, H.R.
2570. Our country's ocean fish are in crisis because
of government mismanagement. Nearly half of all
federally managed
U.S. fish populations are at
dangerously low levels. We now have
the fishing capacity
to catch more fish than the oceans can produce.
This, coupled with damaging fishing practices, has put more
than
30 federally managed fish species at risk of
extinction.
Instead of managing
our ocean resources primarily for extraction,
we must
put conservation first. The Fisheries Recovery Act of 2001
can help fix many of the problems with current
management. It
requires an end to overfishing
reduces the killing of ocean life
such as turtles, sea
birds and sharks, and will protect fish
habitats from
damaging fishing practices. H.R. 2570 also directs
fishery managers to consider the overall health of ocean
ecosystems
while making management decisions.
The future of America's fishing
communities, and our ocean
resources, depends on your
leadership. Please co-sponsor the
Fisheries
Recovery Act of 2001. Thank you for considering my
comments.
Sincerely,
___________________________________________________________
To SUBSCRIBE to DENlines, visit
Defenders' website at:
http://www.defenders.org/den or send an e-mail to
DEN@defenders.org and put the word SUBSCRIBE in the
subject line, and your name and address in the text
area.
___________________________________________________________
DENlines is a biweekly
publication of Defenders of Wildlife, a
leading national
conservation organization recognized as one of
the
nation's most progressive advocates for wildlife and its
habitat and known for its effective leadership on saving
endangered species such as brown bears and gray wolves.
Defenders
advocates new approaches to wildlife
conservation that protect
species before they become
endangered. Founded in 1947, Defenders
is a nonprofit
501(c)(3) organization with more than 480,000
members
and supporters.
Defenders
of Wildlife
1101
14th Street, NW, Suite 1400
Washington,
DC 20005
http://www.defenders.org
http://www.kidsplanet.org
Copyright
(c) 2002 by Defenders of Wildlife
Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"
(NOTE: If an ad appears at the
top of this message, we are as displeased as
you are.
We've asked Topica to stop this practice.)
Thanks to all who have sent letters to Kenyan government
officials
supporting Kenyan environmental and indigenous
organizations who are
struggling to save Kenya's
remaining forests. There's good news from
Nairobi: a court order halting the Kenyan government's plans
to excise some
70,000 hectares of forests, including
forest areas occupied by the
indigenous Ogiek
people. The order is temporary, but it is welcomed with
great relief by environmentalists in Kenya and around the
world.
For background on the
struggle and Global Response's Action Alert from
January
2002, please see
http://www.globalresponse.org/gra_index/gra0102.html.
For the good news, see IRIN
article dated 24 April, 2002, at
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27444
********************************
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: 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.
********************************
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: 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.
America's ocean fish are at serious risk because of
government mismanagement. We now have the capacity
to catch and kill more fish than the oceans can produce.
On May 2, a key subcommittee in the House of Representatives
will review draft fishery management legislation. We
need your help again to ensure strong fish management
reform and ocean protection measures receive the adequate
attention. Please let your Representative know you
care about the plight of our ocean fish and urge his/her
co-sponsorship of the Fisheries Recovery Act.
You can take action on this alert
either via email
(please see directions below) or via
the web at:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/oceanfish/wkxwk74278xdjb
Visit the web address below and
tell your friends to
take action on this important
campaign!
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/oceanfish/forward/wkxwk74278xdjb
We encourage you to take action
by June 30, 2002
Act Now to Save
America's Ocean Fish
----------------------
America's ocean fish are at serious risk because of
government mismanagement. We now have the capacity
to catch and kill more fish than the oceans can produce.
In too many cases, federal fisheries managers react
to overfishing and other wasteful fishing practices
after it occurs, which increases the likelihood that
fish populations will remain depleted for years to
come.
The
House Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife
and Oceans will hold a hearing on legislative proposals
on fisheries management on May 2. With congressional
attention focused on fisheries management legislation,
we need your support to ensure that conservation of
ocean fish populations and ecosystems is our nation's
highest priority.
Consider these facts:
- 31 ocean
fish species have been so mismanaged that
they may go
extinct.
- The extent of our ocean fish problem is
largely unknown
because federal fisheries managers don't
even know
the status of 78% of our ocean fish
populations.
- For every pound of shrimp caught in the
Gulf of Mexico,
4 pounds of fish and other marine life
are discarded,
dead or dying.
-
An area roughly 150 times the size of the forests
clear-cut worldwide is dredged or bottom trawled each
year. This activity damages and destroys essential
fish habitat.
There is a solution - The Fisheries Recovery Act of
2001, H.R. 2570. The bill was introduced by Representative
Sam Farr of California. Sixty six other members of
Congress have signed on in support. This bill will
stop the overexploitation of our fish and put conservation
first. H.R. 2570 is good for the fish, other ocean
wildlife, fishermen, and fishing communities because
it promotes long-term sustainable fishing practices.
HR 2570 will:
1. stop overfishing
2.
reduce the killing of non-target fish and other
ocean
life
3. protect essential fish habitats from
damaging fishing
practices
4. require consideration of ecosystem needs when making
management decisions
5.
fund improved research and reporting
This is an important time to weigh in with your support
for fisheries management reform. Please let your
Representative
know you care about the plight of our
ocean fish and
urge his/her co-sponsorship of the
Fisheries Recovery
Act.
----------------------
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/oceanfish/wkxwk74278xdjb
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:
Representative Maurice Hinchey
-------YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER
BELOW---------
Our nation's
ocean fish populations are under tremendous
stress. In
2000, a record-high number of ocean fish
stocks (107)
were overfished or experienced overfished
conditions. A
recent scientific report showed that
31
federally-managed ocean fish species are at risk
of
extinction. The nation's ocean environment, fishing
industry, and culture are at risk unless we seriously
take actions to ensure fish populations are sustainable.
Representative Gilchrest, the
chairman of the Fisheries,
Conservation and Ocean
Wildlife Subcommittee, is holding
a final hearing on
fish management legislative proposals
on May 2. With the
conclusion of the hearing process,
congressional
attention on fisheries management will
elevate.
As my U.S. representative, I ask you
to co-sponsor
H.R. 2570 - the Fisheries Recovery Act of
2001. This
bill will strengthen federal management of
our ocean
fisheries by addressing many of the problems
that have
contributed to fish population declines and
habitat
loss. It will improve basic fishery science by
involving
fishermen in a cooperative data gathering
approach,
stop overfishing, encourage use of fishing
gear that
does not damage habitats, and reduce the catch
of non-targeted
wildlife such as birds and turtles. Your
support of
H.R. 2570 will greatly help the effort to
make ocean
conservation a priority.
Ocean fisheries have played an
integral role in our
culture and economy for the entire
history of our nation.
The continued decline and
collapse of many historically
productive fisheries are
reminders that fish management
has not kept pace with
our capacity to exploit it.
We have a responsibility to
protect and manage our
fisheries so that the stocks
remain healthy and sustainable
fishing can continue into
the future. Thank you for
your consideration.
-------END OF
LETTER-------------------------
Sincerely yours,
Don’t Dump Waste in Our Waters
The Bush administration is about to change a Clean Water Act rule to give the Army Corps of Engineers the ability to issue permits allowing industries to dump waste materials into our nation’s waters, destroying many streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands.
