Alternatives Journal articles from September 2002

Alternatives Journal archives from September 2002

Environmental baggage. (Editorial).(Travel industry.)(Editorial)
September 22, 2002... Your bags are packed and waiting at the door. Months of planning, preparation and anticipation and you're finally embarking on "the big trip." We have all been tourists, whether we travel to far corners of the earth or just a few kilometres to...

Sovereignists start food fight. (Notes).(World Food Summit.)
September 22, 2002... While world leaders gathered in Rome in June for the second World Food Summit, civil society organizations (OSOs) held their own counter-summit where they proclaimed a right to food sovereignty. "Food sovereignty is the right of peoples,...

Hydro-Quebec endangers more rivers. (Notes).
September 22, 2002... Three Quebec rivers are among the ten most endangered in Canada, according to the Endangered Rivers 2002 Report. The report, issued by BC environmental group Earthwild, ties Quebec's Rupert and Kipawa Rivers at first place. The SL Lawrence...

Greenpeace labels Loblaw. (Notes).
September 22, 2002... Commercial interests are interfering with Canadians' right to know what they eat, according to Greenpeace Canada. Greenpeace is campaigning for Loblaw Co. Ltd., Canada's largest food retailer, to lead the way in removing genetically...

Barrick Gold undermining wetland. (Notes).
September 22, 2002... Australian environmental and aboriginal groups are calling on a Canadian mining company to stop mine exploration and development in a valued wetland area. Barrick Gold is hoping to develop a cyanide leach gold mine on the shores of Lake...

On our watch: whether it's counting spring peepers or collecting seeds from oak savanna patches, citizen stewardship is on the rise. (Reports).(conservation volunteers)
September 22, 2002... Stewardship culture is growing as more people harness their volunteer energies to sustain and restore the environment for future generations. Outfitted with backpacks, field guides, binoculars and hand tools, conservation volunteers are...

Low salt diet: new findings reveal road salt's toxicity.
September 22, 2002... Doctors recommend low-salt diets to their patients. Now scientists and environmentalists want the same for plants and wildlife in Canada. Road salt has negative and sometimes deadly consequences for everything from trees and algae to fish...

North wind: Nunavut and Yukon are hoping wind turbines will reduce dependency on diesel plants.
September 22, 2002... The reverberating hum of a diesel plant generating electrical power is a familiar sound to many who have spent time in remote, northern Canadian communities. Less familiar is the sight of wind turbines spinning. But renewable energy...

Sun over Lesotho: solar power project brings new opportunities to Mohaleshoek.
September 22, 2002... Clean, renewable, low-cost energy has come to Mohaleshoek. In March, residents of this Lesotho town celebrated the official opening of the newly built Solarsoft Centre with songs and a traditional praise speech. The Solarsoft Centre was...

Genetic illusions. (Political Science).
September 22, 2002... Genetic engineering has always involved a leap of faith. After years of snipping and injecting DNA, its proponents still talk more of "promise" and "potential" than of real benefits for consumers or farmers. But in June 2002, The Globe and Mail...

Your lawn, our health: in upholding Hudson's no-spray by-law, the Supreme Court of Canada has advanced environmental rights into the previously inaccessible territory of private property. (Stir It Up).
September 22, 2002... Greenies tend to think of lawns as sterile monocultures. They turn out to be political jungles. Lawns occupy a special place in the centuries-old battle over private property, first emerging when English manor houses enclosed common...

Roadkill buffet: an innovative feeding program helps defuse conflict between grizzly bears and ranchers in Alberta.
September 22, 2002... May 14, 2001, 6:02 am Just over a kilometre south of my warm bed, a 250-kg male feeds on two dead moose delivered by the taxpayers of Alberta. A kilometre and a half to the east, a herd of 64 beef cows snuffle in the remains of yesterday's hay...

Gorilla tourism: Uganda uses tourism to recover from decades of violent conflict.
September 22, 2002... More than three years after the murder of eight foreign tourists, kidnapped while on tour of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southwest Uganda, the country is finally, albeit slowly and rather tenuously, experiencing a rebound in...

Left in its wake: the cruise industry favours a voluntary approach to environmental responsibility, but has performed badly where tough regulatory controls are not in place.
September 22, 2002... * Middle of a transatlantic cruise aboard Seabourn Goddess I, October 2000: Passengers flock to watch and take pictures of a florescent green fluid coming from the back of the ship. The chief engineer tells passengers that it is a chemical used...

Ancestral homes: indigenous peoples are pushing for tourism alternatives that respect community, culture and the land.
September 22, 2002... With the UN's declaration of 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism (IYE), debates over the role of tourism as a tool for "sustainable development" have gained new urgency. Often described as a novel method to unite nature conservation...

Scrubbing the greenwashers: certification and education may help separate the eco-experience from the eco-hype.
September 22, 2002... "Return to Nature," says the travel agent; "Discover a Better Way to Travel," beckons the glossy brochure; "Come Back Green," promises the magazine advertisement. If this sounds more like laundry detergent marketing hype to you and less like...

