|
NGOs oppose copper mining project in
Laos
By Stefania Bianchi
Brussels, Jan. 28 (IPS) — A controversial decision to fund
a copper mining project in Laos may harm local people, leading environmental
groups say.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) board decided Jan. 27 to approve
a $76.2 million loan for developing a copper mine in Laos. The landlocked
country of six million west of Vietnam and north-east of Thailand has
been struggling to develop its mining industry.
Laos has in recent years introduced market reforms and brought in privatization
to attract investment. The country lives largely on subsistence agriculture,
but mining has in recent years grown at a rate of more than 7 percent
a year.
Several international institutions have stepped in to finance mining
and other development projects in Laos. The EIB, the largest financing
institution of the European Union (EU) had been considering funding
for the copper project since last year. The EIB finances agreements
under European aid programs.
Located in Savannakhet province near the Vietnam border, the proposed
copper mine named Sepon will be 80 percent owned by Australian mining
giant Oxiana.
The mine is due to come up near the Sepon gold mine owned by the same
company. It has been extracting gold there since 2002. Mining for copper
is due to begin in 2005. The area is believed to have some of the world’s
best untapped copper reserves.
But an assessment by Oxiana posted on its web site admits that “the
mining project may have environmentally and socially adverse impacts.”
It acknowledges that waste from its gold mining project at the site
has threatened endangered species in a nearby river, that local forests
have been destroyed, and indigenous people have been relocated without
proper land compensation.
But Oxiana is going ahead with a $30 million expansion of the goldmine,
lifting output from 160,000 ounces a year to 230,000 ounces a year from
next January.
The environment groups are concerned that the proposed copper mine will
threaten the ecosystem of nearby rivers, which are key tributaries to
the Mekong River. They say construction of the mine could lead to cyanide
spills, illegal logging and increased stress on the biodiversity of
the region.
The EIB was due to take a decision on this project last December. But
it was put off following pressure from non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) concerned about the effect the project would have on the local
environment and community.
Three environmental NGOs — Aidwatch that monitors Australian aid,
Friends of the Earth International , and CEE Bankwatch Network which
monitors international aid in Central and Eastern Europe—joined
forces to campaign against the project, but the EIB approved the loan.
“It is astonishing that while one of the United Nations committees
requests urgent action to stop the abuse of human rights in Laos, the
EIB wades into this controversial project,” the NGO campaign leader
Magda Stoczkiewicz told IPS. “The Sepon copper mine is a huge project
with detrimental environmental and social impacts which will do next
to nothing for the population.”
Stoczkiewicz said the EIB should be setting an example for other financial
institutions. “Public financial institutions such as the EIB are
instrumental in these types of financial deals because they bring a
sign of security with their decision to step into the project, and other
private financial institutions follow immediately.”
Stoczkiewicz says the EIB is responsible for ensuring an independent
environmental and social impact assessment to analyze the effect the
mine would have on the local environment.
The NGOs are determined to pursue their campaign against the mine, Stoczkiewicz
says. “We will be following up in this case, not only on the human
rights aspects but in particular on the European Commission’s pre-loan
request to the EIB to conduct an environmental impact assessment specifically
for the copper mine.” The NGOs point to recent findings in the
extractive industry review of the World Bank that such mining projects
do not alleviate poverty in countries with weak governance. The review
says costs to the country and its citizens often outweigh the benefits
of such a project because of corruption and frequent intimidation of
local communities.
Following a two-year long evaluation of the development impact of the
World Bank group’s support for oil, mining, and gas projects, the
review recommended enhanced human rights protection, prior informed
consent for people affected by a project, and an end to support for
destructive mining technologies.
The World Bank had offered Oxiana $30 million to finance the project
in 2002 but the company did not take up the offer. A World Bank official
said this could have been due to its “due diligence and environmental/social
requirements.”
The official said: “Clearly the lack of World Bank involvement
in the project calls into question whether the World Bank guidelines
will be met. With no formal agreement and hence obligation to adhere
to the World Bank conditions there is no incentive for Oxiana to follow
World Bank guidelines.” Stoczkiewicz says that “by approving
the project without the environmental impact assessment requested by
the [European] Commission the EIB proves it is unaccountable.”