The rule change is motivated by the Bush administration’s desire to promote mountaintop removal coal mining, where coal companies blow the tops off of mountains to reach seams of coal, then dump millions of tons of waste into nearby streams, burying them and killing all the animals and plants that live there. The new regulation would also allow hardrock mining operations and other industries to bury waters with their wastes.
Urge the President to uphold the Clean Water Act’s goal of protecting our nation’s waters and stop this rule change.
May 2002 Edition
In This Issue:
The full issue of EnviroAction is available at: www.nwf.org/enviroaction We look forward to receiving your feedback. Please email us at info@nwf.org or call us at 1-800-822-9919. To unsubscribe to NWF's EnviroAction newsletter,click here. Sign up here to receive NWF Action alerts and be notified when your help is most needed on critical conservation issues. click here. Click here to support NWF conservation efforts.  (c) 1996-2001 National Wildlife Federation. All rights reserved. Read more About NWF and Your PRIVACY. |
ETC Genotype
1 May 2002
www.etcgroup.org
ETC group responds to Purdue
University's recent efforts to promote genetic seed sterilization - or
Terminator -- as an environmental protection technology. The full response is
available on the ETC group website: http//www.etcgroup.org
Background:
An article by Purdue Agriculture Communications (distributed
by AScribe Newswire on April 19) quotes Purdue University professors and one
University of Oklahoma law professor who unabashedly promote Terminator
technology - claiming that it was developed as an environmental protection tool.
It is revisionist history, and a
cynical strategy, to suggest that Terminator was developed as a biosafety tool.
Civil society organizations and
farmers worldwide are alarmed and insulted by the campaign to promote Terminator
as a biosafety mechanism. It is unacceptable and dangerous to suggest that
agriculture is dependent on genetic seed sterilization as a method for
minimizing genetic pollution from genetically modified plants.
The promotion of Terminator seeds as
a "green" solution to GM pollution is the Trojan Horse of biotechnology. If
Terminator
technology wins market acceptance under the
guise of biosafety, it will be used as a monopoly tool to prevent farmers from
saving and re-using seed.
Most
of the over 800 million malnourished people on this planet live in rural areas
and depend upon farm-saved seed for their survival. Member nations of the Food
and Agriculture Organization should follow the leadership provided by FAO’s
Ethics Panel and its Director-General and pass a resolution condemning
Terminator technology.
To: All Activists
From: Steve
Holmer
Date: May 1, 2002
Harmful Stewardship Contracting and Biomass Provisions
Dropped from Farm Bill
First
of all, many thanks to all those who made calls or sent faxes or
emails to stop the stewardship contracting and biomass
provisions in the
Farm bill - it made a real
difference.
Second, sorry about the lame ads. Topica started
doing this without my
permission. I've asked
it to be stopped, but if they won't, we will be
moving
our list elsewhere and would recommend that all other non-profits
do the same.
House and Senate conferees were not able to reach agreement
on most of
the forest related language in the Farm
bill, and as a result, these
provisions including
stewardship contracting and biomass subsidies were
dropped from the bill. A vote on final
passage on the Farm bill could
occur as soon as
tomorrow.
This is a very
positive development, but we are expecting that the
stewardship contracting and biomass language could reappear
in the
coming months as a rider on the Interior
appropriations bill. So the
fight is
probably just beginning. We will continue tracking this issue
and will keep you posted on any new
developments.
For
now, many thanks are owed to Senate conferees who concluded that due
to the controversial nature of this program, it was
premature to change
its status from a pilot program
into permanent authority until the
existing pilots can
be fully reviewed and analyzed. Please fax a brief
note (on your organization's letterhead if possible)
thanking the
following Senators for their support and
hard work on the Farm bill to
protect the National
Forests.
Senator Fax Number
Sen. Tom Daschle 224-7895
Sen.
Tom Harkin 224-9287
Sen. Patrick Leahy 224-3479
Also please thank the following
Senators for their support for
responsible safeguards
in the stewardship program which were rejected by
the
House conferees.
Sen. Jeff
Bingaman 224-9026
Sen. Barbara Boxer 415-956-6701
Sen. Ron Wyden 228-2717
And once again, me deepest gratitude for all of your
outstanding work to
stop this dangerous
legislation.
Steve
Holmer
Campaign Coordinator
American Lands
726 7th Street SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
202/547-9105
202/547-9213 fax
mailto:wafcdc@americanlands.org
http://www.americanlands.org
Natural Resources Defense Council's
LEGISLATIVE WATCH
May 2, 2002
******************************
Please do not reply to this message. See the instructions
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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 ! =
5/2/02
The Senate passed its much-debated
energy bill, after defeating
amendments to open the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
drilling. The
Senate is also beginning debate on trade legislation
that lacks protections for U.S. environmental laws. The
House will
soon take up a bill to designate Yucca
Mountain, Nevada, as the sole
repository for the
nation's high-level radioactive waste. The House is
also working on the Defense Authorization bill, which
currently
includes language that would exempt the
military from some
environmental laws.
...
Budget/Appropriations
On 3/20, on a party-line vote, the House passed a
Republican FY '03
budget resolution (H. Con. Res. 353)
that backs the Bush
administration's proposed cut of
$14 billion from environmental
programs over the next
five years. House Democratic leaders opposed
the cuts
in environmental priorities and offered amendments restoring
this funding in committee, but their efforts were defeated.
On 3/21,
the Senate Budget Committee considered a
Democratic resolution that
would restore and increase
environmental and natural resources funding
levels well
above those requested in the administration's budget
proposal. As the House and Senate are not likely to close
the gap
between their competing resolutions by mid-May,
they will likely pass
separate budget plans to guide
their work for the rest of the year.
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 ! =
On 4/25, the Senate
passed the Energy Policy Act of 2002 (S. 517)
after
rejecting, on 4/18, amendments from Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) and
Sen. Stevens (R-AK) to open the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge to oil
drilling by votes of 46-54 and 36-64,
respectively. As originally
written, the energy bill
would have improved energy efficiency and
expanded the
use of clean renewable energy sources. But amendments on
the Senate floor altered the bill dramatically, gutting
vehicle fuel
economy improvements, exempting certain
oil and gas industry
operations from federal drinking
water protections, and extending
government protection
against liability to the nuclear industry.
Additional
amendments in the final days of debate further weakened the
bill by removing a strong energy efficiency standard for
air
conditioners, allowing incineration of garbage to
qualify as a
renewable energy source, and including
language to shield renewable
fuel producers from legal
challenges if their gasoline additives are
later found
to be harmful to public health or the environment. The
Senate dealt an additional blow to efforts to increase
vehicle fuel
efficiency when it rejected, by a vote of
57-42, an amendment by Sen.
Carper (D-DE) and Sen.
Specter (R-PA) that would have directed the
Department
of Transportation to cut the amount of oil passenger cars
and light trucks consume by one million barrels per day by
2015.
= N O T E ! =
The House and Senate energy bills differ significantly,
most notably
in that the House bill (H.R. 4) would
allow oil drilling in the Arctic
refuge. Unlike the
House bill, the Senate includes a provision
increasing
the use of renewable fuels -- mostly ethanol -- in gasoline
by five billion gallons by 2012. [Note -- The last edition
of
Legislative Watch incorrectly referred to five
billion 'barrels,'
instead of 'gallons,' of renewable
fuel. NRDC regrets the error and
apologizes to our
readers for any confusion.] 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. House and Senate conference committee members will
likely
need several months to negotiate a compromise
bill.
