-Caveat Lector- [HardGreenHerald] # 15 "Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." --Dr. Seuss, 'The Lorax' --A RadTimes production-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --------------- --GM Crops May All Be Unstable --Animal Rights Groups Attack Lab by Focusing on Banks --Solid Evidence 'Greenhouse Gas' Heating Up Earth --Global spread of DU reaches food chain --Huntingdon Sues Animal Activists --Greenpeace Amazon Team Catches Illegal Loggers in Brazil --Foot And Mouth Disease Expected To Hit U.S. --'Eco-terror' threat to US suburbia =================================================================== GM Crops May All Be Unstable ISIS Report April 8, 2001 ISIS has drawn attention to the instability of GMOs and GM constructs all along. Prof. Joe Cummins offers this latest verdict, all GM crops may be unstable. It is repeatedly claimed that genetically modified (GM) crops are altered with single genes that are stable and equivalent to the genes that have been selected and bred into the crops. In every case the GM crops originated from cell cultures that have been know to be vexed with a phenomenon called somaclonal variation. Somaclonal variation has been encountered in genetic transformation using both biolistic and Agrobacterium transformation followed by cell culture to isolate desirable agricultural characteristics. The phenomenon is that cell cultures leading to isolate individual clones and plants are plagued by genetic instability caused both by gene mutation and chromosome rearrangement. In extreme responses plants may be infertile and the extensive mutation leads to undesirable toxic natural products being produced. Furthermore, the transgenes introduced into the modified crop are recognized as invaders by the crop being transformed and the invading genes are silenced by mechanisms including DNA methylation or gene inactivation at transcription. The evidence that the genetic instability resulting in somaclonal variation is caused by activation of inactive virus like genetic elements called transposons is currently very compelling (see Courtial et al 2001). Activated transposons create both gene mutation and chromosome rearrangement. On top of the somaclonal impact the inserted transgenes are frequently silenced (see Demeke et al 1999). Even the most widely distributed commercial GM crops such as Roundup Ready soy were found to contain unexplained DNA sequences in the gene for herbicide resistance after ten years of cultivation (Palevitz 2000). The promised peer review publication on the aberrant DNA sequences was not located and similar problems with similar transformations in corn, cotton or canola have not yet been studied. Certainly, government regulators and their academic satellites seem passive and submissive in dealing with important findings reflecting on the safety of GM crops. Even though the stability and long term stability of transgenic crops is of paramount importance there have been few published studies on the genetic stability and response to varying environments of transgenic crops. A study of transgenic barley showed that GM barley was inferior to conventional barley in a number of genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions (Horvath et al 2001). Such problems may reflect somaclonal variation or unexpected gene silencing, or they may reflect other unpredicted aspects of genetic modification. In conclusion, there should be a moratorium on the use and distribution of GM crops until the consequences of genetic instability are fully explored. Government regulators should not be allowed to ignore the consequences of allowing sudden revelations about DNA sequences that crop up unexpectedly in commercial crops sold as unlabelled food to unsuspecting people. References ********* Courtail,B,Fenebach,F,Ebehard,S,Rhomer,L,Chiapello,H,Carilleri,C and Lucas,H "Tnt 1 transposition events are induced by in vitro transformation of Aradopsis thaliana, and transposed copies integrated into genes" 2001 Mol Gen Genomics 265,32-42 Demeke,T,Hucl,P,Baga,M,Caswell,K,Leung,N and Chibar,R "Transgene inheritance and silencing in hexaploid spring wheat" 1999 Theor Appl Genet 99,947-53 Horvath,H,Jensen,L,Wong,O,kohl,E,Ullrich,S,Cochran,J,Kannangara,C, and von Wettstein,D "Stability of transgene expression , field performance and recombination breeding of transformed barley lines"2001 Theor Appl Genet 2001,1-11 Palevitz,B "DNA surprise: Monsanto discovers extra sequence in its Roundup Ready soybeans" 2000 The scientist 14,20 (july 24) For further details please constact Prof. Joe Cummins at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************* Visit the Institute of Science in Society homepage www.i-sis.org =================================================================== Taking a Bite Out of Backing Animal Rights Groups Attack Lab by Focusing on Banks By Dean Schabner April 4 — When daredevils break into research laboratories to "liberate" the animals used in experiments it may hamper the work of scientists, but animal rights activists in Europe have found it is much more effective to focus on research companies' wallets, and now they are bringing such campaigns to the United States. Police say 14 beagles were taken from the Huntingdon Life Sciences lab in East Millstone, N.J., on Sunday, and demonstrators gathered outside the company's office on Monday, but that is a minor annoyance compared to what animal rights activists have done in their focus on the banks and brokerage houses that deal with the lab's finances. Huntingdon drew animal rights