WorldScan: May 17, 2002

• TANZANIA
  Attorneys Face Charges of Sedition
  
  
• CANADA
  Supreme Court to Rule on Oncomouse Patent
  
  
• BRAZIL
  Environmentalist Jose Lutzenberger Dies
  
  
• JAPAN
  Whaling Opponents Converge on Tokyo
  
  
• PAPUA NEW GUINEA
  Prime Minister Backs Greenpeace Logging Protest
  

TANZANIA: Attorneys Face Charges of Sedition

LEAT represents a group of small-scale miners who were forcibly evicted from their mines in 1996 by the Tanzanian Police despite an injunction issued by the High Court of Tanzania restraining the Tanzanian government and the Kahama Mining Corporation, Ltd., a subsidiary of a Canadian company. The evictions were to make way for the development of the Bulyanhulu mine.

Tundu Lissu is one of two Tanzanian lawyers who could be charged with sedition. (Photo courtesy Mining Watch Canada)

In the course of the eviction, over 400,000 small-scale miners were forced from their land. During the forced eviction roughly 65 miners are alleged to have been buried alive. The Tanzanian government refused to investigate the alleged atrocities when they were reported, despite a legal obligation under the Inquests Act of 1980 to do so. No compensation for loss of property or life was ever issued.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the Tanzanian government and Barrick Gold, the Canadian company that now owns the mine, have denied claims of injury and death.

Attorneys Lissu and Nshala now face charges for the criminal act of sedition based on written and oral statements alleged by the government to have been made by the two attorneys in the course of their representation of their clients' interests. If Lissu and Nshala are convicted, they could face up to two years in prison.

LEAT is East Africa's leading environmental law organization. In 1999, LEAT won a victory protecting East Africa's largest contiguous mangrove forest. LEAT represented local communities that challenged an Irish developer's plans to build what would have been the world's largest prawn farm in the ecologically fragile Rufiji Delta.

Gold bars (Photo courtesy Government of Canada)

The mining incident has received international attention, and many people and organizations have called on the Tanzanian government to allow an independent international investigation. To date, no independent investigation has been initiated and the claims of LEAT's clients remain unresolved.

Bulyanhulu, operated by Barrick Gold of Canada, is the largest underground gold mine in Tanzania with estimated reserves of 14.6 million ounces.

More information about the Bulyanhulu mine from Mining Watch Canada.

Supreme Court of Canada to Rule on Oncomouse Patent

Laboratory mouse, not the Oncomouse (Photo courtesy Johnson Lab, CU Boulder)

The Federal Court of Appeal overturned the decisions of the Federal Court Trial Division and the Canadian Commissioner of Patents which refused to give Harvard College a patent for the oncomouse or any other mammals bred to carry the same gene.

The case began when a patent was sought by Harvard to protect the materials and processes involved in genetically engineering animals to make them more susceptible to cancer. The application included a request for a patent on the resulting genetically modified animals themselves.

The Canadian Commissioner of Patents originally granted patent protection for some of the new materials and processes involved, but refused to grant patent protection for the resulting animals and their progeny.

Represented by lawyers from the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, the Sierra Club of Canada has intervened in support of the Commissioner of Patents The Sierra Club wants to ensure that the debate over whether mammalian life forms can be patented takes place in Parliament, not in the courts "under old legislation that does not contemplate recent advances in biotechnology," the group said today.

Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa

In November 2001, the European Patent Office upheld the patent on the Harvard oncomouse. But the patent office restricted the breadth of the Harvard University patent — which currently covers all animals that are genetically engineered using the oncomouse technology — to cover only rodents.

More than 100 organizations and individuals had registered their opposition to the European patent, which sparked intense controversy when it came into force in 1992.

Brazilian Environmentalist José Lutzenberger Dies

Born in 1926 in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande Do Sul, Lutzenberger was a agronomist who worked for 15 years with a German chemical corporation. In 1970, he left to start a vigorous and successful campaign for organic farming and against the chemicals he had once sold.

Lutzenberger founded the environmental group Agapan in 1971 to advocate against the pollution of local rivers. In 1976, he published "The End of the Future: A Brazilian Ecological Manifesto."

José Lutzenberger (Photo courtesy Gaia Foundation)

Lutzenberger earned international stature during his term as Brazilian Environment Secretary in the democratically elected government of President Fernando Collor de Mello, of the conservative National Reconstruction Party.

As Environment Secretary from 1990 to 1992, Lutzenberger was a key figure at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, which met in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Delegations from 178 countries, heads of state of more than 100 countries, and representatives of more than 1,000 nongovernmental organizations attended the meetings.

As Environment Secretary, Lutzenberger was instrumental in the demarcation of Indian territories, especially the land of the Yanomamis. He influenced Brazil's decision to abandon the atom bomb, and worked to produce the country's signature on the Antarctic Treaty, and on an international agreement to protect whales.

One of Lutzenberger's main concerns was the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. As Secretary of the Environment he accomplished the issuance and enforcement of a law which forbid all cutting and exploitation of the Atlantic Forest.

After leaving office, Lutzenberger returned to work with Gaia restoring environmentally degraded lands and financing biodiversity programs. He never again entered politics.

In 1996, Lutzenberger, warned consumers everywhere against the purchase of Brazilian big-leaf mahogany. Much of the remaining mahogany grows on protected land such as national parks and Indian reserves. "By buying Brazilian timber you are threatening many of the Amazon's indigenous [cultures] with extinction," he wrote.

"A healthy civilization can only be one that harmonises with and integrates into the totality of life, enhancing not demolishing it," he said.