= N O T E ! =
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee expects
to consider
S. 556, a bill co-authored by committee
chair Sen. Jeffords (I-VT) and
Sen. Lieberman (D-CT),
at the end of May. 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
= N O T E ! =
On 4/24, the House
Resources Committee approved H.R. 3908, Rep.
Hansen's
(R-UT) bill to reauthorize the North American Wetlands
Conservation Act, which has served to restore and preserve
wetlands
throughout the United States, Mexico, and
Canada since 1989. The bill
includes two amendments
from Rep. Gilchrest (R-MD) -- one would
increase
funding for the act's programs from $250 million to $325
million over five years, while the other would shift about
20 percent
of funding from projects outside the United
States to those within the
country.
= N O T E ! =
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee postponed
a session
to consider The Water Investment Act of 2002
(S. 1961), a bill
introduced on 2/15 by Sens. Graham
(D-FL), Jeffords (I-VT), Smith
(R-NH), Warner (R-VA),
and Crapo (R-ID), that would authorize
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 protection, stormwater
controls, and smart growth initiatives. The bill may be
taken up on
5/2. On 3/20, the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee
considered the House companion
bill, The Water Quality Financing Act
of 2002 (H.R.
3930), sponsored by Rep. Duncan (R-TN). 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
White House objects to the cost of
these bills,
claiming that it needs the money to fund the war on
terrorism.
...
Climate Change
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 the
scientists who conduct climate
change research and develop related
technologies and
consumers, policymakers, and industry.
...
Endangered Species
On 3/20, the House Resources Committee held a hearing on
two bills
that would modify the Endangered Species Act,
making it harder for the
government to protect
endangered and threatened species. Rep. Walden's
(R-OR)
H.R. 2829 and Rep. Pombo's (R-CA) H.R. 3705 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.
...
International Environmental
Protections
= N O T E ! =
On 4/26, the Senate began debate on H.R. 3009, a bill to
lower tariffs
imposed on some products from South
American nations. The bill is
expected to expand into a
larger trade measure that will include
language
granting "fast track" authority to the president to negotiate
new trade agreements. Sen. Kerry (D-MA) plans to offer an
amendment to
the bill that would strengthen its
environmental and public health
protections. On
12/6/01, after intense lobbying by the White House and
House Republican leaders, the House, by one vote, passed a
corresponding trade authority bill (H.R. 3005)
introduced by Rep.
Thomas (R-CA). Democratic leaders,
as well as environmental, consumer,
social justice, and
labor groups, opposed H.R. 3005 because it fails
to
ensure adequate environmental and labor standards and could
undermine current protections.
...
Lands
= N O T E ! =
House and Senate negotiators reconciled the final
differences between
the House and Senate versions of
the farm bill, H.R. 2646 and S. 1731,
respectively, on
5/1. The final bill would encourage farming on
ecologically fragile lands, allow hundreds of projects that
would
expand logging in national forests, and authorize
up to $450,000
apiece in taxpayer subsidies to factory
farms, whose waste management
practices pose
environmental and health threats (environmentalists had
called for stronger limits on these subsidies). Overall,
funding for
conservation programs totaled $17.1 billion
of the $73.5 billion bill.
The House and Senate are
scheduled to debate and vote on the final
bill today.
On 3/20, the House Resources
Committee approved, on a mostly
party-line vote of
23-18, H.R. 2114, Rep. Simpson's (R-ID) National
Monument Fairness Act. 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.
Also on 3/20, the House
Resources Committee approved, along another
nearly
party-line vote of 23-18, a provision in H.R. 3853 offered by
Rep. Radanovich (R-CA) that effectively overturns 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 4/25, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved
by a vote of
41-6 a resolution to designate Yucca
Mountain, Nevada, as the sole
repository for the
nation's high-level radioactive waste. On 4/8,
Nevada
governor Kenny Guinn (R) vetoed the Bush administration's
recommendation of the site, beginning a 90-day window
during which
Congress can override the veto. The House
subcommittee on Energy and
Air Quality voted to
override Gov. Guinn's veto on 4/23 by a vote of
24-2.
Floor debate is expected in the House next week. 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
On 3/21, Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and
Sen. Reid (D-NV) introduced the
National Health
Tracking Act (S. 2054), a bill to protect children's
health by tracking data on local, regional, and national
causes of
chronic health conditions. Rep. Pelosi (D-CA)
introduced a companion
bill, H.R. 4061, on 3/20 in the
House.
...
Toxic Waste
On 3/10, Sen. Boxer (D-CA) held a
hearing on the federal Superfund
program to address the
slowing pace of cleanup and the Bush
administration's
proposal to shift cleanup costs from polluters to
taxpayers. The administration's FY '03 budget request for
the EPA does
not reauthorize the current "polluter
pays" tax for toxic cleanups,
and would shift the $700
million cost to taxpayers.
...
Wilderness and Wildlife
Protection
= N O T E ! =
On 4/25, the House Subcommittee on Military Readiness
approved by a
voice vote the Defense Authorization
bill, H.R. 4546, including
provisions that give the
Department of Defense broad exemptions under
the
Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The bill
moved to the House Armed Services Committee on 5/1, where
language was
approved that would transfer control of a
large portion of Utah public
lands from the Bureau of
Land Management to the Defense Department.
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.
...
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
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EARTH ACTION is sent biweekly and calls out urgent
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LEGISLATIVE WATCH is
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unsubscribe from Legislative Watch, send an email message
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The CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST
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...........
3) About NRDC/How to Contact Us
The Natural Resources Defense
Council is a nonprofit environmental
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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
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please contact us at:
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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
Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"
NOTE ABOUT ADS: At our
request, Topica agreed to screen the ads it is now
placing at the top of our QRN messages. We're working on
finding an ad-free
alternative. Please bear with us in
the meantime. Thanks, --GR.
Global Response has long been concerned about Chinese
government projects
like the Three Gorges Dam and its
policy of turning Tibet into a
resource-extraction
colony with terrible consequences for the environment
and the Tibetan people. We are very glad to join
International Rivers
Network and Students for a Free
Tibet in a campaign to pressure the Morgan
Stanley company to stop helping China finance such
environmentally
destructive projects. Please
exercise your consumer power in this campaign!
*****************************************************
GLOBAL RESPONSE ACTION #3/02
Stop
Financing Environmental Destruction/ Tibet-China
May-June 2002
*****************************************************
“The company, its management and
directors are very much committed to a
safe, clean and
enduring environment.”
– Philip Purcell, CEO of Morgan
Stanley, at shareholders meeting March 19,
2002
"We'll see if Mr. Purcell
turns these words into actions. We've proved
Morgan Stanley’s involvement in some of the most
environmentally and
socially destructive projects in
the world.”
– Doris Shen, International Rivers Network
The Chinese government
continues to mount industrial development projects
on a
colossal scale, with huge environmental and human costs. As human
rights and environmental activists living outside China,
one of our main
points of leverage in China is through
the western corporations and
financial institutions
that invest in these destructive projects. In recent
years, the World Bank has been pressured into refusing
participation in
ventures like the Three Gorges Dam and
the Chinese colonization of Tibet
because of human
rights and environmental concerns. Other financial
institutions have also committed to investment guidelines
for social and
environmental sustainability.