activists' attention in 1997, when undercover films made at the lab by British television showed beagles being hit in the mouth and thrown against the wall by laughing workers, monkeys being operated on as they screamed in pain and other horrors. Investigations in both England and the United States as recently as 1996 found violations at the labs. On this side of the Atlantic the campaign has been relatively quiet, but having been successful in getting a handful of British financial institutions to drop their involvement with Huntingdon, which contracts drug testing for pharmaceutical firms, animal rights organizations say they are now turning their attention to a pair of U.S. firms that have stood by the lab. The Animal Defense League, the Animal Liberation Front and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty save their fiercest tactics in the battle against the lab for the banks that provide its backing, battering away with e-mails, threats, demonstrations and bad publicity to convince investors to pull out. And it has been effective. Finely Focused Campaigns In 17 months of intensive action focused on Huntingdon, the activists have convinced Merrill Lynch, Citibank, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Dresdener Kleinwort Wasserstein and Trimark to discontinue their involvement with the lab. When the Arkansas-based Stephens Group Inc. stepped forward in January to provide backing, the lab's opponents sicced their troops on them, and they have also identified the Bank of New York as a target. "The campaign isn't just a few people standing outside with placards," said a spokesman for Huntingdon, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of violence against himself and his family. "These people have been entirely focused on one company at a time. They use abuse, intimidation, threats, visits to people's homes. There have been cars blown up, two people beaten outside their homes. And as soon as people pull away, they move on to the next supporter and the next supporter." A recent posting on one animal rights Web site called for animal rights activists to turn their focus on Stephens Inc., which according to a statement from Huntingdon helped the research company refinance and avoid bankruptcy after other banks had pulled out. The posting calls for an all-out e-mail campaign against the investment firm, offering a lengthy list of addresses and a proposed letter to be sent. "I am writing today to express my outrage at Stephens Inc.'s decision to support animal cruelty," the suggested letter says in part. "Stephens Inc. is the primary financer and largest share holder in Huntingdon Life Sciences, a controversial animal testing laboratory that kills roughly 180,000 animals every year in painful and unnecessary chemical tests. Huntingdon has been exposed 5 times since 1997 for animal abuse. Undercover video footage shows workers punching frightened beagle puppies in the face, taunting animals who were undergoing painful tests, and, on one occasion, conducting a supposedly post-mortem dissection on a live monkey. On the job drunkenness, drug use, lateness, and other staff ills have been exposed as recently as December 2000." Another posting advised that Warren Stephens, the chairman of the firm, was going on vacation and gave phone numbers of the golf club where he would be staying. "Ask the people at the club how they feel about their position on animal cruelty," the posting advised. "How do they feel about the fact that they have a puppy killer as one of their members." Burning, Beating to Stop Cruelty But writing letters and making phone calls expressing disapproval and "liberating" lab animals are not the only ways the activists have of achieving their ends. Monday night, the car of one of the directors of the New Jersey lab was overturned, as American activists picked up on the techniques long employed in Europe. Last year in England, nine people connected with Huntingdon — either workers or investors — had their cars burned. The violence has not been confined to machines, either. On Feb. 22, three people wielding baseball bats attacked Brian Cass, the managing director of Huntingdon, outside his Cambridgeshire, England, home. "I feel angry that there are people who pretend to be concerned about animals but then they go and attack someone in this sort of manner," he told the Press Association. "It is totally hypocritical and cowardly." ALF and SHAC both denied involvement in the attack and issued statements saying they do not condone violence against humans any more than they do against animals. But when demonstrations outside a London brokerage, Winterflood Securities, that dealt in the lab's shares failed to get the desired results, some activists turned to a campaign of domestic terror against the company's executives. After the family members of many of the firm's officers received threatening phone calls, and one came home one Sunday to find a crowd of protesters "in balaclavas and death masks" waiting for him and his two young children, Winterflood capitulated and dropped the lab's stocks. Resisting the 'Bully Boys' A similar campaign could soon be waged against the Bank of New York, which is the custodian for the lab's shareholders in the United States. "The bank could now expect to find its corporate events crashed, protesters in its offices, and directors targeted," SHAC spokesman Greg Avery told the Daily Telegraph. The Huntingdon spokesman said that the Bank of New York has been one of the lab's mainstays, and that generally U.S. firms have been more resistant to