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May 1, 2000, saw the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) at the International Environmental House in Geneva, Switzerland, by Mr. Delmar Blasco, Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands, and Mr. Nelson Andrade, Regional Coordinator for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Caribbean Environment Programme. This MOC is intended to help the Contracting Parties to the Conventions to identify and strengthen conservation of those sites of international importance that are relevant to both Conventions. The new MOC contains a "Statement of Work" which itemizes eight areas of intended cooperation and information sharing, all intended to assist in identifying potential wetlands for nomination as Ramsar sites or as protected areas under the SPAW Protocol, avoiding duplication of efforts and maximizing joint efforts where appropriate, and mutually supporting both Conventions amongst their Parties. A copy of the MOC can be viewed at http://ramsar.org/key_cartagena_moc.htm and the text of the Cartagena Convention and the SPAW Protocol can be seen at http://www.cep.unep.org/law/sub_law.htm .
May 31, 2000 saw the gathering of over 100 environment Ministers in Malmo, Sweden, for the first ever Global Ministerial Environment Forum. An action-oriented declaration was adopted which focuses on redressing the imbalances of extreme poverty and excessive consumption patterns. The Ministers declared that pervasive poverty in large parts of the world set against "excessive and wasteful consumption" in others, was "perpetuating the vicious circle of environmental degradation and increasing poverty". UNEP's executive director, Klaus Toepfer welcomed this emphasis, and said that unsustainable production and consumption patterns in developed countries combined with poverty in the developing world are "the two main global environmental threats facing the world today". The Malmo Declaration is intended to set the environmental agenda for the 21st Century, the Ministers said. The statement will be important in shaping the "Rio+10" Summit in 2002, at which Governments will review progress towards sustainable development ten years after the 1992 UN Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In a video message to the Forum’s opening session, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stressed that a major public education effort is needed because understanding of environmental challenges is "alarmingly low". Corporations and individuals must realize that their choices have consequences, he said. Annan called for "a new ethic of conservation and stewardship" and an end to "business as usual". He underscored the importance of enforcing existing agreements, and integrating environmental issues into mainstream economic policy.
It has been known for some time that the once enormous Eastern
Pacific populations of leatherbacks are dwindling. This was first reported by Scott Eckert
and Laura Sarti in the Marine Turtle Newsletter of 1997. However, based on documentation
of similar declines in the leatherback’s population at his study site in the Pacific
of Costa Rica, Jim Spotila is raising the possibility that the species will be extinct in
the Pacific basin in less than five years. Whether or not he is correct on the timing,
there is no question, that, if we do not stem the soaring mortality associated with
pelagic fisheries, especially gillnets, we cannot possibly secure the future of this
species, said Karen Eckert, Executive Director of WIDECAST.
The US State Department has certified 41 nations to export shrimp to the US market after finding that they meet requirements for protecting sea turtles. "Shrimp from other nations that may have been harvested in a manner harmful to sea turtles will be embargoed," said State Department spokesman James Rubin on April 27. Certification was granted to 16 nations that require their shrimpers to use
turtle excluder devices (TED’s) to prevent the accidental drowning of sea turtles in
shrimp trawl; US shrimpers are subject to the same requirement. The 16 nations meeting the
TED’s standard are Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Guyana, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Suriname, Thailand, Trinidad and
Tobago, and Venezuela, the Department said.
One of the Caribbean’s last jungles could soon echo to the sound of rocket launches. Guyana, has agreed to sell a large tract of pristine swampy rainforest to a Texan rocket-launch company, Beal Aerospace, for just US$7.50 a hectare. The deal, signed in May 2000, replaces Beal’s original plan to build its US$250 million launch pad on the Caribbean island of Sombrero in Anguilla, which angered environmental scientists (New Scientist, 12 February, p 22). Guyanese Prime Minister Samuel Hinds hailed the project as a "quantum leap for Guyana into the new millennium". On the other hand, critics say that the country will gain little economically, while rainforest dwellers will be thrown out of their homes, swamps drained, forests cut down and ancient archaeological remains trashed. Guyana is close to the equator, which is the best place to launch satellites into geostationary orbit above the equator. The European Space Agency’s spaceport is in nearby French Guiana. From Guyana, the launch route eastwards will be over open ocean in case of mishaps. Prime Minister Hinds calls the site "generally unproductive land never before comercially utilised". Documents supporting the sale agreement however, indicate that up to 54 families living there would have to be removed. Sharon Atkinson of the Amerindian Peoples’ Association in Guyana says many others will lose their right to hunt, fish and gather thatch and timber there. The launch area is part of the homeland of the Warao people, whose settlements date back 7000 years and are only now being excavated. "Building a rocket launch site will very probably destroy the archaeological record here before it has been fully explored", says Terry Roopnarine, a Guyanese anthropologist at the University of Cambridge. The World Monuments Fund in New York recently placed the area on its list of the hundred most endangered archaeological sites. The Vice-President of Beal, David Spoede responds to these concerns by saying that the project will only go ahead if an environmental impact assessment, which is about to start, proves acceptable to both sides. But he adds that drainage work would probably begin in six months, before completion of the assessment. Spoede, in speaking with New Scientist says "many Amerindians have backed the scheme, they want job opportunities for themselves and their children".