According to the project outline on the EIB web site, the project will
be “designed to comply with local environmental regulations, the
World Bank guidelines and best industry practices.” But a Friends
of the Earth International campaigner says “we are concerned that
compliance will not be met, or in the case that it is, these measures
alone will not provide adequate safeguards.”
ExxonMobil plays key role in global warming,
says new report
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Jan. 29 — As a US federal judge in Alaska
on Jan. 28 ordered ExxonMobil to pay nearly $7 billion in damages and
interest as compensation for the disastrous 1989 oil spill of the Exxon
Valdez, the world’s largest grassroots environmental group said
the US oil giant should be held liable for many more billions of dollars
for its contributions to global warming.
In a new report released shortly after the Alaska ruling, Friends of
the Earth International (FoIE) charged that ExxonMobil’s combined
operations and production have caused between 4.7 and 5.3 percent of
all human-made carbon dioxide emissions, which have been affecting the
Earth’s climate since the Standard Oil Trust, the company’s
oldest ancestor, was founded in 1882.
The report, “Exxon’s Climate Footprint,” found that seven
of the top ten years of Exxon-Mobil’s emissions and production
took place since 1996, the year when the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) — an international committee of experts that
reviews the scientific research on global warming — found “a
discernible human influence on global climate.”
This finding echoed earlier studies on the relationship between the
emission of carbon dioxide and climate change.
That finding should have promoted a more cautious approach to the production
of fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, the report argues, but ExxonMobil’s
response was both to pour money into lobby groups that have questioned
the link between fossil-fuel combustion and global warming and “to
increase its production of fossil fuels to record levels.”
“[ExxonMobil] must be held responsible for its behavior, both morally
and legally,” said the report, which cited a number of recent studies
projecting losses into the hundreds of billions of dollars in storm
damage, agricultural losses, and other natural disasters associated
with the climatic effects of warming.
“We hope this assessment will bring forward the day when the victims
of climate change can take legal action against ExxonMobil for the damage
its activities have caused and will cause in the future,” said
Tony Juniper, FoEI’s vice president.
ExxonMobil is one of the world’s largest energy companies whose
subsidiaries and affiliates also include Esso, Mobil, Imperial Oil,
Tonen General, and Exxon. Producing 4.5 million barrels of oil a day
in 2002 alone, the company made more than $11 billion in profits that
year. Total 2002 production — 2,831 barrels — was equivalent
to 209 million tons of carbon released into the atmosphere, nearly twice
that of Britain’s total annual emissions.
The report is based on two studies carried out by independent experts
in the United States and New Zealand, commissioned by FoEI. The first
estimated the carbon dioxide and methane emissions from ExxonMobil operations
and the burning of its products since 1882; the second, based on a widely
used computer program, estimated the contribution these emissions have
made and will make to the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
and their contribution to average surface temperatures and sea level
rise.
According to the IPPC and other independent scientific panels that have
become increasingly persuaded since the 1996 study that fossil fuel
combustion contributes directly to global warming, the burning of coal,
oil products, natural gas, and gasoline accounts for about 75 percent
of all human-made carbon dioxide emissions. The remaining 25 percent
is produced by deforestation, cattle raising and the cultivation of
rice and other related crops. The United States alone produces about
25 percent of all greenhouse emissions.
ExxonMobil was chosen by FoEI as the first company for a comprehensive
assessment because, virtually alone among the world’s biggest oil
giants, it has tried to undermine the growing scientific consensus about
the emissions-warming link and delay effective international action
to curb emissions.
The company lobbied hard against the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions
by developed countries, and funded such groups as the Global Climate
Coalition, the Cooler Heads Coalition, the American Petroleum Institute,
and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which question the scientific
basis for the link. ExxonMobil has also strongly opposed shareholder
actions efforts to urge management to take the issue more seriously
and invest more in renewable energy sources.