the pressures of the activists. "The companies that have been most robust are in the U.S., and the one that has been most robust is the Bank of New York in saying we will not be pushed around by these bully boys," he said. Roughly 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Huntingdon lab in New Jersey on Monday to protest the treatment of animals there. Police said the protest was generally peaceful, though three people were arrested and one had to receive treatment after officers used pepper spray to quell a few demonstrators who allegedly threw a barricade that had been set up to contain the marchers. "We're just a group of passionate people who care about the plight of animals in HLS laboratories, and the police, it really goes to show that the police are the violent ones, and they are protecting the people that are murdering animals every year," said Lance Morosini, an animal rights activist. =================================================================== Solid Evidence 'Greenhouse Gas' Heating Up Earth <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/13/MN211246.DTL&type=printable> by David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Friday, April 13, 2001 The studies are being published as the international debate over global warming intensifies, prompted by President Bush's recent decision to abandon an international agreement limiting emissions of heat-trapping gases. Records show that global temperatures have risen by as much as 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. And a United Nations scientific panel has warned that average global temperatures could rise by as much as 10 degrees by the end of this century. For years, however, controversy has focused on how much of the warming trend has been because of pollution from industrial sources and how much is merely typical of natural long-term cycles of climate change that the Earth has experienced since the last ice age, 12,000 to 18,000 years ago. In reports published in the journal Science today, two teams of researchers using different computer models conclude that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane play a major role in "forcing" the Earth's surface temperature higher and higher. One of the teams is headed by Sydney Levitus, director of the federal government's Ocean Climate Laboratory in Silver Spring, Md., and the other by Tim P. Barnett, a leading climate researcher at the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. Both groups combined millions of ocean temperature measurements made over the past 50 years by observers all over the world. Then they looked for what could account for their dramatic rise with and without the presence of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They also factored in the effects of fine aerosol compounds, such as sulfur dioxide in acid rain and volcanic ash, that reflect sunlight back into space and thereby act to cool the Earth's surface. The greenhouse gases bear their name because they are known to trap the warmth of the sun at the Earth's surface -- much the way the glass panes of the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park have done. HIGH ATMOSPHERE COOLER One anomaly in past estimates of the Earth's rising heat has been the fact that weather balloons and satellites have consistently shown lower temperatures higher in the atmosphere than the "greenhouse effect" should have produced. Last year, however, Levitus and his colleagues found that much of the Earth's surface heat is actually being stored in the oceans rather than on land. The result, they found, is that the oceans have grown warmer by about one-tenth of a degree in the upper two miles during the past 40 years, and more than half a degree in the top 1,000 feet or so. "We've looked for the causes of that warming, and you can only get this type of heat increase if you add in the effect of greenhouse gases," Levitus said in a telephone interview. "Greenhouse gases are the only possible explanation." SOME WOULD BE SKEPTICAL Levitus conceded that if his group's report in Science had to stand alone, based as it is on a single climate model, then "people would certainly be skeptical." But the fact that Barnett's group at Scripps independently arrived at the same findings, and based on a different computerized climate model, "then our conclusions are pretty robust," said Levitus, who works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Levitus would not comment on the Bush administration's recent decision to withdraw American support for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a treaty which would have committed the United States and other industrialized countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 to 8 percent over the next decade. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman said earlier this month that Bush believes not enough is known about the causes of global warming to support a treaty whose effects would damage the U.S. economy. "We have no interest in implementing that treaty," Whitman said. Barnett agreed that the new findings bolster the argument for a human factor in global warming. "The changes in temperature that we've observed are consistent with greenhouse forcing, and I can say that with high confidence," he said. "Of course, there may well be other factors in the observed pattern of global warming, but I don't know of any. Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long been noted for his climate expertise and also for his outspoken skepticism about the importance of greenhouse gases in the globe's rising temperature. In an e-mail message yesterday commenting on the Barnett and Levitus reports, Lindzen agreed that in response to rising surface temperatures of the past 50 years there has also been an increase in the heat content of the oceans. "Nothing controversial here," he said. But he called their conclusions "spurious" and insisted that the models of climate change used by the two groups do not account properly for the many uncertainties in the cooling effects of aerosols like volcanics and sulfate particles. ------- E-mail David Perlman at [EMAIL PROTECTED] =================================================================== Global spread of DU reaches food chain By Torcuil Crichton and Felicity Arbuthnot Apr 15 2001 http://www.sundayherald.com/news/newsi.hts?section=News&story_id=15480 Depleted uranium from shells fired by British and American forces during the Balkan wars has found its way into the food chain and has been detected among the civilian populations of Kosovo and Bosnia. A study of the local population in three locations in the two Balkan regions has found samples of the highly radio active particles in the urine of all those tested. The investigation comes amid growing concern about the possible effects of depleted uranium in the Balkans both on foreign troops and on the local population. A survey for the Sunday Herald has found that depleted-uranium weaponry has been used or tested in 41 countries worldwide. They range from Britain - where DU shells are test-fired on the Solway Firth - to Japan, where unauthorised firing by the United States military led to a massive clean-up operation. Eleven of the countries affected by DU are in the Balkans. Nato warplanes dropped 10,000 rounds of DU ammunition in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. Soldiers from several troop-contributing countries - including Italy, Portugal and France - have fallen ill with what is being called Balkan syndrome but this is the first time that the civilian population has been tested for contamination. Spain has reported at least eight cases of cancer among personnel deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo. Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Poland are among other countries to have acknowledged a problem. There was an outcry in Portugal when Hugo Paulino, a young corporal, died of cancer three weeks after returning from duty in Kosovo. The health of returning Italian personnel was of such concern that five different regions have appointed senior judiciary to open inquiries. The civilian study was carried out by Professor Nick Priest of Middlesex University, for E~rpa, BBC Scotland's European-affairs programme. It looked at people in one location in Bosnia and two locations in Kosovo. "So far, all the results for every single one of the samples collected in Kosovo is showing some depleted uranium in the urine," he said. "That is completely abnormal because normally you would expect no DU to be in the urine samples." Priest's conclusion was that it was likely that the metal was present in the food chain. The study did not investigate possible health problems. Previous studies have found no evidence of a link, although a recent United Nations report acknowledged that there remain "considerable scientific uncertainties". Despite that concern, a proposed voluntary testing programme for Kosovan civilians has been shelved following the intervention of the World Health Organisation. Campaigners against the use of DU, which will remain radioactive for four-and-a-half billion years, argue the tiny particles of DU dust emitted from shell explosions will still be mutating genetics of fauna, flora and humanity "when the sun goes out". Teenager Vlora Marleku told the programme makers: "I am worried. I don't know what to say. This is something that touches you very deeply." Civilian populations and refugees returning to the Balkans are also experiencing severe health problems, according to local reports. Journalist Svetlana Stankovic Lala of Greece's Athens News said: "In Kosovska Mitrovica, [in the] north of Kosovo, the number of malignant diseases increased 200% in 2000 compared to 1998, the year before the bombing." Doctors in the area estimate that birth deformities have increased by 250% over 1998 figures. Dr Aleksandra Veljovic, of the Cancer Foundation in Yugoslavia, talked of "a doubling of incidence of cancer" by June 2000 - exactly a year after the war's end. In January 2000, she said, "almost 2000 people died from a flu pandemic, corpses [remained unburied] for 10 or more days and in numbers from pneumonia". Like Iraq, medication and facilities were unavailable due to sanctions. Like Iraq, an epidemic occurred shortly after the bombing. In Iraq, at least 5000 people died of measles within months of the end of the Gulf war. Radiation damages the immune system - a link that the Gulf veterans have made with their proven immune deficiencies. No studies have been made in bordering countries, although there are concerns that radiation travels via the wind, water and fauna. An A-10 Thunderbolt, which carries DU weapons, crashed in Albania. A missile thought to be carrying DU landed in Bulgaria. Another landed in Macedonia, which has hosted nearly one million refugees and has already removed 10 tonnes of DU-contaminated topsoil from its border region. Britain's Ministry of Defence insisted that the levels of depleted uranium found in the tests for the E~rpa programme posed no risk to public health and represent only a tiny fraction of naturally occurring background