Cottaging: a tourist takes a vacation from responsibility; the cottager makes a commitment to place.
September 22, 2002... A motorboat leaves the dock in Sicamous, BC, heading across Shuswap Lake to a family's summer cabin, the children squealing with every slap of the boat's underside as it skips across the chop. Beads of sweat drip down a woman's face as she...

The new gold rush: Yukon's challenge is to preserve its identity and environment while welcoming more tourists.
September 22, 2002... Tourism historian and professor Hal Rothman has studied tourist meccas throughout North America. Last winter he told an audience of tourism planners in Whitehorse that they should actively plan for the changes to come. Tourism is already...

Destruction in disguise: international tourism projects in the Mekong River Basin are a model unsustainable development.
September 22, 2002... THE AMBITIOUS PLAN of the governments of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand to build a huge golf resort in a pristine forest area where the three countries meet has elicited a heated debate about the way tourism is being developed in the region. (1)...

Tourists and locals: the people of Mazatlan, Mexico, have many reasons for welcoming visitors .
September 22, 2002... In 1996, I moved to Mazatlan to perform ethnographic fieldwork. (1) Mazatlan is a city on Mexico's Pacific coast, whose more than 300,000 people live mainly from the intertwined industries of tourism, fishing, government work and narcotics...

Canadian environmental tourism programs: for those considering studies that go beyond hospitality to explore the environmental and social aspects of tourism. (Directory).(Directory)
September 22, 2002... BRITISH COLUMBIA Malaspina University College Faculty of Social Sciences and Management, department of Recreation and Tourism Management; degrees offered: B Recreation and Tourism Management (2yr, 4yr). The two year program emphasizes...

Inflight impact: one long flight can blow your annual [CO.sub.2] budget.(inflight meal services, luggage allowances increases fuel consumption)
September 22, 2002... On one flight from Toronto to Paris, the captain gave more than the usual details to the passengers about the aircraft and flight: he proudly announced that the amount of fuel used to travel 5000 km was the equivalent to what the average family...

Canadian undergraduate environmental studies programs. (Alternatives Directory).(Directory)
September 22, 2002... Alternatives Journal is pleased to present our fourth annual directory of Canadian undergraduate programs in environmental studies. Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of environmental studies, many of the programs listed are combined...

Nuclear landscape. (Reviews).(Book Review)
September 22, 2002... The Last Cheater's Waltz: Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest, Ellen Meloy, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999. Ellen Meloy is one of the lesser-known members of a pantheon of writers about the American southwest whose work...

Slick business. (Reviews).(Book Review)
September 22, 2002... Petrotyranny, John Bacher, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2000. Petrotyranny is a prescient analysis of the global oil establishment and its implications for us all. Bacher's treatment combines, in a reader-friendly style, the rigour of scholarly...

Zoo check Canada. (Hot Green Web Sites).(www.zoocheck.com)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2002... www.zoocheck.com This captivating Web site highlights the plight of zoo animals whose lives are spent behind bars. How can you help? Read up on lobbying techniques or write to one of the zoos featured on the Web site. Reports such as...

The mining news. (Hot Green Web Sites).(www.globalminingcampaign.org/theminingnews.html)
September 22, 2002... www.globalminingcampaign.org/theminingnews.html. If you've dug around for a good Web site on mining but had difficulty uncovering anything, you are sure to hit pay dirt with this site. With news on mining's impacts the world over, the site...

Ocean Voice International. (Hot Green Web Sites).(www.ovi.ca)(Information Service Review)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2002... www.ovi.ca Drowning in the virtual sea of Web sites? Welcome to the warm, navigable waters of OVI. This non-profit, membership-based environmental organization is "dedicated to the harmony of humankind, the sea and its life." The blue hues...

Green Biz. (Hot Green Web Sites).(www.greenbiz.com)
September 22, 2002... www.greenbiz.com Whip out those Palm Pilots and schedule in some time to visit this online "resource center on business, the environment and the bottom line." Read positive news stories highlighting businesses that are taking the...

The Citizen's Handbook. (Hot Green Web Sites) .(Book Review)
September 22, 2002... www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook Take things into your own hands with the Citizen's Handbook, intended to encourage "the emergence of more active citizens." The guidelines were developed with Vancouver in mind, but the examples will be...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2002... Beyond Vegetarians I was delighted to read Wayne Robert's article, "Green Eggs and Ham" and the letters in response. I note how much the debate has changed, at least in your magazine. None of the polemic or vitriol of earlier days....

Necrotourista. (Brain Mulch).(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2002... Despite the name, Love Canal is not popular with honeymooners. The Sydney Tar Ponds didn't get the Olympics. And not even a casino could help Chernobyl up its tourism revenue. Generally these communities have the stigma of not being a nice...