The two current studies found that ExxonMobil’s emissions, both
from its own operations and the fossil fuels that it has produced and
sold, totaled an estimated 20.3 billion tons of carbon between 1882
and 2002, or roughly five percent of all emissions released globally
over that 120-year period.
This amount is equivalent to about three times the amount of carbon
dioxide that the entire world emitted from fossil fuel combustion in
2002. If methane is added, total emissions come to about 21.53 billion
tons of carbon equivalent.
About two-thirds of the company’s total emissions in those years
took place after the 1971 “Study of Man’s Impact on Climate”
international conference in which leading scientists reported a danger
of rapid and far-reaching global climate change, according to the report.
Based on the most recent models, the second study found that ExxonMobil’s
emissions also contributed between 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent of total
attributable temperature change (about 0.6 degrees Centigrade) since
1882, and about two percent of the total sea level rise.
Tuvalu, a tiny, low-lying South Pacific nation whose survival is particularly
threatened by a significant rise in sea level, has been considering
a lawsuit against countries responsible for the greatest greenhouse
emissions, but FoEI suggested in the report that individual companies
should also be held responsible for the impacts of warming, at least
from the time that the scientific community began reaching consensus
on the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change.
“ExxonMobil is sticking its head in the sand just like tobacco
companies that knew the harmful impacts of their product and are now
paying the price,” said Jon Sohn, a senior policy analyst with
the US section of Friends of the Earth. “ExxonMobil’s greenhouse
gas contribution is staggering, and shareholders can vote for resolutions
that force the corporation to act now.”
The report called on ExxonMobil to publicly affirm the IPCC’s judgment
about the link between global warming and greenhouse emissions, halt
all funding of organizations that are trying to undermine that consensus;
support the Kyoto Protocol and its implementation; and makes its own
assessment of its emissions and its potential liability.
Source: OneWorld.net
Monsanto’s chapati patent raises
Indian ire
By Randeep Ramesh
New Delhi, India, Jan. 31 — Monsanto, the world’s
largest genetically modified seed company, has been awarded patents
on the wheat used for making chapati -- the flat bread staple of northern
India.
The patents give the US multinational exclusive ownership over Nap Hal,
a strain of wheat whose gene sequence makes it particularly suited to
producing crisp breads.
Another patent, filed in Europe, gives Monsanto rights over the use
of Nap Hal wheat to make chapatis, which consist of flour, water and
salt.
Environmentalists say Nap Hal’s qualities are the result of generations
of farmers in India who spent years crossbreeding crops and collective,
not corporate, efforts should be recognized.
Monsanto, activists claim, is simply out to make “monopoly profits”
from food on which millions depend. Monsanto inherited a patent application
when it bought the cereals division of the Anglo-Dutch food giant Unilever
in 1998, and the patent has been granted to the new owner.
Unilever acquired Nap Hal seeds from a publicly funded British plant
gene bank. Its scientists identified the wheat’s combination of
genes and patented them as an “invention.”
Greenpeace is attempting to block Monsanto’s patent, accusing the
company of “bio-piracy.”
“It is theft of the results of the work in cultivation made by
Indian farmers,” said Dr. Christoph Then, Greenpeace’s patent
expert after a meeting with the European Commission in Delhi.
“We want the European Patent Office to reverse its decision. Under
European law patents cannot be issued on plants that are normally cultivated,
but there are loopholes in the legislation.”
A spokesperson for Monsanto in India denied that the company had any
plan to exploit the patent, saying that it was in fact pulling out of
cereals in some markets.
“This patent was Unilever’s. We got it when we bought the
company. Really this is all academic as we are exiting from the cereal
business in the UK and Europe,” said Ranjana Smetacek, Monsanto’s
public affairs director in India.
Campaigners in India say that there are concerns that people might end
up paying royalties to Monsanto for making or selling chapatis.
“The commercial interest is that Monsanto can charge people for
using the wheat or take a cut from its sale,” said Devinder Sharma,
who runs the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in Delhi.