radiation. Defence minister Dr Lewis Moonie said: "It is a very interesting result and one that needs to be followed up." =================================================================== Thursday April 19 Press Release Huntingdon Sues Animal Activists HUNTINGDON, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 2001--Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc announced today that its US subsidiary, Huntingdon Life Sciences Inc., has joined in the filing of an Amended Complaint in a lawsuit against various animal rights organizations and affiliated individuals in response to the defendants' unlawful campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment directed at the Company and Stephens Group of Little Rock Arkansas, one of the Company's significant shareholders. The action, pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, was originally filed by Stephens Group, and its wholly owned investment banking subsidiary, Stephens Inc. The Amended Complaint asserts claims under the Civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Statute (``RICO'') of the United States and the State of New Jersey and cited conduct including physical attacks on individual employees, death threats, bomb threats, destruction of property, burglary, harassment and intimidation. The Amended Complaint also asserts claims for interference with contractual relations and economic advantage. The complaint names as defendants Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), Voices for Animals, Animal Defense League, In Defense of Animals, and certain individuals. The suit requests injunctive relief to stop the defendants and those acting in concert with them from engaging in acts and threats of force, violence and intimidation directed at the Company, Stephens, and their respective employees, customers, shareholders and investors. It also seeks an award of monetary damages for losses incurred as a result of the defendants' unlawful conduct. Huntingdon's Executive Chairman, Andrew Baker, stated: ``This suit represents a next step in the Company's initiatives to reign in the campaign of a small band of animal rights extremists who are seeking to destroy our Company and undermine the fields of scientific discovery which rely on the Company's crucial work. Unlike the activists, who defy the law to terrorize people and entities to bow to their demands, we will seek proper redress in the US legal system.'' Brian Cass, Huntingdon's Managing Director, said ``Many of our stakeholders have been subject to appalling threats and intimidation from these extremists and firm action now needs to be taken. The defendants are involved in a campaign not just aimed at Huntingdon but at all scientific animal research. However, we are the primary target today and we intend to show that we shall not merely cave in to their onslaught. For the benefit of all of us, this campaign of violence and intimidation of individuals, often at their homes, must be stopped. We and our clients and fellow researchers everywhere must be allowed to go about our crucial, and lawful endeavors free from fear.'' Cass added: ``This lawsuit sends a powerful message that Huntingdon is standing up for its right to conduct its lawful and socially vital business. We greatly appreciate the support shown by our employees, customers, service providers and shareholders, as well as those in government, law enforcement, and the media. This lawsuit states unequivocally that no one has the right to replace dialogue and debate with extortion and terrorism.'' HLS filed a similar RICO lawsuit in 1997 against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and certain affiliated individuals. That lawsuit resulted in the defendants entering into a settlement agreement in which they agreed to give up their campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences Inc. Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc is one of the world's leading Contract Research Organizations providing product development services to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and biotechnology industries. Huntingdon brings leading technology and capability to support its clients in non-clinical safety testing of new compounds in early stage development and assessment. Huntingdon operates research facilities in the United Kingdom (Huntingdon and Eye, England) and the United States (The Princeton Research Center, New Jersey). This announcement contains statements that may be forward-looking as defined by the USA's Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based largely on Huntingdon's expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond Huntingdon's control, as more fully described in Huntingdon's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2000, as filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. --------------- Contact: Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc Richard Michaelson Phone: UK: +44 (0) 1480 892194 US: (201) 525-1819 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =================================================================== Greenpeace Amazon Team Catches Illegal Loggers in Brazil Environment ENS -- Environment News Service MANAUS, Brazil, April 18, 2001 (ENS) - Acting on information supplied by Greenpeace, the Brazilian Environmental Agency (IBAMA) has seized three rafts of illegal logs on the Amazon River and two tugboats used to transport them. After an unannounced inspection over the holiday weekend, IBAMA officials seized rafts containing over 1,000 illegal logs, approximately 