World ignores man-made calamity
Haiti has become one of the most devastated places on earth. Its once
thick forests have been felled, and the rains rush off the bare hillsides,
carrying precious topsoil with them. As crop yields fall and farming
becomes impossible, the impoverished people flood to city slums.
Levels of hunger and infant mortality are among the highest in the world;
life expectancy and access to clean drinking water and sanitation among
the lowest.
Up to 99 percent of Haiti’s tree cover has been felled and two-thirds
of its farmland has been destroyed by flooding, while its population
has quadrupled.
The soil fills up river beds, making them prone to flood, while some
400 small rivers and streams have silted up altogether over the past
20 years. Floods and landslides have become commonplace. At the same
time, the country’s once abundant water supplies have dried up,
as rainwater races off the land with no trees to help it seep into the
ground. (Independent (UK))
Australia refuses to rule out coastal bushland development
Malabar Headland is one of the largest areas of native bush remaining
in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. But for the past six years the federal
government has refused to commit to the preservation of Commonwealth
land, instead closing the area to the public and sitting on its hands.
It has rejected a proposal from Randwick City Council to hand the land
over to the residents of New South Wales(NSW), and to re-zone the area
to include two sections of national park and a central Open Space zone.
The federal government has made no effort to reverse the degeneration
of bushland
Local residents and environmentalists are becoming concerned over the
government’s plans to sell off a section of the headland for housing
development, rather than a public park for recreational use by the people
of NSW.
Malabar Headland is a site of great environmental and cultural significance.
It is home to the almost extinct Eastern Suburbs Banksia and also supports
at least 283 endemic native plant species and 177 bird species. It also
contains Aboriginal engravings and significant World War II historic
sites including forts, gun emplacements, underground defence tunnels,
and a sunken munitions railway. The headland’s fate now seems to
hang in the result of the upcoming federal election.
(Green Left Weekly)
The dump that musn’t go -- and
mustn’t stay
The stench of the place is evident for miles around. Nonetheless, people
of all ages, mostly men, can be seen scurrying around the Mbeubeuss
dump site near Senegal’s capital, Dakar, salvaging anything that
can be sold.
Rapid population growth has brought the city to Mbeubeuss’ doorstep,
however. Three million of Senegal’s 10-million-strong population
now live in Dakar. As the population grows, so does its garbage. Mbeubeuss
received 321,000 tons of waste in 1998. In 2001, the total was 457,000
tonnes, according to the African Institute of City Planning based in
Dakar. Household and industrial wastes are deposited indiscriminately,
with little in the way of sorting or treatment.
Belatedly, authorities have also recognized the dump site as an environmental
hazard. Presenting his report for events in 2003, the minister of the
environment described Mbeubeuss as “a veritable ecological catastrophe.”
There are fears that the site could poison underground water supplies
-- an alarming prospect, given that most people in the surrounding villages
still get their drinking water from wells.
In 2001, a decision was taken to close Mbeubeuss by 2005 and open a
new site at Gandoul, 70 kilometres east of Dakar. Residents there are
outraged by the plan.
On Apr. 14 a march was organized to protest the creation of a new dump
site. An inter-village committee has also been set up to protect residents’
interests -- and their cause has received support from the Union of
Environmentalists of Senegal (RES-Greens), a political party created
three years ago by environmental activists. RES-Greens also condemns
the existence of the Mbeubeuss dump. (IPS)
Sea bass banned to protect dolphins
First came dolphin-friendly tuna; now sea bass are set to be the focus
of a new fight to prevent the deaths of thousands of dolphins every
year.
British restaurants and hotels are banning the use of sea bass caught
using fishing methods that have been linked to the killing of dolphins
off the South-west coast of the UK. Residents in the region have joined
the boycott of sea bass caught by “pair trawlers.”
The method, which involves two powerful boats towing a giant net, has
been widely blamed for a sharp rise in the number of dolphin deaths.
The method of fishing provides the majority of sea bass available
More than 250 dolphins have been washed ashore in Devon and Cornwall,
England since the start of the year and environmentalists believe the
figure represents less than 10 percent of the total number killed by
pair trawlers. Concerns have also been raised surrounding an increase
in sightings of other dead sea creatures caught between the nets of
pair trawlers, including porpoises and minke whales. Politicians have
called for a total ban of bass pair trawling in British and European
waters, but campaigners have been frustrated at the slow pace of official
developments.
A day of pair trawling could yield up to $74,000 worth of sea bass;
a hand-line fisherman by contract might catch only about $37 worth of
sea bass (Independent (UK))
EPA issues fine over nerve gas released on Pacific
wildlife sanctuary
The US Army and a contractor were fined nearly $52,000 for releasing
a deadly chemical weapon on a wildlife sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean,
federal environmental officials announced May 26
An unknown quantity of VX nerve agent was released in August 2002 at
a chemical weapons disposal facility on Johnston Atoll, the Environmental
Protection Agency’s office in San Francisco said. The release occurred
when a tray holding remnants of a VX shell was improperly loaded into
an incinerator.
Exposure to VX can cause paralysis and death within minutes.
The atoll, located 825 miles southwest of Honolulu, is a national bird
sanctuary. It also held more than six percent of the nation’s stockpile
of various agents and chemical weapons
Congress ordered the weapons destroyed in 1986. Disposal began in 1990
at a facility jointly operated by the Army and its contractor, Washington
Group International of Boise, Idaho.
More than four million pounds of chemical weapons and agents have been
destroyed on Johnston Atoll since 1990. (AP)
