Earth Island Journal articles from September 1999

Earth Island Journal archives from September 1999

Dear Journal.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 1999... REIbuttal It's most disappointing to read Brooke Coleman's attack on REI in the Summer '99 issue of the Journal. I hope you'll share REI's statement on this matter with the same vigor Mr. Coleman pursued in criticizing REI. I had called...

Positive Notes.(environmental activism)
September 22, 1999... lambs, rats, crickets and snails of God Christian and secular activists have filed a joint lawsuit against the US Fish and Wildlife Service in defense of seven endangered species: the Alameda whipsnake, the Zayante band-winged grasshopper, the...

Bio Watch.
September 22, 1999... Seals of approval Southampton College seal surveyors estimate that over 6,000 seats live in the waters of New York's Long Island, the highest local total in two decades. The survey covered Long Island Sound, the island's eastern bays, Peconic...

Global Marketplace.
September 22, 1999... Experts speak on G-7 summit The Institute for Public Accuracy spoke with antiglobalization activists, in attendance at this summer's G-7 Summit in Koln, Germany, about global trade and global debt. Njoki Njoroge Njehu, Director of the 50 Years...

Earth Island in the news.
September 22, 1999... No more gas in your glass This Spring, under heavy pressure from Bluewater Network and other anti-MTBE groups, California Governor Gray Davis issued an executive order to phase out the toxic gas additive MTBE in California. Soon thereafter,...

Bluewater sparks snowmobile debate.
September 22, 1999... In January, 1998, Bluewater Network sent a petition signed by 60 organizations to the National Park Service (NPS). The petition urges NPS to ban snowmobiles throughout the park system, based on their effects on air and water quality, wildlife,...

En la kech!(training youth to explore wilderness)(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT), a new Earth Island project, has a simple mission: Provide Bay Area youth service agencies with professional wilderness-leadership training and quality outdoor equipment, so adults can safely lead youth in...

Free Corky!(Sea World whale held in captivity)(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... The wind came up early and brew hard at Marina Green along San Francisco Bay May 22, as members of the Free Corky Banner Caravan [aid out the world's longest banner, more than a mite long. It was made of patches, mostly by kids, supporting...

Asia's marine mammals.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Since 1992, the International Monitoring Program (IMP) in the Philippines has been monitoring all tuna canneries within its territory, and all Philippine tuna canners have adopted a dolphin-safe corporate policy. All local large-scale tuna...

Dolphin-Safe label gutted.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Earth Island Institute has strongly denounced the recent decision by Commerce Secretary William Daley to weaken the standards for the "Dolphin Safe" label on American tuna cans. The "Dolphin Safe" label, before his decision, could not be...

IMMP Goes to Japan.(International Marine Mammal Project)(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Dr. Paul Spong of Orcalab, Canada, and I spent 10 days in February touring Japan for whale and dolphin conservation. The Whale and Dolphin Action Network and Free Orca Society invited us, and the wildlife and captive animal protection group...

International Whaling Commission report.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... We'd hoped it would be with a bang, but the 51st meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), in Grenada, wrapped up with a whimper. We'd hoped that some stalwart nation was going to make a clear statement condemning the Makah gray...

Global warming is here!(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... A worldwide wave of extreme weather inflicted at least $90 billion in damage in 1998, more than in the entire 1980s. Last year was also the hottest on record. While no single weather event or year proves humans are warming the planet, a...

The foundations dilemma.(financing environmentalism)
September 22, 1999... The financial assets of America's foundations have ballooned in recent ears as the stock market has soared. From this new bounty, grant-making foundations distributed over $19.4 billion to nonprofit groups last year, a 22 percent increase over...

Ecotourism and ethics.
September 22, 1999... Seeking nature and unfamiliar cultures, tourists are visiting the world's most remote corners in record numbers. No other segment of the tourism trade is growing as robustly as ecotourism. According to the World Resources Institute, while...

Fluoride update.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... Dr. Hardy Limeback, D.D.S., Ph.D., Head of Preventive Dentistry at the University of Toronto and a spokesperson for the Canadian Dental Association for over 12 years, has announced that he no longer supports fluoridation of drinking water....