Morgan Stanley, however, continues
underwriting bonds for the China
Development Bank and
the People’s Republic of China, without applying any
environmental or social safeguards. The largest
securities company in the
U.S., Morgan Stanley’s
business also includes the Discover credit card,
which
is used in 40% of American households. If you’ve got a Discover card
in your wallet, you are linked to some of the most
environmentally
destructive activities in China and
Tibet, including:
Three Gorges
Dam:
Close to 2 million people will lose their homes,
land and livelihoods when
the world’s longest reservoir
(350 miles) is filled. Chinese critics of the
dam have
been beaten and jailed (Amnesty International is currently seeking
release of four prisoners of conscience who spoke out
against Three Gorges
Dam). The U.S.
Export-Import Bank and the World Bank both refused to
finance Three Gorges, but Morgan Stanley has no such
scruples. It manages
and owns 35% of the
China International Capital Corporation, which serves as
the Three Gorges Project Corporations’ advisor for raising
overseas capital.
Morgan Stanley also underwrites bonds
for the China Development Bank, whose
top loan
commitment is the Three Gorges Dam.
Resource Extraction in Tibet:
Morgan Stanley’s underwriting supports China’s “Go West
Campaign,” building
railroads and oil/gas pipelines to
facilitate resource extraction in Tibet.
Since China’s
1949 invasion of Tibet, more than 1.2 million people have died
due to political persecution, imprisonment, torture,
execution and famine;
over 6,000 nunneries and
monasteries were destroyed.
The environmental toll has been devastating.
Under Chinese occupation,
almost half of
Tibet’s forests have been logged, causing severe erosion and
decimating wildlife. The Tibetan plateau is now gravely
contaminated by
uncontrolled mining, industrialization
and nuclear waste. Water
contamination in
Tibet flows downstream in rivers that sustain an incredible
47% of the world’s population, according to research by the
Tibetan
Government in Exile.
Morgan Stanley underwriting
supports two monumental infrastructure
projects: 1)
PetroChina’s gas extraction in Tibet and the construction of a
pipeline that will carry Tibet’s gas to the industrialized
cities in eastern
China, and 2) the Gormo-Lhasa
Railway, which raises serious concerns about
further
environmental degradation of the Tibetan plateau; the railroad will
also facilitate further colonization and
militarization of Tibet.
Morgan Stanley also helped raise $450 million from American
investors for
Chalco, China’s largest aluminum company.
Chalco’s aluminum processing plant
in Tibet releases
toxic smoke laden with fluorides, which destroy the area’s
crops and kill Tibetan nomads’
livestock. Chalco’s IPO prospectus admits
its Tibet plant exceeds airborne emission limits.
REQUESTED
ACTION: Morgan Stanley says that by June 30 it will announce an
environmental policy. Timely letters can
pressure Morgan Stanley to adopt
and implement strong
and effective guidelines for sustainable development,
as recommended by the World Commission on Dams and the
Tibetan Government in
Exile. For a stronger
impact, we can boycott Morgan Stanley's services,
including asset management, Discover insurance, and the
Discover credit
card.
***************************************************
BACKGROUND: GUIDELINES FOR SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
WORLD COMMISSION
ON DAMS – The WCD report, Dams and Development: A New
Framework for Decision-Making, was released in 2000. It
draws on
internationally recognized norms including the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the UN
Declaration on the Right to Development, and the Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development. It emphasizes
the participation
and the rights of affected
populations in project planning, implementation
and
management. See www.unep-dams.org. For an evaluation of
the Three
Gorges Dam according to some of the WCD
guidelines, see “Rogue Traders,” at
www.boycottdiscover.org/index2.html. For the
International Rivers Network
Three Gorges Dam campaign,
see http://www.irn.org/programs/threeg/.
GUIDELINES FOR INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT
IN
TIBET – The Tibetan Government in Exile’s guidelines aim to enhance the
capacity of the Tibetan people to fully participate in the
development of
their land and to control the use of
their natural resources. See
www.tibet.com/aidTibet.html.
*********************************************************
REQUESTED
ACTION: Please write a polite letter to the CEO of Morgan
Stanley.
· Express your dismay that Morgan Stanley directly and
indirectly helps
China raise money to finance
environmentally destructive projects that also
undermine human rights. These projects include
the PetroChina pipeline, the
Gormo-Lhasa Railway,
Chalco’s aluminum processing plant in Tibet, and the
Three Gorges Dam.
· Urge Morgan Stanley to adopt and implement environmental
and social
policies that govern core business
operations including underwriting.
Specifically
recommend adoption of the guidelines of the World Commission on
Dams and the Tibetan Government in Exile.
· Tell Mr. Purcell that until his
firm adopts such guidelines and can
demonstrate that no
funds secured by Morgan Stanley support the Gormo-Lhasa
Railway, the Three Gorges Dam and other harmful projects,
you will boycott
Morgan Stanley's services, including
asset management, Discover insurance,
and the Discover
credit card. If you currently hold a Discover card, tell
him you will not use your card until your concerns are
satisfied, and you
will actively encourage others to do
the same.
(Note: other credit
cards may also be linked to financial institutions with
troubling investment portfolios. You can help raise
consciousness by asking
your credit card company to
screen its portfolio for environmentally and
socially
destructive projects.)
ADDRESS: Philip J. Purcell, CEO
Morgan Stanley
1585 Broadway, Floor 39
New York City, NY 10036
U.S.A.
FAX: Int’l code + 202-761-0058
Email: Phil.Purcell@morganstanley.com
CC email to: threegorges@irn.org
NOTE RE. IMPACT: A
personal letter from you, mailed with a stamp, will have
the most impact on decision makers. Second in
impact is a personal fax.
Third is a personal email.
Thanks for doing the most you can to make this a
successful campaign!
This Global Response Action was issued at the request of
and with
information provided by Students for a Free
Tibet (www.tibet.org/sft) and
International Rivers
Network (www.irn.org). For information on Tibet, see
www.tibet.com and www.tew.org/. For updates on the Morgan
Stanley boycott,
see
www.BoycottDiscover.org. Also see www.morganstanley.com.
********************************
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.
Greetings,
Please call your representative TODAY or FRIDAY, May
2-3, and urge them to become original cosponsors of
the "National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act!"
You can call the Capitol switchboard toll free at
888-223-4066
or at 202-224-3121 and ask for your
representative
or call their offices directly.
WE CAN TELL YOU YOUR
REPRESENTATIVE AT OUR ACTION CENTER.
See the bottom of
this message.
------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND:
Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Sherwood Boehlert
(R-NY) have drafted a bill to legislate the National
Forest Roadless Area Conservation Rule that was finalized
by the previous administration on January 12, 2001.
The roadless rule is the most significant forest
conservation
legacy in decades, as it prohibits new
road construction
and nearly all logging on 58.5
million acres of wild
forests. These areas are
particularly important as
sources of clean water, fish
and wildlife habitat and
quality recreation.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration
has worked to
undermine the roadless rule and aided
efforts that have
resulted in delaying its implementation
since last May.
Hence, we are calling on Congress to
protect these wild
forests. The original cosponsor
drive is off to a great
start, but we want to get as
many original cosponsors
onto the bill as we can in
the next few days. Please
call your Representative
and any other representatives
from your state who you
think would be interested in
cosponsoring the bill
and ask them to sign on in order
to represent the wishes
of the American people who want
to protect our last
wild places. If your Representative
turns out to be
already on the bill, they always
appreciate a word
of thanks. Please call TODAY or
FRIDAY, May 2-3, and
urge your friends and colleagues
to call as well.