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On April 5, 2000, the Philadelphia municipal incinerator ash, which was illegally dumped in Haiti in 1988, was finally removed from Gonaives. On April 22, 2000, Earth Day, the ash was loaded onto a barge for secure temporary storage in the United States. At a later date the receivers of the ash will move it to a permanent storage place. This ash made world news in 1988 when the ship, Khian Sea, circled the ocean for 17 months in search of a country to accept their cargo. Haiti’s military regime in power at the time and headed by General Namphy, accepted the cargo in direct violation of the 1987 Haitian Constitution which prohibits the importation of hazardous waste. President Rene Preval demonstrated his commitment to the removal process by coordinating and partially financing its efforts. Early on an aggressive mobilization was waged on many fronts demanding nothing short of the removal of the alleged toxic ash back to the United States. On the international level, Greenpeace and Essential Action played key roles in advocating for the swift removal of the ash and locally COPEDHA, a coalition of several Haitian-based organizations, demanded justice for the people of Gonaives. Their combined efforts bore fruit recently culminating in victory with the completion of the removal process. The removal process took almost a year and required extensive
cooperation amoung many entities. The victory for environmental justice is a victory for
all poor nations struggling to protect their countries from becoming dumping grounds.
Though the US has designated 12 marine sanctuaries in fragile
coastal waters, regulations still allow dredging and fishing. However, the proposition of
a no-take zone in Florida could change things.
In May 2000, the 2000 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) met to appraise the progress achieved in the field of nuclear non-proliferation since the 1995 Review Conference, and to identify the areas where future efforts should be made. Among the statements made at the meeting, Patricia Durrant
(Jamaica), speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states, said
that countries in her region had repeatedly expressed their concern regarding the safety
and environmental risks to which coastal States were exposed by the practice of shipping
nuclear waste through the Caribbean Sea. The current meeting was thus an appropriate forum
in which to address that matter squarely, since previous efforts had been inadequate.
While the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Code of Practice had been made
binding, it did not provide for the protection of en route coastal States. Those countries
therefore bore the risk of accidents with no legal recourse for compensation. Moreover,
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had yet to respond to the request of en
route States for protection against the risks associated with maritime nuclear transport. The CARICOM States proposed to introduce, for consideration in Committee III of the Conference, a working paper to be discussed under the question of the production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, as addressed by Article IV of the Treaty. That paper would call for the early establishment of a comprehensive international regime for the protection of the population and marine environment of en route coastal States from shipments of nuclear material.
The CEP is in support of the call of the Association of Reef
Keepers (ARK) in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) for urgent and effective mitigation to
avoid continuing environmental damage from the Beef Island Airport extension. The concerns
expressed by ARK relate to the improper handling of environmental issues during the
ongoing Beef Island Airport Development. ARK stated that "although the early stages of the terminal extension were to be completed prior to the commencement of the hurricane season, five recent storms have caused extensive sediment pollution". ARK went on to say that "run-off water from the terminal extension work had caused repeated and severe sedimentation events in adjacent sensitive coastal environments". This "avoidable damage", states ARK, "has resulted from a history of inaction and ad hoc measures on the part of the client, contractors, the Airport Development Engineer, the BVI Development Planning Unit and the UK Government department which funded the Environmental Impact Assessment (Department for International Development, DFID)". ARK concludes that "there appear to have been shortfalls in various aspects of the design accepted by the client, and a resulting failure to make clear who is responsible for funding to overcome problems". ARK calls for assurances that strict environmental controls specified in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are adhered to from inception during subsequent development phases. For further information , please visit the ARK website at http://ark.the-caribbean.com .
A report by Ken Balcomb and Diane Claridge of the Bahamas Marine Mammal Survey, Sandy Point, Abaco, notes that at least fifteen whales and a dolphin were found stranded on March 15, 2000 in the northern Bahamas. The report noted the coincidence of naval manoevers around the time of the mass strandings, but evidence of cause and effect has been elusive. Concern has been raised about the potential effects of military operations on beaked whale behaviour and physiology, with particular reference to the coincidence of their mass stranding concurrent with or following naval manoevers. Commenting on the recent strandings in the Bahamas, the US Navy has reported that the coincident naval activities involved an east-to-west transit of US and foreign warships through the Northeast and Northwest Providence Channel, when and where most of the whales were stranded. The US Navy went on to state that "several of the transiting warships used standard, hull mounted tactical sonar operating within normal mid-range frequencies, power outputs and duty cycles(Pirie, Itr 9 June 2000)". Two minke whales and thirteen beaked whales live stranded along shores of the Northwest Providence Channel on or shortly after March 15, 2000, coincident with the aforementioned naval transit. Balcomb and Claridge quickly responded and reported on the whale and dolphin strandings in the Bahama Islands because of the catastrophic multi-species nature of the stranding event. "Something was causing these animals to flee from their natural habitat", said Balcomb and Claridge, "we considered it possible that the only evidence available would be behavioural, but fortunately we were able to obtain and save fresh specimens". Their report indicated that many factors were considered with the concensus that there must have been an enormous acoustic event or series of events of some kind that triggered the behavioural flight response. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the Navy came to the same conclusion based on the biological results of the specimen examination which indicated that the injuries were all consistent with an intense acoustic or pressure event. Balcomb and Claridge went on to say that "it is important to emphasize that grossly the animals appeared healthy, but disoriented". For further information, please contact:Ken Balcomb and Diane Claridge Bahamas Marine Mammal Survey Sandy Point, Abaco Bahamas. |
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