"EnviroNews"

INTERNATIONAL

Study urges action on threatened African predators

A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society on the most endangered carnivores in Africa has called for urgent action to save the lion, cheetah and Ethiopian wolf from such major threats to survival as hunting and conflict with humans.

Ethiopian wolves have vanished from an astonishing 98 percent of their range. In the past few decades, lions have vanished from 82 percent of the land over which they used to roam, while the cheetah has disappeared from 75 percent of its habitat, according to a statement from the group.

Wild dogs, pack animals detested by livestock farmers, are no longer seen in almost 90 percent of their original territory.

Habitat decline, hunting, road kills and conflict with humans are among the key threats to Africa’s carnivores.

"These animals play a key role in the health of ecosystems and represent all that is wild about Africa," said Dr. Luke Hunter, a co-author of the report who also runs the society’s Global Carnivore Program.

From PlanetArk.com


Mexico signs agreement to drastically cut fuel emissions, improve air quality

Mexico’s secretary José Luis Luege Tamargo of Environment and Natural Resources said his department has signed an agreement with the finance department to reduce sulfur emissions by 50 percent before 2020.

The restrictions on sulfur emissions and small particles will go into effect in July and will be expanded gradually each year until 2009, Luege said. He said that the limits are among the strictest in the world.

Mexico City is one of the world’s most polluted cities. The metropolis of 8 million failed to meet acceptable air quality standards for ozone limits 284 days last year, Luege said, though earlier environmental measures have led to major improvements in other pollutants, including lead.

From The Associated Press


Japan Feeding Whale Meat to Dogs

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a British marine conservation organization, says Japan’s stock of whale meat from hunting for scientific research is so large that the country has begun selling it as dog food.

Japan’s whale meat stocks have doubled during the past 10 years and the country increased the number of animals it killed each year despite a ban on commercial hunting, the organization said.

Last year, Japan’s stock of whale meat stood at 4,800 tons, compared to 638 tons in March 1998. This year, it has doubled its hunt of minke whales and added humpback and fin whales to its target catch.

In 1986, Japan stopped commercial whaling, in line with an international moratorium, but began catching whales again the following year for what it calls scientific research.

From Reuters


NATIONAL

‘Carrier pigeon’ has new meaning

A flock of pigeons fitted with cell phone backpacks will be used to monitor air pollution, according to New Scientist magazine. The 20 pigeons will be released into the skies over San José, Calif., in August. Each bird will carry a GPS satellite tracking receiver, air pollution sensors capable of detecting carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, and a basic cell phone. Text messages on air quality will be beamed in real time to a special blog accessible on the Internet. The pigeons will take to the air at the Inter-Society for Electronic Arts’ annual symposium in San José on Aug. 5. The data they send back will be displayed on the blog on an interactive map.

From Environmental News Network


‘The first step to overcoming an addiction is admitting you have a problem’

President George W. Bush said in this year’s State of the Union address that he would seek to break dependence on Middle East oil by using new technologies and increasing funding on energy sources including coal, nuclear, wind and solar power, and hydrogen and ethanol. Bush argued that the United States would improve its national security by cutting what he called an "addiction to oil," often imported from unstable parts of the world. He also said the plan would improve the environment.

But environmental researchers said Bush did not address threats of global warming linked to burning oil, coal or natural gas. Still, the environmental group Greenpeace said Bush’s plan — if ever implemented — could help the climate.

"The first step in curing an addiction is recognizing that you have a problem," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy expert at Greenpeace. "He’s stood up and taken the first step in the ‘oil-aholics’ program."

From Reuters


Mountaintop removal mining permits challenged in West Virginia

To stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from permitting streams, valleys, historic places and communities throughout West Virginia to be destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining and valley fills, West Virginia citizens groups went back to court on Feb. 1.

The plaintiff groups are seeking a court ruling that would stop the agency from allowing any further activities at three strip-mine sites that violate the law, causing irreparable damage to seven and a half miles of central Appalachian headwater streams, and to the health and welfare of West Virginians living downstream.

According to the Bush administration’s own estimates, mountaintop removal mining in the region already has destroyed more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that at least 2,400 miles of streams will be permanently wiped out by 2013 if additional environmental restrictions are not enforced.

"Trying to get the Corps of Engineers to follow the law is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall: It is awfully hard to make it stick," said Vivian Stockman, project coordinator for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition a leading environmental group in the region. "The corps gives coal companies permits that are little more than a wink and a nod, and the coal companies waste little time before ripping out trees, choking off streams and filling in valleys with mining waste."

From Environment News Service


STATE

Ecology: Cruise ships kept Puget Sound cleaner in 2005

More cruise ships took steps to protect Puget Sound from wastewater pollution in 2005, the second year of an environmental agreement signed in 2004 with the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Port of Seattle.

Ecology issued a report on progress under a "memorandum of understanding" signed in April 2004 as the cruise season began. The Northwest Cruise Ship Association signed the agreement on behalf of the cruise industry.

The voluntary agreement set standards exceeding federal requirements that ordinarily apply to the ships for wastewater treatment and discharge in Washington waters.

Nine of the 17 cruise ships visiting Seattle received authorization from Ecology to discharge under the memorandum’s wastewater treatment standards, tripling the number of ships approved under the agreement. They accounted for 69 percent of cruise ship sailings from April through October.

From Environment News Service


Seattle man wins the ‘Best Idea’ Since Sliced Bread

An idea to tax polluters to pay for renewable energy won Peter Skidmore, a 41-year-old program manager from Seattle, $100,000 and first place in a contest to find the "Best Idea Since Sliced Bread." Since Sliced Bread is a public-policy contest sponsored by the Service Employees International Union.

"Sustainable Resource Industries" — by Peter Skidmore

Globalization of labor, production and ideas and an industrial economy based on subsidized fossil fuels have set the stage for economic and social instability, continued outsourcing of jobs and marginalized quality of life. We can create a new economy based on environmentally benign industries and energy.

Impose a "resource tax" on pollution, development, and fossil fuel to pay for development of renewable energy and environmental restoration. Promoting sustainable localized energy industries-solar, wind, hydro, tidal, biofuels-will provide reliable, clean homegrown energy, exportable technologies, and bring energy jobs home. Funding widespread environmental restoration will expand existing industries-farming, recreation, tourism and commercial fisheries — that are dependent on ecological services and will foster research, design and technology industries.

Working families will benefit from a stable economy and millions of new economy jobs. These solutions are inherently local-they create decentralized resources and require skilled local labor, forever. They pay for themselves and provide capital for entrepreneurs to develop industries and exportable technologies. And they foster community and collaboration essential to surviving in a global economy.


11 indicted in 'eco-terrorism' case

After taking nine years to penetrate what they called a "vast eco-terrorism conspiracy" in Washington and four other Western states, federal prosecutors have announced on Friday the indictment of 11 people in connection with a five-year wave of arson and sabotage claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

The 17 attacks, which occurred from 1996 to 2001, caused no deaths but resulted in an estimated $23 million in damage to lumber companies, a ski resort, meat plants, federal ranger stations and a high-voltage electric tower.

The group has claimed responsibility for burning down a number of big houses being built in Washington state in the past two years, but no arrests have been made.

From The Washington Post