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Halt! U'wa Goes There!
A Colombian court last week ordered Occidental Petroleum Corp. to halt temporarily all work on a large oil drilling project in a rainforest area that the native U’wa tribe claims as ancestral land. The court ruled that the U’wa had not been properly consulted about the development. Occidental and its partner in the project, the […]
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Magic Beans
Coffee roasters and importers met with environmentalists and other groups last week and agreed to develop a labeling system for Mexican coffee that would assure consumers that the beans have been grown in an environmentally conscious way and that the growers have been treated well and paid a fair price for their work. The new […]
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All the Dams That Are Fit to Breach
An editorial in yesterday’s New York Times urged the federal government to protect threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead species by breaching four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington state. Most scientists believe that breaching would be the most effective step to help the salmon, the newspaper argues, and the economic fallout would […]
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Jacqui Hellyer, Sydney Olympics
Jacqui Hellyer is manager of environmental communications for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG). Monday, 3 Apr 2000 SYDNEY, Australia Well I’ve started the week on a high note, after having spent a wonderful weekend camping at Jervis Bay, a national park two hours south of Sydney. The absolutely pristine white sands, […]
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King of the World Meets Leader of the Free World
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio interviewed President Clinton on the topic of global warming Friday, for an Earth Day special that will air on April 22 on ABC. Clinton discussed his policy on climate change and efforts to make the White House more eco-friendly, according to White House spokesperson Jake Siewert. “I thought it was an interesting, […]
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GM-y Cracked Corn
American farmers are expected to plant 24 percent less genetically modified (GM) corn this year than they did last year, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study released on Friday. Declines are also expected in plantings of GM soybeans and cotton, a reaction to growing consumer resistance to biotech crops, particularly in Europe. Meanwhile, […]
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Brown Nosing
Presidential hopeful George W. Bush today will unveil a plan for cleaning and redeveloping brownfields, or polluted industrial sites, as part of an effort to give himself a greener tint as he goes head to head with Al Gore. In a speech in suburban Pittsburgh, Bush plans to announce that he would direct the U.S. […]
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Tanzanian Devils
Environmentalists in Tanzania are mounting a campaign to rid the country of huge stockpiles of pesticides and other toxic leftovers, which officials say pose serious threats to citizens. Tanzania has more than 500 tons of agricultural compounds, including DDT, dumped or stored at more than 100 sites, enviros say. Most of the material was imported […]
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They Must Be Exhausted
A record level of thick, choking smog enveloped Hong Kong for a second day yesterday, prompting calls from enviros and politicians to crack down on the area’s severe air pollution. Sunny, clear skies have become rare in the city in the past year, but yesterday’s air pollution was the worst since measurements began being taken […]
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Sneaky, Pete
A fight will soon reach the Senate floor on whether to allow oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 1.5 million-acre pristine coastal plain that is home to caribou and many other animals. Opponents of opening up ANWR to drilling failed yesterday to kill a provision in a 2001 budget bill that calls […]