Widely known in Brazil as the father of the environmental movement, Lutzenberger is survived by two daughters, Lilly and Lara, both biologists and officers of the Gaia Foundation, and by two granddaughters. He was buried Wednesday at Gaia's headquarters in Porto Alegre.

The Gaia Foundation is online at: http://www.fgaia.org.br/

Whaling Opponents Converge on Japan

In a packed press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan representatives of the anti-whaling group briefed dozens of key international and Japanese media on the controversial issues to be debated at next week's IWC meeting in Shimonoseki, Japan.

Japanese whalers take a minke whale in the Southern Ocean, 2001. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace)

"The IWC suspended all commercial whaling in 1986, but Japan has been killing whales ever since," Dr. Chris Tuite, IFAW Director of Wildlife and Habitat, said at the press briefing. "Recent moves by the Japanese Fisheries Agency threaten to destroy three decades of hard-won protections for whales. These fisheries bureaucrats will stop at nothing. Their irresponsible statements and actions now also threaten Japan's reputation and credibility in the international community."

IFAW representatives also criticized Japan's so-called "scientific whaling" program and rejected claims by Japan and a handful of other pro-whaling countries that whales should be killed because they eat too many fish.

Japan is facing stiff opposition to its bid to resume legal commercial whaling from about half the member countries of the International Whaling Commission. On May 7, the ambassadors from 18 countries delivered a letter to Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Shigeo Uetake calling on Japan to immediately abandon its "scientific whaling" program, which the statement noted does not have the support of the IWC or its Scientific Committee.

"As member states of the IWC, our governments consider Japan's actions as undermining the authority of the IWC, and as designed to undo the decades of progress that have achieved the substantial level of protection that whales enjoy today," they said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy.

"Our governments reaffirm their strong commitment to the conservation of whales, while at the same time rejecting commercial whaling," the member countries said.

Bryde's whale (Photo courtesy IFAW CT)

"The programme represents a major expansion of Japan's whaling operations," said the statement from the 18 IWC members, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Britain and the United States.

The United States delegation to the 54th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) headed by Commissioner Rolland Schmitten of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, intends to maintain a strong case against the resumption of commercial whaling.

In a statement issued today, the U.S. expressed strong opposition to the killing of a new and protected species - the sei whale.

"The United States particularly objects to the proposed expansion to take a new species of whale in 2002, and, along with 17 other IWC members, has formally called upon Japan to withdraw its proposal to expand the program," the statement said.

Japan's research program now results in the killing of up to 600 whales - 540 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, and 10 sperm whales per year. More than 6,200 whales have been killed since Japan began research whaling in 1988.

The United States plans to oppose commercial whaling, an expansion of scientific whaling and trade in whale products.

In the U.S. Senate, Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, submitted a resolution May 14 urging the United States to remain "firmly opposed" to commercial whaling and to support the establishment of whale sanctuaries.

With bipartisan support, the proposed resolution was referred the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

PNG Prime Minister Backs Greenpeace Logging Protest

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta released an official statement saying, “The Kiunga-Aiambak project, involving Concord Pacific Ltd and a landowner company, should never have occurred.”

He announced that a full court hearing on the project is scheduled for Friday.

Three Greenpeace activists who were strapped to the log ship Hua Yang’s cranes for 48 hours came down today. The ship was attempting to export logs at Umuda Island in the western part of the country.

Greenpeace climbers perched on the crane of the log ship (from left) Mickey, Adam and George (Photo courtesy Greenpeace/Davison)

After the Prime Minister’s condemnation of the logging operations, Concord Pacific towed its log barge away from the Hua Yang.

Bianca Havas, on board the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, said they successfully negotiated with a Concord Pacific official onboard Hua Yang to tow the log barge back to Umuda Island, on the condition the climbers got off the crane.

She said the official agreed and the climbers returned to the Arctic Sunrise and the log barge was moored at the island. Ship's officers agreed not to load timber from the Kiunga-Aiambak project until Friday.

Greenpeace volunteers will stand watch over the remaining logs until the court makes its ruling on the legality of the project.

The action began on Sunday when 11 Greenpeace activists from Australia stopped the export of what they called "illegally and destructively logged timber" from Papua New Guinea to China by preventing the loading of logs at Umuda Island.

Climbers from the Greenpeace vessel, the MV Arctic Sunrise blocked the crane of the log ship Hua Yang. Volunteers occupied the log barge and hung a banner reading “Ancient Forest Crime.” Greenpeace says the logging is destroying the world’s third largest tropical ancient forest.

Greenpeace alleges that the Malaysian logging company Concord Pacific has "stolen" these logs from the local landowner communities in Papua New Guinea "with complete disregard for the environment and the well being of citizens."

Most of the logs are exported to China, Japan and Korea for the manufacture of furniture, flooring and cheap plywood.

The logs at issue from the Kiunga-Aiambak logging project

Prime Minister Morauta stated that the Acting Attorney-General will join the case in support of the Forest Authority, and that allegations of human rights abuses against resource owners would be investigated.

"This logging project will be one of the first operations to be examined under the forthcoming independent review of projects, and further extensions to this project will neither be permitted, nor valid, the Prime Minister said.

“We are pleased by these undertakings," said Greenpeace forest specialist, Brian Brunton. "But Greenpeace wants the Kiunga-Aiambak logs currently at Umuda Island to be seized by the government. They should be either returned to their rightful owners, or the logs sold by the Forest Authority and the monies received paid into a trust account pending final court proceedings.”

The PNG Timber and Construction Workers Union is worried about jobs for its members if there is an interruption in logging of the country's forests. Today the union called on Greenpeace to “strike a balance” in its efforts to shut down the PNG timber industry.