-----------------------------------------------------
SAMPLE RAP
(please
adjust this as you see you fit):
Hi, my
name is _____ and I'm a constituent calling
from
_______ (city or town). I'm calling to ask Representative
_______ to become an original cosponsor of the National
Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act. This bill would
simply codify the roadless rule that was shaped by
the greatest outreach in federal rulemaking history,
including the more than 2.2 million comments submitted
by the American public. Because the administration
has worked to undermine the rule and aided delays in
its implementation, we are looking to Congress to protect
our last wild places. Will Representative _______ sign
on before May 8th? (If the staffer says the Member
is already on, just say thank you.) Thanks!
---------------------------------------------
TO LEARN YOUR REPRESENTATIVE
1. Go
to the Earthjustice Action Center at: http://ga0.org/pvtm/index.tcl?nkey=w5niwb2h78xw86
2. This will take you to your subscription management
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“ . . . our Mother Earth is suffering, she will soon die
and at that
moment we will be left without a mother,
without food, without heat,
without cold, without the
moon and without the sun. Only then will they
look for an U’wa to seek an explanation, but will they find
one? We
make an urgent, international call
to all our supporters, asking for
their help in defense
of the U’wa culture." - - U’wa Statement 4/16 (see
below)
IN
THIS POST:
1. U’WA DC TRIP
REPORT
2. U’WA STATEMENT: PETROLEUM – “BLOOD OF MOTHER
EARTH”
3. WASHINGTON POST 4/20: An Unnatural Journey
for Nature's Cause
4. URGENT ACTION THIS FRIDAY 5/3:
PROTEST OXY SHAREHOLDER MEETING IN
LOS ANGELES!!
1.First, a heartfelt thanks to the
thousands who came to Washington DC
last week in what
was a truly empowering few days in solidarity with the
victims of Bush’s “war on terrorism” both at home and
abroad!! We filled
the streets, workshops, teach-ins,
and the halls of Congress to demand
peace, justice, and
an end to US military aid to Colombia and around the
world!
After being detained by Customs agents at the Miami airport
for two
hours (despite having had all the proper
documentation), the U’wa began
their trip at a press
conference for the Colombia Mobilization to
denounce US
military aid to Colombia. The conference also exposed the
devastating toll of fumigation on the peoples and
ecosystems of the
Amazon and highlighted the social,
cultural, and environmental violence
suffered by
indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, labor leaders and other
sectors of civil society. The following day,
Roberto Perez, President
of the U’wa Traditional
Authorities joined a 9/11 victim, a Korean War
veteran,
and a member of the Black Radical Congress for a press
conference held at the Japanese-American Memorial to make
an urgent call
for peace and justice for those innocent
civilians suffering from Bush’s
open-ended “War on
Terrorism.” On Saturday, close to 100,000 people
took this message to the streets—demanding justice and
peace from
Colombia to Palestine. Meanwhile,
at the Colombia Mobilization
Teach-in, the U’wa joined
other Colombian indigenous leaders in sharing
some of
the stories and struggles of the country’s 84 different
indigenous nations. In the afternoon, Mr. Perez
joined representatives
of the Coca Cola union to expose
the corporate interests behind Plan
Colombia and US
military aid and the way in which corporations are using
the conflict to boost their profits. The U’wa also spoke to
thousands of
people rallying Sunday morning in front of
the World Bank as part of the
Mobilization for Global
Justice. Police prohibited the march from
passing by OXY’s DC headquarter as planned.
The U’wa also garnered significant
media coverage, doing interviews for
Pacifica’s “Our
Americas,” NPR’s Latino USA, the Washington Post, La
Jornada, The Nation, in addition to coverage on CNN and
CBS. The U’wa
also brought their message to
Capital Hill, where in personal meetings
with aides and
a Congressional briefing, the U’wa told of their life and
death struggle to protect their land and culture, and their
fears that
more military aid to OXY’s pipeline will
only exacerbate the existing
conflict. But,
in a testimony to OXY’s aggressive lobbying efforts, the
U’wa were informed by each aid they met with that OXY had
paid a visit
just two weeks earlier.
For the U’wa, this trip
represented a first step in what they are
calling their
second wave of resistance to OXY’s oil project and US
military aid, or “Plan Washington,” as Mr. Perez has called
it. The
U’wa have since returned to
Colombia, inspired by the determination,
dedication,
and creativity of all the activists who continue to stand
beside them and lend their voices to the cry of hundreds of
thousands in
Colombia calling for peace and an end to
US-sponsored violence in their
country. Both
U’wa leaders who traveled to the US are currently in a
ten-day period of meditation, fasting, and prayer with
community elders.
2. U’WA
STATEMENT: April 16, 2002
PETROLEUM - Ruiría “Blood of Mother Earth”
I. Petroleum,
Militarization and Human Rights
II. Petroleum and Economic Impacts
III. Petroleum, Environment and Territory
IV. Petroleum and Regional Development
I.
PETROLEUM, MILITARIZATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Among the Universal principals that mark U’wa culture is
the respect of
the basic right to life for humans and
all living beings that exist on
this Mother Earth.
Contrary to the theoretic concept
that the white man teaches respect for
both human and
natural life and how to achieve a balance between them,
we know, as U’wa, through our responsibility in defense of
the universe,
that sacred elements cannot be
negotiated. PETROLEUM AS A SACRED
ELEMENT
CANNOT BE SOLD IN THE MARKET BECAUSE IT IS PRICELESS. To sell
this precious liquid is to sell our lives and the lives of
future
generations. Do we have the right to make
decisions on the lives of our
future generations?
By being a precious and sacred
liquid, its simple existence implicates
wealth. But this is only a material and
temporary distraction because
what we really find in
the petroleum-rich regions is a society castrated
of
all its rights-- social, political, economic, cultural,
environmental-- and the sovereignty of its
people. This is why the
petroleum-rich
regions are the richest regions, and at the same time the
poorest regions. This concept is indisputable
because the true wealth
made off petroleum stays in the
hands of the multinational corporations
and in the
developed countries, while in our regions we only find
extreme poverty and violence is the daily bread of life.
In the U’wa case, up until the
present day, the Colombian government has
not allowed
us the legitimate right to make a cultural objection,
allowing us to define true “development” for Indigenous
Peoples. This
is how institutional trickery
is carried out--by passage of
anti-indigenous laws and
the repression by the army. The last example
was carried out using the pretext of keeping citizens safe,
but what it
really does is safeguard the economic
capital of the multinational
petroleum corporations
while limiting Universal Human Rights and
violating the
international human rights. Today, without this
recognition, we are forced to be refugees in our own lands.
The social crisis that is
present in our region is the result of the
abundance of
petroleum where the armed actors are in a continuous
battle, where the civilian population- including indigenous
people- find
themselves in the crossfire, feeling fear
and disoriented, everything
around them is
unexplainable. The only sure thing is that many more
indigenous people will die and then will be able to rest
peacefully on
the breast of our Mother
Earth. Others of us are committed to defending
our rights until our death, as it is better to die with
dignity,
defending what is ours, defending all within
the universe, and not be
silenced and become a silent
participant in our own destruction.