Aluminum's hidden costs.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... The Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has run a stripmine and lignitefueled aluminum smelter in Rockdale, Texas since 1952. Alcoa employs some 1,200 workers: about 200 in the mine, the rest at the smelter. ...

Environmental tragedy in Vieques.(Puerto Rico)(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... The civil disobedience campaign against the United States military's presence in the island-town of Vieques, Puerto Rico continues in full force after almost two months. The US Navy has occupied most of Vieques since 1941 and has been...

Climate change harms ocean life.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... A report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Marine Conservation Biology Institute (MCBI) finds rising global temperatures affecting ocean ecosystems far more than previously acknowledged. From the tropics to the poles, wide-spread changes in...

Asian birds in trouble.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... As spring arrives in the highlands of southwest China, and the remaining flocks of Oriental white storks and black-necked cranes depart for their breeding grounds in southern Russia and in Tibet, a sad question domes to mind. Will any of these...

Dance with the Spoonbill.
September 22, 1999... Wearing masks of the faces of lack-faced spoonbills (Platalea minor), Spoonbill Action Voluntary Echo (SAVE) members and graduate students of University of California at Berkeley performed the Spoonbill Dance in front of the Taipei Central Rail...

Wetlands in Japan and Korea.
September 22, 1999... What is it about tidal flats? Seemingly mere expanses of inaccessible mud, they lack the immediate appeal of gorgeous coral reefs or stately primeval forests. Nonetheless, they rival these ecosystems in biodiversity and often exceed them in...

Oil in the Russian Pacific.
September 22, 1999... While the diplomats and soldiers sort out the situation in Kosovo, another battle rages on the other side of Eurasia. It is here, on the seemingly insignificant island of Sakhalin, that a handful of environmentalists vie with some of the...

Bakun Dam: the phantom menace.
September 22, 1999... A young Kayan man named Jok paused as he made another trip up the steep riverbank to the village. The tropical morning air was loud with cicadas, and sweat rolled down his forehead. A steady stream of men, women, and children moving all types...

Oil palms and Sarawak's forests.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... The rainforests of Southeast Asia face a new threat: palm oil plantations. Instead of lush, diverse forest, identical rows of palm trees run for miles in all directions. In Malaysia, already the largest palm oil supplier in the world,...

Forest reform in India.
September 22, 1999... "There were sal forests before. The sal did not prove as economically beneficial so they [foresters] thought, "Let's cut them and plant others which will be more useful." They felled the sal and planted cashews. This [planting of cashews] was...

Recipe for Extinction.
September 22, 1999... It begins with the blue waters of the sea. Then a touch of black breaks the surface, and then, slipping in with the waves, countless olive ridley sea turtles appear. First dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands return...

Logging on top of the world.
September 22, 1999... Disastrous flooding last year in the watershed of the Yangtze River sparked the government of the People's Republic of China to propose, last August, revolutionary new forestry policies to forestall more such disasters. Environmentalists in...

The nature of Israel.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... When a Jewish person chooses to move to Israel, that returning is called "to make aliyah," "to ascend." Coming into Jerusalem by bus is an literal ascent: The Holy City is perched on a hill, its surrounding cliffs covered in apartment...

Kobe quake victims still displaced.(Brief Article)
September 22, 1999... On January 17, 1995, in the wake of the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, 300 quake victims fled to a park in downtown Kobe, Japan and began living in large Japanese Self-Defense Force tents. When the Kobe city government began to relocate them to...

In Memoriam Cindy Duehring.(Obituary)
September 22, 1999... In our Spring 1998 issue we included an article by Cindy Duehring, a woman who had been severely injured by pesticide poisoning, and who was a 1997 recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. On June 29, Cindy died of complications of Multiple...

EARTH ISLAND INSTITUTE 1998 1999 ANNUAL REPORT.
September 22, 1999... 1998 * 1999 ANNUAL * REPORT IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE to serve as President of Earth Island Institute through another inspiring and productive year. Looking back, it has been a year of great accomplishments. Our Founder and Chair, David...