WorldScan: May 27, 2002

• RUSSIA
  Russia Signs POPs Treaty
  
  
• INDONESIA
  President Calls for Logging Halt
  
  
• ANTARCTICA
  Southern Lights Over U.S. Polar Station
  
  
• NORTH AMERICA
  NAFTA Agency Probes Molymex Pollution
  
  
• CANADA
  B.C. Writes Sustainability Principles
  
  
• TAJIKISTAN
  Memo May Save Bukhara Deer from Extinction

Russia Signs POPs Treaty

Russia's decision to sign is a step toward addressing the serious toxic pollution situation in that country.

The Stockholm Convention on POPs, which requires ratification by 50 countries to take effect, would ban or severely restrict the production and use of 12 chemicals. They are the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, and toxaphene; the industrial chemicals PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, which is also a pesticide; and dioxins and furans, which are the unwanted byproducts of combustion and industrial processes.

To date 151 countries have signed the convention and nine have ratified, thus becoming Parties. The United States has signed but not ratified the treaty.

Alexey Kokorin, toxic project leader at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Russia, says the Russian signature is the result of much hard work. "WWF in joint effort with other NGOs and Russian experts has worked hard to promote the Convention," he said. "At last we have succeeded in ensuring officials that the Stockholm Convention is necessary for Russia. Phasing out these toxic chemicals is important not only for human health, but also for wildlife and ecosystems."

An industrialized country and producer of organic chemicals, Russia faces threats from toxic contamination. Large amounts of DDT and other POPs were widely used for agricultural production in the 1960s to 1980s, and Kokorin says there are now an estimated 20,000 metric tons of obsolete pesticides stockpiled in Russia.

"Several thousands of units of outdated electric equipment filled with PCBs are now being destroyed without proper control," Kokorin says.

These problems require funding that is not available from the Russian federal budget. The Stockholm Convention provides the possibility of addressing contamination issues with international assistance.

"This commitment by Russia to fight toxic chemicals is of particular importance for the fragile Arctic environment. Russia has the most industrial activity in the Arctic and is a significant source of dangerous chemicals to its own arctic territories and areas nearby," said Samantha Smith, director of WWF's Arctic Programme. "The stage is now set for Russian and international efforts to clean up the POPs that are polluting Russia's Arctic, and WWF congratulates the Russian government on this step."

Indonesian President Calls for Logging Halt

Massive illegal logging, extending even into Indonesia's national parks, is threatening the survival of a host of endangered species including the orangutan, many conservation groups have warned for over a decade.

According to the World Bank, Indonesia will lose all of its forests in the next 15 years if the government does not act quickly and strongly against deforestation activities.

On May 11, a workshop of the Indonesian Forest Concession Holders' Association was told that Indonesian forests face the threat of total distruction while hundreds of animal species are on the verge of extinction.

The situation is due to illegal logging by members of an illegal logging and timber trade syndicate, said Robiyanto Koestomo, who said illegal logging activity was continuing to increase in many forests areas in the country, "Asia Pulse" reported.

The Environmental Investigation Agency reported in 1999 that Tanjung Puting National Park was full of logging camps and an extensive network of wooden rails had been built to drag out the timber. In the east of the park a logging road was built to truck out the illegal timber. Steel barges were observed loaded with illegal wood, and investigators tracked the timber to local sawmills and factories.

In Gunung Leuser National Park investigators witnessed loggers with chainsaws operating in the Suaq Balimbing research area, which provides prime orangutan habitat and is the only place where these apes have been observed using tools.

Since then, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and many other groups have urged a halt to the illegal logging operations.

San Francisco based RAN welcomes the political support of the President’s call for a moratorium on logging, but says U.S. companies buying legally logged timber are a big part of the problem. Until the moratorium is implemented, "vast amount of forest destruction will continue by legal Indonesian timber companies supplying U.S. timber and home improvement companies including Boise Cascade, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Georgia Pacific," said RAN's Jessica Lawrence.

Boise Cascade, Home Depot and Lowe’s, and Georgia Pacific buy Indonesian wood products ranging from plywood and tool handles to and flooring and furniture. Home Depot and Lowe’s have taken steps to phase out the buying and selling of wood from endangered forests, but continue to buy products made from Indonesia’s forests.

“Not a single Indonesian timber distributor, including U.S. companies, can be trusted to be clean of illegal wood, considering the levels of illegal log laundering,” said Lawrence. “American companies need to heed the President’s call to save Indonesia’s forests by stopping all purchasing of Indonesian wood until the country’s logging industry has worked out its problems under a logging moratorium.”

Indonesian forest destruction poses a grave danger to Indonesia’s indigenous peoples who face displacement from their traditional territories, and to Indonesia’s wildlife including endangered tigers, elephants, rhinos, and orangutans. The orangutan population has declined by 50 percent in the last decade, primarily due to destruction of its forest habitat, up to 80 percent of which has been lost in the last 20 years.

Southern Lights Over U.S. Polar Station

Jonathan Berry, who is wintering at the U.S. National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, took the photos of the Southern Lights this month.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) operates the only scientific station at the South Pole and conducts astrophysical research there.

Aurora Australis, the Southern lights, over the National Science Foundation's station at the South Pole (Photo by Jonathan Berry courtesy NSF)

The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is located at an altitude of about 3,000 meters (10,000 feet), on top of the Antarctic ice sheet. The atmosphere at the station is extremely cold, with the result that there is very little water vapor overhead.

