• INTERNATIONAL
  Wetlands in Three Countries Gift to the Earth
  
  
• SOUTH AFRICA
  Ivory Protest Postcards Pile Up
  
  
• JAPAN
  Whalemeat a Toxic Mouthful
  
  
• CAMEROON
  Illegal Logging Targeted by Government/NGO Partnership
  
  
• CANADA
  Toronto's First Wind Turbine Anchored
  
  
• AUSTRALIA/KOREA
  Agree on Protection for Migrating Birds

Wetlands in Three Countries Gift to the Earth

On Wednesday, World Environment Day, a ceremony to mark the historic agreement was attended by government ministers, senior officials and community representatives from each country. The ceremony coincides with the Bali Preparatory Meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Director of WWF's Living Waters Campaign, Jamie Pittock, announced that the conservation organization's highest recognition, the Gift to the Earth, is awarded to the three countries in recognition of the this major contribution to wetland conservation.

"The Tri-National Wetlands Initiative facilitates the sharing of information, skills and staff between the three countries and the development of collaborative research and management projects," said Pittock. "The WWF Gift to the Earth provides international recognition and support for globally significant conservation actions such as the Tri-National Wetlands Initiative."

The three million hectares is contained within existing protected areas - Kakadu National Park in Australia, Wasur National Park in Indonesia, and Tonda Wildlife Management Area in Papua New Guinea.

The conservation benefits include cooperative action on common threats including management of fire and weeds such as water hyacinth, and will help protect numerous endangered species and millions of migratory waders and waterfowl.

The agreement is expected to improve the management of these parks and encourage the creation of more protected areas.

South Africa: Ivory Protest Postcards Pile Up

Final proposals to the Conference on the Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) were due today for consideration at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties scheduled for November. The South African government drafted a proposal asking for permission to sell its ivory stockpiles.

Elephant conservationists fear that lifting the current ban on trade in elephant ivory to allow legal trade will lead to an increase in poaching by masking a growing illegal trade.

Thousands of postcards bearing the slogans "every vote counts" and "parts don't make a whole" were distributed across South Africa by IFAW in April and May. By May 31, more than 18,000 postcards had been returned to IFAW, and better than 900,000 email cards had been sent around the world and to South Africa's Department of Environment and Tourism, IFAW said Wednesday.

"It's perfectly clear that the public does not want to see South Africa resume any form of trade in ivory or elephant parts," said Jason Bell, Southern Africa Regional director for IFAW. "On World Environment Day we urge the government to take heed of the voice of the public and rethink its stance on trade."

"Worldwide, caches of illegal ivory are regularly seized," said Bell, and poaching of elephants continues unabated throughout Africa and Asia."

IFAW intends to present the signed postcards and an audited statement of the e-mail cards to South Africa's Minister of Environment and Tourism Valli Moosa. The organization says there is still time for South Africa to change its position before the CITES conference in November.

Japanese Whalemeat a Toxic Mouthful

Researchers Tetsuya Endo, Koichi Haraguchi and Masakatsu Sakata of Hokkaido University told the "New Scientist" that two of the 26 liver samples examined contained over 1970 micrograms of mercury per gram of liver.

That is nearly 5,000 times the Japanese government's limit for mercury contamination, 0.4 micrograms per gram. Mercury becomes concentrated in the whales' internal organs when they eat contaminated fish and squid.

In work not yet published, Endo's team has shown that rats suffered acute kidney poisoning after a single mouthful of the most highly contaminated liver. While levels were lower in muscle, Endo said that on average it still contained 2.5 to 25 times the limit.

"Acute intoxication could result from a single ingestion," they warn in a draft paper accepted for publication in "The Science of the Total Environment."

Japan is no stranger to mercury poisoning, which is now known as Minimata disease. From 1932 to 1968, Chisso Corporation, a fertilizer, petrochemical and plastics manufacturer located in Kumamoto, dumped about 27 tons of mercury compounds into Minamata Bay. At least 3,000 farmers and fisherman and their families whose normal diet included fish from the bay, developed symptoms of methyl mercury poisoning. Many died and children suffered from birth defects.

To avoid a similar tragedy, the Hokkaido University researchers are asking the Japanese government to write stricter regulations for the consumption of whale organs.