The potential market in developing countries is huge. Rice production
in India alone exceeds that of the American maize market.
The number of patents relating to rice issued every year in the US has
risen from less than 100 in the mid-1990s to more than 600 in 2000.
Sharma says there is little hope of the Indian government intervening
to prevent the chapati being patented by Monsanto.
It simply cannot afford the legal fees, having spent hundreds of thousands
of dollars fighting a US decision to grant a Texan company a patent
on basmati rice in 1997.
That case became a cause to celebrate for the anti-globalization protests
of the 1990s, and was only settled when the patent was watered down.
“The ministry of commerce sent a circular out last year which said
that there is no money to fund these cases any more,” said Sharma.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Painkiller in cattle drives Indian vultures
to brink of extinction
By Steve Connor
Jan. 29 — Three species of vulture are dying out at a faster
rate than the dodo as it neared extinction because farmers on the Indian
subcontinent are using a common painkiller on livestock.
Scientists have discovered that the drug -- harmless to cattle and humans
-- is highly toxic to vultures, which feed on animal carcasses.
In 10 years, up to 99 percent of vultures in India and Pakistan have
died, resulting in probably the most rapid decline of any species --
including those of the extinct passenger pigeon and dodo.
The three species of vulture were the most common large birds of prey
about 20 years ago, but since farmers started using the painkiller diclofenac,
their numbers have declined to the brink of extinction.
Lindsay Oaks, of Washington State University and leader of the study
published in the journal Nature, said the link between the decline of
the three species -- the white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed
vultures -- and diclofenac has been shown beyond doubt. “This is
the first known case of a pharmaceutical causing major ecological damage
over a huge geographic area and threatening three species with extinction,”
Dr. Oaks said.
Diclofenac is a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug and has been widely
used in humans for decades. India and Pakistan have used it for veterinary
purposes since about 1990. An Indian zoologist, Vibhu Prakash, documented
the decline of Asian vultures in 1997 and the RSPB and the Zoological
Society of London helped organize a study, along with the Peregrine
Fund in America, to find the reason. Post-mortem examinations on vultures
showed they had suffered kidney damage and gout resulting from an accumulation
of diclofenac, which they had ingested by eating the flesh of dead cattle,
which are commonly left unburied in India and Pakistan. Tests on young
captive vultures revealed that concentrations of diclofenac found in
treated cattle were enough to kill the birds.
The scientists also found that diclofenac was sold widely across the
counter in Pakistan. A survey of 84 drug retailers in the Punjab province
found that all outlets sold diclofenac, 77 of them every day.
Rick Watson, international programs director for the Peregrine Fund
in Boise, Idaho, said: “Finding a drug is responsible for the threatened
extinction of these species is helpful yet alarming. Helpful, because
now we can do something about it. Alarming, because this may not be
the only pharmaceutical impacting wildlife.”
Debbie Pain, head of international research at the RSPB, said a captive-breeding
program should begin immediately. “The decline of Asian vultures
is one of the steepest declines experienced by any bird species, and
is certainly faster than that suffered by the dodo. If nothing is done
these vulture species will become extinct.”
Vultures are a critical part of the food chain. Their demise in India
and Pakistan has resulted in a rise in the population of feral dogs,
raising the risk of rabies being transmitted to animals and humans,
according to Andrew Cunningham of the Zoological Society of London.
The scientists will present their findings to conservationists next
week in Nepal, where they will call for a ban on diclofenac for veterinary
purposes.
Source: Independent (UK)
World’s tallest trees threatened
Compiled by Oread Daily
Jan. 27— Environmental activist Jan. 26 targeted visitors
to Tahue Airwalk forest preserve as part of a campaign to stop logging
in old growth forests in Tasmania.
On Jan. 13, four men were arrested for unfurling a protest banner as
the Spirit of Tasmania III ferry left Sydney on its first voyage to
Devonport in Tasmania. Protester Neal Funnell said, “The action
was in response to the fundamentally untrue image that the Tasmanian
government is selling ... The idea that Tasmania is the ‘clean
and green state’ is absurd considering that Tasmania clearfells
and woodchips more old-growth forests than the rest of Australia combined.”
