Earth Island Journal articles from March 1997

Earth Island Journal archives from March 1997

Tuna, drugs and Mexico.
March 22, 1997... When Earth Island filed suit to block the import of "dolphin unsafe" tuna, we had no idea that this would put us at odds with Central America's cocaine and heroin traffickers ["Tuna, Free Trade and Cocaine," Summer '96 EIJ]. Recently, a respected...

Reunite the Taiji orca pod!
March 22, 1997... Japan -- On February 7, the Taiji fishing collective captured a family of 10 orca whales and confined them in Hatajiri Bay on Japan's southeast coast. Within 48 hours, Japanese aquarium/entertainment parks had bought five of them for $250,000...

Trade snarls turtle protection.
March 22, 1997... Less than a year after the turtle-saving ruling of the US Court of International Trade (CIT) went into effect [Summer '96 EIJ], 17 nations have passed laws that require shrimp fleets fishing in their waters to use turtle-excluder devices (TEDs)....

The wisdom of Tibetan medicine.
March 22, 1997... Kathmandu -- Our Royal Nepal Airlines helicopter swept low over the bright green rice fields of the Himalayan foothills and entered the Kali Gandaki River gorge -- the deepest in the world where it bisects the Annapurna and Dhauligiri mountain...

Two strokes and you're out. (air pollution from pleasure craft caused by two-stroke engines)
March 22, 1997... Clogging the nation's waterways like cars during rush hour, more than 12 million motorized marine craft are operating at closer quarters than ever before, causing flared tempers, thousands of collisions, unprecedented injuries and deaths -- and,...

Let the Colorado River run free.
March 22, 1997... Most of the free-flowing rivers in the Western states have gone the way of the bison, tall grass prairie, condor and wolf -- exterminated on the path of progress. Along the Colorado River basin -- ranging through Colorado, Utah, and Arizona -- no...

US mine gouges for gold.
March 22, 1997... Timika, Indonesia -- The world's biggest gold mine is a lucrative investment for New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. The 5.75-million-acre mining concession is worth an estimated $50-60 billion, and, last year alone, the company...

The death of the oil economy.
March 22, 1997... Australia -- A new report on world oil resources, World Oil Supply 1930-2050 (Campbell and Laherre, Petroconsultants Pty. Ltd., 1995), concludes that the planet's oil supplies will be exhausted much sooner than previously thought. The...

Buick does Beijing. (increase of car population in China)
March 22, 1997... In the 1950s, only 50 million cars roamed the planet. Today there are 500 million cars end, 25 years from now, the number of cars could swell to 1 billion. According to World Watch magazine, the car population is increasing five times more...

The world's least-polluting cars.
March 22, 1997... According to the February/March issue of Ethical Consumer [EC, ECRA Publishing Ltd., No. 21, 41 Old Birley St., Manchester M15 5RF, UK, (44) 0161 226-2929, fax: -6277 ethicon@mcr1.poptel.org.uk], about 25 percent of an automobile's overall...

The Trans-Israel Highway.
March 22, 1997... Israel -- This country is making formative transportation planning decisions 30 years later than most developed countries. The time lag could prove a unique opportunity for Israel to leapfrog inefficient road-based transportation technologies...

Peregrines in peril.(Cover Story)
March 22, 1997... This article, part of the Journal's continuing "censored stories" series, originally was commissioned by a major US wildlife magazine. According to the author, the magazine killed the story "when I refused to modify the text to make it sound like...

Rekindling the arms race.
March 22, 1997... Livermore, CA -- Remember the end of the Cold War? The "Peace Dividend"? The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty? These supposedly were signals that the arms race was a thing of the past, that real nuclear disarmament was underway. But just when...

Take the rich off welfare.
March 22, 1997... Wealthfare -- the money we hand out to corporations and wealthy individuals -- costs us at least $448 billion a year. Wealthfare for the rich costs us about 3.5 times as much as the $130 billion we spend each year in welfare for the poor -- an...

The politics of hunger.
March 22, 1997... Rome -- In 1974, the United Nations' first World Food Summit in Rome declared its intention to wipe out starvation within a decade. Twenty-three years later, the world is populated by 840 million chronically undernourished individuals. Last...

The Women's Day on Food.
March 22, 1997... Rome -- Food security is not only a problem in the South, it also is a problem in the North. When the Nongovernmental Organization's (NGO) Forum (a grassroots conference held concurrently with the World Food Summit) started, there was no food to...

Green protectionism.
March 22, 1997... Over the past decade, European and North American Greens have worked to create international legal mechanisms to impose economic sanctions on countries that destroy the environment or violate basic human rights. But while green...