Illegal Logging Targeted by Cameroon/NGO Partnership

The World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch and the government of Cameroon signed an agreement today to share data and maps about the country's forests. It was signed by , Cameroon's Minister of Environment and Forests Sylvestre Naah-Ondoa, and J.G. Collomb, project director for Global Forest Watch - Central Africa.

About 76 percent of Cameroon's forests, totaling some 22.8 million hectares, have either been logged or are allocated as logging concessions.

Less than a fifth of the country's unprotected forests, mostly in central and eastern Cameroon, remain free from logging. Six percent, or 1.4 million hectares, of Cameroon's forests are protected as national parks or reserves.

Recent studies by Global Forest Watch show that large tracts of Cameroon's forests originally thought of as untouched have already been opened by logging roads.

Logging and road construction are quickly followed by commercial hunters who strip remote forests of their wildlife for the bushmeat trade.

"Widespread illegal logging contributes to the destruction of forests and the loss of badly needed revenues across much of Central Africa, the second biggest rainforest in the world," said Jonathan Lash, president of World Resources Institute (WRI).

"This landmark partnership with the government of Cameroon will provide the data needed to promote law enforcement to curb this destruction," he said.

This is the first map-based monitoring agreement of its kind in Africa, and is the first entered into by the two year old Global Forest Watch.

Cameroon's Ministry of Environment and Forests (MINEF) will provide Global Forest Watch with information on forest concessions and allocations in the country.

WRI will then produce reports on the state of forest concessions in Cameroon and create maps that will enable MINEF officials to detect illegal logging in the country.

Maps of logging roads created by Global Forest Watch from satellite imagery, combined with accurate information on where logging may legally take place, will permit the identification of problem areas and prioritize them for field audits. Satellite imagery makes it possible to detect new logging roads outside of active concession areas and in national parks. They will also help to determine whether the rate and extent of logging follows forest management plans.

The information will be publicly available and can be accessed at: http://www.globalforestwatch.org.

Toronto's First Wind Turbine Anchored

The 6,000 kilogram anchor for the wind turbine will be fixed in cement at a ceremony that climaxes years of planning and negotiation on the site and design for the turbine. The steel anchor will hold the $1.2 million Lagerwey turbine from Holland in place when it is delivered later this year.

Representatives of the joint venture partners building the turbines, Toronto Hydro Energy Services Inc. and the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative, will be at the site to present Exhibition Place with checks for the security deposit and the first year of rent for property for the turbine.

WindShare, Canada's first renewable energy co-operative, is selling agreements to purchase power generated by the wind turbines with a minimum purchase of five C$100 shares. To date, about 3,000 shares have been subscribed for by residential and the industrial commercial sectors in support of WindShare. Only 16,000 shares will be issued for the WindShare wind turbine project.

The wind turbines will generate zero emissions electricity for distribution through the Toronto Hydro electricity distribution system. WindShare was conceived as a unique opportunity for Toronto residents to generate power in Ontario's new deregulated energy marketplace while offering a practical solution to climate change and smog.

When completed in October, the first of the two wind powered generators is expected to produce 1,800,000 kilowatt hours per year of electricity, enough energy for 250 households.

Australia and Korea to Protect Migrating Birds

Dr. Kemp met with Dr. Kim Myung-ja, Minister of Environment in the Republic of Korea during his attendance at the first APEC Oceans-Related Ministerial Meeting in Seoul in April.

The East Asian-Australasian Flyway extends from the Arctic through Asia to Australia and New Zealand. Birds fly through this route twice a year from north to south and back, travelling up to 25,000 kilometers per year. Millions of wading birds, like the Eastern Curlew make this journey, stopping at wetlands in Korea and Australia along the way.

"Dr. Kim and I agreed that Australia and Korea can take active measures to protect and conserve migratory birds, particularly migratory shorebirds, that use sites in Australia and Korea during their annual migration north and south," Dr. Kemp said.

"Our officials will explore the development of an agreement for migratory birds as a priority matter, and we expect to announce a draft agreement at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in August this year," the Australian minister said.

Australia already has bilateral migratory bird protection agreements with Japan and the Peoples' Republic of China. "The future of migratory birds can only be assured if action is taken in all countries along the migratory route," said Dr. Kemp.