Water vapor is the principal cause of atmospheric absorption and variability in broad portions of the electromagnetic spectrum from the near infrared to millimeter radio waves. Many telescopes have exploited this clarity over the past decade for accurate scientific observations.

The images of the Aurora and of the full moon were taken over one wing of the new station and the existing geodesic dome at the South Pole.

The National Science Foundation is currently rebuilding and modernizing the station in a logistically difficult, multiyear operation. The new station, adjacent to the existing station, will replace the aluminum dome that has housed NSF's scientific facilities since the 1970s.

NAFTA Agency Probes Molymex Pollution

The agency, the Council Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America, instructed its secretariat on May 17 to prepare a factual record on a complaint that the Molymex, S.A. de C.V. plant (Molymex) in Cumpas, Sonora, Mexico is polluting the environment.

The Molymex II submission was filed with the CEC on April 6, 2000 by the Sonoran Academy for Human Rights (Academia Sonorense de Derechos Humanos) and Domingo Gutiérrrez Mendívil.

The submitters contend that Mexico is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law with respect to the Molymex plant. They say its operations violate environmental law, allegedly causing harm to human health and the environment with emissions of sulfur dioxide.

On January 18, 2001, Mexico filed a response to the submission. Mexico asserts that it has not failed to enforce its environmental law invoked in the submission, and indicates that Molymex has not violated the air pollution standard for sulfur dioxide.

On December 20, 2001, the CEC Secretariat concluded that a review is warranted regarding Mexico's enforcement of environmental impact assessment obligations, zoning for industrial land use and limits on sulfur dioxide concentrations in ambient air, with respect to Molymex.

The CEC was established under NAAEC to address environmental issues in North America from a continental perspective, with a particular focus on those arising in the context of liberalized trade. The CEC Council, the organization's governing body, is composed of the environment ministers of Canada, Mexico and the United States.

B.C. Writes Sustainability Principles

"We made a New Era commitment to adopt a scientifically based, principled approach to environmental management that ensures sustainability, accountability and responsibility," said Hagen, referring to a new system of tax cuts introduced by the Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell. On July 30, 2001, the new government announced aggressive tax cuts for business to make British Columbia a more competitive investment location. Additional tax cuts were announced in the 2002 budget.

The principles include performance based standards and indicators and mechanisms for compliance, auditing and reporting on progress towards sustainable resource management.

They aim to ensuring that "British Columbia remains internationally competitive by removing barriers to investment and promoting open trade," the government said.

"British Columbians expect government to manage our natural resources in a sustainable way that ensures economic, social, and environmental considerations are incorporated into decisions," Hagen said. "These principles will assist in the process and help move British Columbia to a more globally competitive and sustainable future."

The government says it will encourage cooperation among First Nations federal, provincial and local governments industry and non-governmental organizations in developing and implementing resource management policies, and pledges transparency and openness in decision making.

Once the principles are finalized, they will be used by resource ministries to assist with major policy and legislative initiatives involving land and water resources. These ministries are Water, Land and Air Protection; Agriculture, Food and Fisheries; Forests; Energy and Mines; and Sustainable Resource Management.

The principles will be included in a discussion paper to be released in June as part of a consultation process. The principles will be pilot tested using aquaculture development, the working forest initiative and land-use planning. Following consultations and reviews this summer and fall, the principles will be finalized.

"These principles are designed to help guide government decision making and provide for better understanding and communication of resource management decisions," said Hagen.

Memo May Save Bukhara Deer from Extinction

Once revered as holy, the deer is now critically threatened by artificial regulation of its water supply, habitat destruction, and illegal hunting.

A Memorandum of Understanding to protect the deer was opened for signature at the Meeting of the Environment Ministers of the Central Asian Region in Dushanbe on May 16. It was developed under the auspices of the United Nations' Convention on Migratory Species, in collaboration with the Central Asia Programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

The Chairman and host of the meeting, the Minister of Nature Protection of Tajikistan, Usmokul Shokirov, declared at the signing ceremony that he hopes that the memo and its accompanying action plan will create an incentive for the range states' authorities to do more for the species and to cooperate with their neighbors, while attracting international agencies to provide financial assistance.

Shokirov said the maintenance of viable wild populations in the region is more than just nature conservation: the deer are part of the identity of the Amudaria and Syrdaria river basins, incorporating tradition, history and symbiosis of man and nature.

Historically, the deer ranged across all river valleys of Amudaria and Syrdaria. Now only about 350 to 450 animals remain, scattered in a few small populations.

Central Asian peoples once called the Bukhara Deer "Hangul," the King's flower. The species was under the special protection of kings and was considered holy as are cows in India.

But the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 exposed people in the region to economic hardship and many turned to poaching to survive. Now, in a prime area for the deer, the strictly protected area of Tigrovaja Balka, the deer population fell between 1990 and 2000 from about 400 individuals down to only eight animals.

Bukhara Deer migrate across boundaries of the Central Asian Range States, so they can be only conserved by these countries acting as a group. By signing the memo, the Central Asian ministers acknowledge their countries' shared responsibility to conserve and restore the Bukhara deer and their habitats. They recognize that they must take concerted, coordinated action to immediately prevent the disappearance of the remaining populations.