The protest actions come in the context of an increased focus by conservation
activists on the Styx and Weld river valleys. In the Styx valley, which
is home to some of the tallest hardwood trees in the world, a tree-sit
organized by Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society has been going since
Nov. 12. Dubbed the Global Rescue Station, the tree-sit has involved
protesters from Belgium, Germany, Japan and Australia. The tree-sit
is located in an 84-meter tree in an area scheduled for logging in the
2004-2005 financial year. Australian rock icon Jimmy Barnes visited
the team of campaigners earlier this month, joining a growing list of
performers who have lent their support. Greenpeace activist and tree
sitter Adam Shore said, “It’s amazing to have someone of international
acclaim like Jimmy Barnes come and lend their support to the campaign
to save the Styx tall trees. It’s inspiring to know that after
so many weeks of living in the forest, the issue continues to gain attention
and inspire action from passionate individuals.”
Susan Pipes from the Wilderness Society says that protesters are demanding
that half of the approximately 30,000 hectares in the Styx valley be
added to the World Heritage Area (WHA). This would include the 8,000
remaining hectares of currently unprotected old-growth forest, as well
as several mountain tops and rivers. Currently, the WHA only includes
3,000 hectares of the uppermost region of the Styx valley. In recent
years, approximately 500 hectares per year of old- growth has been logged
in the valley, and the intention of the government and forestry industry
is to keep logging the valley at that rate, according to Pipes. The
lower Weld river valley, which contains known sites of Aboriginal historical
significance, faces a similar threat. The 6,000 unprotected hectares
of old-growth forest in the Weld valley have been nominated for inclusion
in the WHA by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the Heritage Commission. While
the upper 80 percent of the Weld valley is part of the WHA, much of
it is inaccessible, and much of the old-growth forest is in the unprotected
lower Weld.
Adam Burling from the Huon Environment Center says that in the last
12 months there has been an escalation of logging in the Weld forests.
Logging operations are beginning to move deep into areas never before
disturbed by European settlers. Burling warns that the methods of logging
being used will have impacts within the borders of the WHA if logging
continues deeper into the valley. “The only reason [the upper Weld]
is protected is the result of decades of battles by conservationists,”
he said. He suggested that more such battles will be needed to protect
the high-heritage-value forests of the lower Weld.
The Styx Valley contains the tallest hardwood trees on Earth. Many of
the trees are taller than a 25-story building, over 400 years old, and
up to 15 feet wide at the base. The Styx is only 45 miles west of Hobart
(about 60 miles by road) and is on the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness
World Heritage Area - one of the great temperate wilderness areas
on Earth. The Tasmanian government and logging company Gunns Ltd are
planning to cut the Styx forest in large-scale logging operations (clearfelling),
largely for export as woodchips to Japan. This despite the fact the
Styx has been identified as worthy of World Heritage Listing (World
Heritage Bureau 1994), the highest international legal standing for
natural heritage protection. The main form of logging is clearfelling
and burning. The logging operations proceed by cutting down all the
large timber and bulldozing the rest. The useful timber, primarily destined
for woodchips, is removed and the area is then bombed from the air with
incendiaries that ensure the whole area burns. Following reseeding,
1080 poison is laid to kill possums and wallabies that may graze on
re-sprouting saplings. Other non-target species such as bettongs and
quolls are also at risk of being poisoned.
The Wilderness Society has a National Park proposal which would provide
protection for the remaining wilderness and old growth forests of Tasmania.
It includes the Styx, the Tarkine and the south- west, and covers about
240,000 hectares of forests. Environmental groups calling for the immediate
end to old growth logging and the adoption of the National Park plan.
They propose that the Tasmanian government declare a Styx Valley of
the Giants National Park, and that the Australian government nominate
the valley as an extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage
Area.
Sources: Action Group/Australian Wilderness
Society, Greenpeace, Green Left Weekly, Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Melbourne Tarkine
|