2,100 cubic metres of wood. According to IBAMA, the softwoods in the rafts, primarily samauma and virola logs, were destined for the Manaus based, Chinese owned, plywood factory Compensa. A smaller volume of hardwood was being transported to two locally owned companies. IBAMA officials fined two loggers the equivalent of US$200,000 for illegal logging. The Brazilian Amazon is the largest continuous region of tropical forest in the world, containing nearly 31 percent of the global total. Deforestation due to logging and clearing for agriculture increases atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases, possibly contributing to climate change. Conversion of forests to cropland and pasture results in a net movement of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because the concentration of carbon in forests is higher than that in the agricultural areas that replace them. Although they occupy less than seven percent of the Earth's land surface, tropical forests provide homes to at least half of all plant and animal species. The primary adverse effect of tropical deforestation is massive extinction of species, according the U.S. National Aeronatics and Space Administration which monitors the Amazon by satellite. In May 1999, with the approval and support of the Brazilian government, Greenpeace set up a permanent base in Manaus, from which it is conducting investigations in remote areas of the Amazon to document and expose illegal cutting and transport of timber. The data on the origin of the logs, location of rafts, volume, species, owners and intermediaries is cross checked against official data from IBAMA. "The result of this investigation confirms that illegal logging in the Amazon continues to be the rule, and not the exception," said Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaigner. In mid-February, early in the investigation, two tugboats were spotted by the Greenpeace team on the Tapaua River, some 600 kilometres from Manaus. The Greenpeacers monitored their collection of logs and the construction of the rafts with the aid of an airplane, Global positioning systems equipment and digital cameras. The information gathered was passed to IBAMA as soon as the evidence was conclusive. The seized logs will be donated to build low income housing projects in Amazonas State. Both Compensa and one of the loggers, Raimundo Santos, have previous records for dealing in illegal timber. Compensa was fined twice in 1999 for buying illegal logs, and Santos was fined four times in 1977. "The logging industry's long standing and customary practice of ignoring the law, and of ignoring the fragility of the ecosystem itself, has virtually legitimised a pattern of destruction in the Amazon," said Adario. "When this is coupled with the government's inability to enforce the law, the final result can only be the destruction, with impunity, of this last great tropical rainforest." Adario says a shortage of money for salaries and equipment allows IBAMA to capture but a fraction of the illegal timber cut in the Amazon. Data from the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies shows that of the US$32 million of federal funds allocated for forest protection in Brazil in 2000, only US$19 million was actually spent on forest protection. The Brazilian Amazon takes in the states of Acre, Amap, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Par, Rondia, Roraima, Tocantins and portions of Maranhco and Goias, totaling an area of approximately five million square kilometers, about equal to the area of all Western Europe. The latest report by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, issued last April after extensive satellite monitoring of forest cover, shows that the mean rate of gross deforestation across the Brazilian Amazon has slowed slightly from 17.38 percent in 1998 to 16.92 percent in 1999. Greenpeace has proposed to the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Amazonas State that the logging sector be regulated according to forestry certification standards. Under the proposal, the industry would have four years to get their operations up to the standards defined by the Forest Stewardship Council for logging in an environmentally, socially and economically viable manner. The plywood companies and saw mills would have 12 months to legalize their contracts with loggers and suppliers, and would be obliged to help them to comply with current Brazilian forestry legislation. =================================================================== Foot And Mouth Disease Expected To Hit U.S. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-19-09.html WASHINGTON, DC, April 19, 2001 (ENS) - The Environmental Working Group has sent formal requests to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeking documentation of a closed door meeting in which the agency discussed the probability that foot and mouth disease will strike in the U.S. "We are given to understand from government sources that the plan, if activated, will likely have profound implications for consumers, environmental quality, the non-farm rural economy, and wildlife," wrote Environmental Working Group president Kenneth Cook in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act. "Our request is urgent because, during an interagency briefing just last week, USDA officials stated to an audience of federal officials that the department considers it likely that an outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) will occur in this country," said Cook. "Participants at the meeting were asked by USDA