The right to live in peace is a fundamental constitutional
right, but
continues being only a “right” which never
materializes into reality.
PETROLEUM: BLACK GOLD OR EXCREMENT OF THE DEVIL?
Another negative effect that
petroleum brings us is the infamous PLAN
COLOMBIA whose mission is not to fight the drug
war, nor to fight the
guerilla groups, but instead to
guarantee the stability of the
exploitive multinational
companies in indigenous lands. In other words,
PLAN COLOMBIA IS THE SAME AS THE INVASION BY PETROLEUM
COMPANIES OF
INDIGENOUS LANDS (GENOCIDE, ETHNOCIDE AND
ECOCIDE). We U’wa ask, do the
Colombians
that support this famous PLAN COLOMBIA really understand the
irreparable damage being done to Colombia? We
U’wa clearly understand
the consequences that accompany
this project. This is why our highest
authorities consistently reject this PLAN
COLOMBIA. They say: EVERY
PERSON THAT
SUPPORTS OR BENEFITS FROM THIS PROJECT IS AN ENEMY OF HUMAN
LIFE AND NATURE, AND IS A MAN OF WAR, OF DEATH AND OF LIES.
II. PETROLEUM AND ECONOMIC
IMPACTS
The economic base of
the U’wa is agriculture, meaning that the fertility
of
the earth is the necessary condition to feed our families. Ruiría
(petroleum) is a substance that nourishes the
earth. Today this
substance finds itself in
crisis, and our efforts to stabilize our
nutritional
base ends up being only good intentions because the earth no
longer produces. We are in a food crisis, the
malnutrition of our
People is imminent, and all of
this, because of this sacred substance
that today
contaminates our lives, the water, the soil, the air and the
heart of humans, etc.
At the same time, we are surprised to find ourselves
without the legal
and institutional expertise needed to
fulfill our responsibility as U’wa
to TAKE CARE OF OUR
MOTHER EARTH, OUR LAND, AND OUR SACRED TERRITORY,
because it is life itself. To deny this right is
to ignore our history,
the U’wa world, our health and
our education. In other words, to ignore
the
difference of our culture is like burying us alive by taking away
our right to protest this unconsulted and forced
annihilation. We can
say that the children
of the earth are left without mother and without
father, not because our gods chose it to be this way, but
because it is
the wish of the multinational
corporations and the Colombian government,
because they
understand and apply the teachings of economic capital as a
starting and ending point for human development without
taking the
humans into account.
On the other side, if we look at
the negative economic effects that are
left by the
petroleum projects, these also affect our economy for the
following reasons:
- Increased
price of the land, not allowing us the right to have
collective or individual ownership to this property
- We are only able to see from afar the products of the
market, because
we cannot afford them. We
are simply not beneficiaries of the petroleum
industry. We do not serve a purpose in the
workforce or social market,
and are only granted the
right to be silent, to watch and accept all
that the
foreigner says and offers us.
III. PETROLEUM, ENVIRONMENT AND TERRITORY
In 1995, as ancient U’wa
indigenous people, we protested officially in
front of
the Colombian government, to the multinational petroleum
company, OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM OF COLOMBIA, OXY, and to the
world. We
protested and rejected all
petroleum activity in our sacred U’wa
territory.
We rejected, and continue to
reject, the presence of the petroleum
companies
(ECOPETROL, OXY, SHELL, TEXACO, REPSOL, AMOCO, etc.) in the
lands of our Sikuani (Guahibo) relatives in the Arauca
department, and
in our lands, that only generate an
environmental, social, cultural and
land
crisis.
We
denounce the direct impact that we U’wa have faced. We see the lack
of water in our communities. We see that
everyday the volume of this
precious liquid diminishes
and every summer is harder and harder to get.
Meanwhile
the general increase in climate has affected our crops, the
animals we raise and the wild animals as well.
Because of all of the activities
that are conceived and carried out in
the exploration,
extraction, transportation and commercialization of
this product, the environment in our region is in crisis
today.
Contaminated rivers, destroyed
vegetation, displaced indigenous
communities,
annihilation of flora and fauna, polluted air, etc. The
State, through its legal and political institutions,
everyday continues
to invade sacred lands of indigenous
people. They do not understand, nor
will they
understand, that we, as U’wa, are the true caretakers of the
environment because it is a part of our lives, and is
inherent to our
existence. Therefore, to
destroy the environment is to self-destruct
ourselves.
We inform Colombia and the
world that we U’wa- by laws already long in
existence-
have the absolute right to all soil and subsoil rights,
recognized by the Spanish Crown and ratified by article 332
in the
Constitution of 1991. Therefore we
manifest that we are not willing to
cede, and much less
are we willing to renounce our territorial rights.
On the contrary, we ask the MINISTRY OF ENERGY AND MINES,
ECOPETROL AND
OXY AND THE OTHER ASSOCIATED CORPORATIONS
TO CANCEL THE ASSOCIATED
SIRIRI CONTRACT THAT IS FOUND
WITHIN THE JURISDICTION OF OUR LEGALLY
RECOGNIZED U’WA
TERRITORY. At the same time, we take this opportunity
speaking about petroleum to once again demand ANDRES
PASTRANA ARANGO-
the head of the Colombian government-
order the $18,000,000,000 pesos
that are due to
complete the saneamiento (effort to purchase the
remaining lands held by farmers within U’wa territory) as
ordered by the
INCORA (Colombia Institute of
Agricultural Reform) in 1999.
IV. PETROLEUM AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Because of the explanations above,
we U’wa say that petroleum is not an
ingredient in
regional or national development. On the contrary, it is a
factor that has destroyed our culture, has ignored our
right to this
earth, our right to life, our right to be
different. It has negated and
continues to negate our
right to live in a healthy environment and live
in
peace.
We make an urgent,
international call to all our supporters, asking for
their help in defense of the U’wa culture. We
will continue to oppose
any petroleum project in our
territory, because it will hurt, ignore and
violate our
maximum, fundamental right to life (cultural integrity), our
culture, peace, a healthy environment, our territory, and
the
sovereignty of the
People. Colombian brothers and sisters, our Mother
Earth is suffering, she will soon die and at that moment we
will be left
without a mother, without food, without
heat, without cold, without the
moon and without the
sun, only then will they look for an U’wa to seek
an
explanation, but will they find one?
U’WA TRADITIONAL AUTHORITIES
3. An Unnatural Journey for Nature's Cause
Leaders of Colombia's U'wa Tribe See Protests as a Fight
for the Simple
Life
By Steve Twomey
Washington Post
Staff Writer
Saturday, April 20, 2002; Page B03
Armando Tegria Vincunada has not been made bug-eyed by the
sights or
skittish by the cacophony of Washington, even
though this is his first
visit to the United States,
even though he dwells in Colombia's outback,
where his
people measure distance in days of foot travel, where there
are no cars, phones or TVs. He has no wish to play tourist,
dine well or
shop till he drops. He thinks Washington
is nothing but man's things,
not nature's. He doesn't
care for it.
Tegria arrived Tuesday. With him was
Roberto Perez Gutierrez. They are
diminutive men who,
every so often, open a plastic bag and withdraw a
snack
in the form of dried, green leaves they carried from the U'wa
lands on the flight from Bogota to Miami to here. Tegria is
treasurer of
the U'wa people, and Perez is president.
The U'wa number 5,000 and live
in the wrong place, in the sense that
their corner of
Colombia -- a place of cloud-shrouded mountains, brawny
rivers and fertile plains in the northeast, near Venezuela
-- is being
probed for oil and has been ensnared in
violence between government
forces and leftist
guerrillas.
With expenses
underwritten by the U'wa Defense Working Group, a
coalition of U.S. groups that support the tribe, Tegria and
Perez have
come as part of this weekend's mass protests
and seminars in Washington,
some of which are aimed at
U.S. military aid for Colombia. They will
tell anyone
they can that the U'wa, who are agrarian, are threatened by
the oil companies and by the fighting around them. They
feel the world
closing in. Coming to the United States
was difficult, Tegria said, but
he must tell Americans
"that we are not going to stand for this."
He was sitting in a Lilliputian studio at WPFW (89.3 FM) in
Adams
Morgan, where he and Perez had just been
interviewed for Pacifica Radio,
a translator rendering
their Spanish into English. Tegria, who is 29 and
has a
daughter back home, wore slacks and a vivid lime green,
long-sleeved shirt; Perez, who is 50 and has 10 children,
wore a black
T-shirt and pants. Tegria was dressed more
Western than he would be at
home because, he said,
"we're respecting your culture."
He did not seem
particularly curious about the radio equipment, the
elevator that took him to the second floor or anything else
about the
city around him. But then, the U'wa know
about modern life and have been
exposed to it within
Colombia and, in Perez's case, on previous trips to
the
United States. The U'wa just don't like it.
"They very clearly have chosen not to assimilate," said
Patrick
Reinsborough, a spokesman for the U'Wa Defense
Working Group.
To Tegria and Perez, a city is literally
unnatural. Washington may be a
goal for millions of
tourists, but its roads, architecture and vehicles
replaced God's things. "Everything's been changed," Tegria
said.
"Everything."
"A real interesting thing for me," he said, "is an
untouched forest."
The U'wa feel a special bond with
the Earth, so much so that at one
point, the entire
tribe promised to commit suicide if oil exploration
persisted, a vow since withdrawn. "We call ourselves the
caretakers of
all natural resources," Perez said.
Tegria has noticed that in a city,
"you have to rely on money for
survival," whereas the
U'wa don't. "You rely on the land." If he wishes
to
drink, he drinks. There are rivers. But here, people seem to have to
pay for things to drink. And they seem to have to pay to
get from one
place to another. At home, Tegria said, "I
can travel four, five, six
days, and it doesn't cost me
anything." Walking never does.
Outsiders have tried to entice the U'wa into accepting the
coming of oil
companies by dangling modernity before
them. "They want to buy our
consciences," Perez said,
"our way of thought." It's a strategy that has
worked
with other indigenous tribes in Colombia, he said. "But not the
U'wa."
That's why Perez and Tegria are not being tourists. What
Washington is,
they don't want to become, they said.
They want to lobby for the right
to live simply, they
said, to raise beans and corn, get water from the
tap
of a river and dwell in basic structures.
To be left
alone, in other words?
"Exactamente," Tegria said.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
4. SAY NO TO OXY'S OIL WAR IN
COLOMBIA!!
PROTEST OCCIDENTAL
PETROLEUM'S ANNUAL SHAREHOLDER MEETING!!
Friday May 3,
2002
STAND UP FOR LIFE, LAND,
AND CULTURE FOR THE U'WA AND ALL COLOMBIANS!
DON'T LET THE U'WA BECOME THE NEXT COLATERAL DAMAGE
IN BUSH'S WAR ON TERRORISM!
WHAT: Demonstration, Music, Speakers, Street Theater
WHEN: 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM, Friday May 3, 2002
WHERE: St. Regis Hotel 2055 Avenue of the Stars, Century
City, CA. (Free
three-hour parking available at Century
City Shopping Center. Enter on
south side
near Macy's off of Constellation Blvd.)
WHY: While the U'wa indigenous community of Colombia and
thousands of
other innocent civilians suffer from OXY's
Colombian operations and the
armed actors that the
company funds, shareholders are again gathering
behind
closed doors to tout profits and celebrate the morally bankrupt
company's record year. They'll also be patting
themselves on the back
for their hijacking of
US-Colombia policy, which resulted in Bush's
proposed
$98 million corporate welfare package to protect the company's
Cano Limon pipeline under the guise of the "war on
terrorism."
The U'wa have made
headlines around the world for their decade of
peaceful
resistance to OXY's exploratory drilling on their sacred
homelands. The U'wa have long warned that OXY's
project will destroy
their culture, devastate the
environment, and escalate the violence to
their
homeland-a prediction that is rapidly becoming a reality. But
stopping OXY's oil operations in Colombia is not only a
matter of life
and death for the U'wa, but for all
Colombians. In efforts to protect
their
controversial operations in the war torn northeast region of
Colombia, OXY has financed all armed actors in the bloody
civil conflict
for close to twenty years-trapping
thousands of innocent civilians in
the crossfire.
COME STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE
U'WA AND VOICES FROM ALL OVER COLOMBIA
AND TELL OXY TO
STOP FUELING TERROR IN COLOMBIA!
For more info contact:
kevin@amazonwatch.org 310-420-8245
www.amazonwatch.org
OR IF YOU ARE AVAILABLE TO HELP WITH ORGANIZING EFFORTS
CONTACT:
BRETT DORAN, ACTION RESOURCE CENTER
310-392-7656
Sponsored by :
AMAZON WATCH ACTION RESOURCE CENTER ¨ RAINFOREST ACTION
NETWORK ¨ PROJECT UNDERGROUND
---------------------
This is an
annoucement only listserve. If you would like to be on an U'wa discussion list
please go to http://igc.topica.com/lists/uwa-int
TO: ACLU Action Network Members
FR: Jared Feuer, Internet Organizer
DT: May 2, 2002
Oppose Federal Funding of Abstinence-Only Education!
On April 9th, Rep. Fred Upton
(R-MI) introduced HR 4122, a bill that authorizes the continued use of federal
funds for "abstinence-only" programs. By law, any program that also
teaches about contraception use or STD prevention is not eligible for these
funds.
The overwhelming weight
of evidence suggests that programs that include messages about both abstinence
and contraception are most effective in delaying sexual activity among young
people. Despite this evidence, opponents of "comprehensive" programs
argue that that they do nothing but encourage promiscuity. This is
inaccurate since comprehensive programs appropriately stress abstinence as the
only foolproof way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Because of an increased focus on
abstinence-only education, comprehensive and medically accurate sex education is
becoming the exception rather than the rule. As a result, more
students lack basic information that they need to protect their health.
Take
Action! Abstinence-only programs endanger the well-being of
youth and must not be given the support of federal funding. You can
read more and send a FREE FAX to your Representative, asking that they oppose HR
4122 from our action alert at:
http://www.aclu.org/action/abstinence107.html
**********
Help Strengthen the ACLU's Voice in Congress...
Click Below to Become a Card-Carrying Member today!
http://www.aclu.org/action/joinaclu.html
Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"
Sorry! The correct email
address for Philip Purcell, CEO of Morgan Stanley,
is
philip.purcell@morganstanley.com. We were just a little too informal
calling him Phil.
********************************
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's Positive Energy Newsletter
April 29 – May 5, 2002
v 2.15
Time for Greenpeace’s CLEAN ENERGY
NOW! campaign’s weekly
good news update!!!