officials not to inform the media that the briefing had taken place, nor to discuss the substance of the meeting, in order to avoid "public panic" about the likelihood of an FMD outbreak and the impacts of the contingency plan." Cook said that he has been informed that emergency contingency plans for an outbreak of FMD would grant "what amounts to martial authority to state and federal agencies, including emergency waiver of such federal laws as the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act, among others." "The emergency waiver authority clearly contemplates potentially major impacts on wildlife and environmental quality," Cook wrote. Cook and the Environmental Working Group want Veneman to make its contingency plans public and seek input from other groups before taking any action. Although no cases of foot and mouth (FMD) disease have been found in the U.S., based on recent outbreaks in the European Union and South America, wildlife health officials have issued a wildlife health alert. The alert from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) advises natural resource and conservation managers that some wildlife species are susceptible to FMD. Foot and mouth disease could affect white tailed deer, other deer species, feral wild pigs, bison, moose, antelope, peccaries, musk ox, caribou, sheep and elk. USGS wildlife disease specialists are working with the USDA to develop outbreak prevention and containment strategies. The USGS Wildlife Health Alert is available at: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov =================================================================== Friday, 13 April, 2001 'Eco-terror' threat to US suburbia Nine fires have been set in the Phoenix area By the BBC's Tom Carver in Phoenix, Arizona Radical environmentalists are adopting increasingly extreme tactics in what they say is a battle to save America's desert landscapes from destruction. Within the last few months, dozens of luxury homes in states stretching from Oregon to Long Island have been torched in an attempt to stop suburban sprawl spreading into the desert. Such attacks have become increasingly common in Phoenix, Arizona. On the edge of the city, nine houses have been deliberately razed in the same area because they were encroaching on the mountain desert. Suburban sprawl Flying by helicopter over Phoenix gives you a good idea of the problem. The city covers nearly 500 square miles, and it's expanding every day. This being the American West, people in Phoenix still believe that land is basically limitless, and that you are entitled to as much of it as you can afford. They say the desert around Phoenix is being eaten up by housing at the rate of one acre an hour, and looking down on the city from above you can believe it. The original indigenous ecosystem of this desert has gone forever in many places. Huge swathes of topsoil are being ripped out and replaced by houses, and in some cases, fake desert - more human, acceptable desert with little waterfalls and gullies. 'No suitable habitat' "A couple years ago, none of this was here," said student Ray Lein-Neeler. Mr Lein-Neeler and Christian Rosendahl, two students, took me through one new development on the edge of the city. They support the arson attacks because the urban sprawl is forcing out the desert's original occupants. "As far as the bigger wildlife population - elk, deer, mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes - this is no longer suitable habitat for them," said Mr Lein-Neeler. He asks: "Where will these species go?" Suburban love affair But despite these concerns, most Americans are in love with the suburban way of life. Some 80,000 people move to Phoenix every year, and every one of them wants a detached family home with a carport and a garden. A proposition to limit new building in Phoenix failed to pass a referendum last year, forcing environmentalists like Christian Rosendahl to support more drastic measures. "In that sense, yeah, it was a failure. It was a window of time, an opportunity, to decide for the future, how far we want to grow," says Mr Rosendahl. No one has so far been arrested for the attacks, and the arsonists are nothing if not persistent. In one case, they left a message warning: "You build again we burn again". The owner did rebuild, and they returned to burn it down. 'No professionals' Bob Kahn of the task force investigating the fires says this is hardly the work of professionals. "There was some strategy just because of the nature of the homes and where the fires were started, but if you look at a house under construction in the desert with exposed wood, it's extremely vulnerable to fire," says Mr Kahn. He adds: "I wouldn't say that you have to be overly strategic or know about arson fires to do something like this." For the first time in their history, America's cities are starting to run out of space. So far, the attacks in Phoenix have done nothing to halt the suburban explosion - but they are forcing people to think about this new and growing problem. =================================================================== "Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children." -Kenyan Proverb ====================================================== "We cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that created them." -Albert Einstein ====================================================== "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders." -Edward Abbey ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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