Inside this edition:
- Governor Davis: What’s Your Plan?
- Join the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Program
List-Serve.
- South Africa Ratifies the Kyoto Protocol!
+ + + + +
Governor Davis What’s Your Plan?
On the local and city level,
Californians are using
their voting power to show their
support for
renewable energy development. The passage
of propositions
B and H in San Francisco, and the
recent decision by the
Los Angeles Community Colleges
District to commit to
investing in solar power and
green buildings, proves
that the people are rising up,
and working together to
diversify California’s energy
portfolio. California needs
leadership on the state
level that will mirror the wishes
of the people of
California. What’s Governor Davis doing
about
California’s energy crisis?
Davis has consistently turned a blind eye to the needs
of the people of California and the environment, locking
the state into a gas-based energy supply. What can we
do
about it? The election for the governorship this
November
is a perfect opportunity to call on Governor
Davis to show leadership on climate protection and make
climate/energy concerns a key issue in his gubernatorial
race this year.
Take action!
Urge Gov. Davis to
show leadership by supporting clean
energy development
and climate protection!
http://www.cleanenergynow.org/bin/takeaction.fpl?action_id=122
+ + + + +
Join the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Program List-Serve
In the U.S., there is
increasing interest by individuals,
businesses, and
governments alike, to perform surveys
that monitor
greenhouse gas emissions, to help facilitate emissions reductions. The EPA has
recently
established a message list on their website
for posting
information related to inventories of
greenhouse gas
emissions with a focus on technical
information. The goal
of the list is to provide a forum
for those who wish to
share data and methodologies on
how to help stop global
warming.
For information on how to
subscribe, go to:
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/emissions/list-serv.html
To learn more about
California’s Climate Action Registry
visit:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/global_climate_change/
+ + + + + +
South Africa Ratifies the Kyoto Protocol!
On March 13, 2002, Environmental
and Tourism Affairs
Minister Mohammed Valli Moosa
announced the ratification
of the Kyoto Protocol by
Parliament. Jan Pronk, Special
Envoy to the
United Nations and Secretary General for the
World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), who was
instrumental in the development of the Kyoto Protocol,
was present at the historical passage. By ratifying the
Protocol, the country will develop a legal instrument
through which greenhouse gas emissions can be monitored
and reduced. South Africa’s ratification is particularly
important because the country will be hosting the WSSD
in
Johannesburg later this year. At the
WSSD, Greenpeace
will be highlighting the fact that
providing renewable
energy for all, particularly the 2
billion people
currently living without power, will
help slow global
warming and will have not have the
devastating affects on
poorer communities that drilling
and mining often do.
To learn
more, go to:
http://www.choose-positive-energy.org
and sign the petition in support of the
Choose Positive Energy Campaign.
---------------------------------------
The “Positive Energy” newsletter and our website, 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.
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.
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A Bi-weekly Update from Defenders of
Wildlife:
Working to Save Wildlife and Wild Lands
WAR ON WOLVES:
Killings threaten lobos in Rocky Mountains
IN THE OIL
PATCH: Condor chick is covered with crude
THERE THEY GO
AGAIN: Norton's Interior tries to stop critical
report
ABOVE THE LAW?
Pentagon pushing for exemptions from environmental
laws
BUSINESS AS
USUAL: Congress crafts flawed energy and farm bills
SUCCESS STORIES:
Winning new protections for wildlife
SAVE OUR WHALES: Help
stop the slaughter
| 1. WAR ON WOLVES: Killings
threaten lobos in Rocky Mountains
A spate of killings is
threatening the comeback of endangered gray wolves in To help protect wolves, go to www.savewolves.org, and spread the word about the threat to wolves by sharing this edition of DENlines with friends. 2. IN THE OIL PATCH: Condor chick is covered with crude Just when it was
beginning to flap its stubby wings and become less vulnerable to ravens
and crows, the first California condor brooded and hatched in the wild in
18 years faces a man-made threat to its survival. The chick?s father stuck
his head into a pool 3. THERE THEY GO AGAIN: Norton's Interior tries to stop critical report Secretary Norton's top deputy -- J. Steven Griles, a former energy industry lobbyist ? tried to quash a report from the Environmental Protection Agency that criticized plans to drill for gas in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, home to eagles, falcons, pronghorn antelope, and the last herds of plains elk. The EPA gave the project the worst rating possible, saying it ignored increases in air pollution and groundwater salinity that would result from drilling. According to the Washington Post, Griles responded by saying, "Those comments can't go out." To help protect the Powder River Basin, go to www.denaction.org and click on Alert #148. 4. ABOVE THE LAW? Pentagon pushing for exemptions from environmental laws The Pentagon is pushing to exempt itself from some of our nation?s most important laws protecting the environment and imperiled species, migratory birds, whales and dolphins. The exemptions aren't necessary to protect national security. The president already has the power to waive environmental rules for national security. But when national security is not at stake, no government agency should be above the law. A new Zogby poll, in fact, finds that an overwhelming majority of registered voters ? 85 percent ? do not want any government agency to be placed above the law. To speak out on this issue, go to www.denaction.org and respond to Alert # 155. 5.BUSINESS AS USUAL: Congress crafts flawed energy and farm bills The energy bill that finally emerged from the Senate last week could lead to an environmentally damaging compromise with the House, which passed its version of the legislation last summer. "Senate energy legislation began as a promising vehicle for meeting our nation's energy needs, but has been commandeered by special interests and severely weakened by amendments," Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen said. Click here: www.defenders.org/releases/pr2002/pr042602.html to read more." Also on Capitol Hill, congressional negotiators have produced a major rewrite of federal farm policy that shortchanges family farmers and wildlife. To read Schlickeisen's statement on the farm bill, click here: http://www.defenders.org/releases/pr2002/pr042602b.html 6. SUCCESS STORIES: Winning new protections for wildlife Together, we have scored a number of important victories for wildlife in recent weeks. We stopped federal agents from launching a massive campaign to poison foxes, badgers, coyotes and ravens in Idaho, won new protections for the endangered silvery minnow and Southwestern willow flycatcher in New Mexico, and convinced the United States government to stop shipments of mahogany illegally cut from vanishing Brazilian rainforests. Successes like those explain why Worth magazine named us one of America's best charities. To learn more about what we're accomplishing for wildlife, read our annual report by clicking here: http://www.defenders.org/annualreport/annualreport.html 7. SAVE OUR WHALES: Help stop the slaughter
|
the northern Rocky
Mountains. This spring, federal agents under pressure from politicians and
ranchers have killed 16 wolves suspected of preying on livestock. That's
even though livestock losses are rare, and when predation does happen,
Defenders of Wildlife compensates ranchers. The latest killings of wolves
come as some Western states are pushing hard to strip legal protections
from these magnificent animals. Idaho's legislature passed a law this year
giving ranchers the right to kill any wolf the moment it steps onto
private property.
of crude near a newly drilled
oil well in California's Los Padres National Forest, apparently thinking
it was water. When the father flew back to his nest, the oil got on the
chick. Wildlife biologists are closely monitoring the chick because oil on
a bird's feathers can cause death by hypothermia. In Washington, Interior
Secretary Gale Norton is said to be very concerned. At the same time, the
administration is pushing for more drilling in the Los Padres forest, site
of the release of many condors. Learn more about condors:
Save whaleswww.saveourwhales.org and sign our pe