Turtles Winning Race (to Extinction)
Indonesia -- The drive for short-term profits is triumphing over domestic and undermining international laws and campaigns to save the wild turtle, according to Indonesia's State Ministry of Environment.

Local governments raise thousands of dollars by auctioning turtle habitats to people who harvest turtles and their eggs for exotic foods, traditional medicines, religious rituals, and tourist souvenirs. Some 2 million turtle eggs are taken from the Derawan Islands alone, and experts have observed declining egg production for the last few years.

The six species of turtles found in Indonesia are protected under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), which Indonesia ratified in 1978. At the current rate of exploitation, the Indonesian turtle population will be depleted in 20 to 30 years, according to the New Zealand-based World Wide Fund for Nature.

The Great White Nope
Kenya -- Speaking of CITES, the United Nations voted against a proposal in April that would have protected the Great White and other large sharks, which are in danger of being overhunted. The sharks are prized for their fins and jaws, which sell for as much as $15,000 and $50,000, respectively.

Shark fishers usually throw the rest of the shark back into the ocean. The US, Britain, and Australia won majority support for regulating the international shark trade at a 150-nation conference in Nairobi, but could not overcome the resistance of a relatively small group of countries that either have big fishing industries or consider shark parts a delicacy.

Opponents of the protection measures argued that it would be difficult to avoid catching specific species of shark and that such efforts are premature given that none of the sharks is yet threatened by extinction.

An Offer They Could Refuse
Italy -- The Italian city of Genoa voted overwhelmingly in May to ban the cultivation and marketing of genetically modified (GM) crops on land under its jurisdiction, citing concerns over possible health and environmental risks. The vote preceded a three-day international conference on plant biotechnology, and agricultural and healthcare issues.

Italy's Agriculture Minister, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, is a member of the Green party and he opposes GM foods and experimentation with GM crops in open fields.

Back from the Dead
Hong Kong -- Scientists estimate that 15 percent of the world's reefs -- which are living organisms that play a critical role in the ocean ecosystem -- died off in 1998 due to climate changes and overfishing. According to the group Reef Check, one-third of the world's damaged reefs made a partial comeback in 1999, thanks to lower water temperatures and increased protection in aquatic parks. Overall, however, reefs are still in threatened, the group says. For more information, visit www.reefcheck.org.

"Go/No Go" for the Bonobo
Japan -- Another species threatened by human predation is the bonobo, a cousin of the chimpanzee that is believed to be the primate most closely related to humans.

Researchers believe there may be only 10,000 bonobos left in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). The bonobos have fallen victim to poaching while the government is preoccupied by a civil war, and the resulting economic collapse is forcing people to kill bonobos and other wildlife for food.

Some of the world's leading primatologists have teamed up with local wildlife preservation volunteers to launch a fundraising drive to protect the remaining bonobos. For more information, visit the Bonobo Protection Fund website at www.gsu.edu/~wwwbpf/bpf/.

Frankenspuds Aren't Seoul Food
Korea -- The South Korean Ministry of Agriculture announced in April that genetically modified (GM) potatoes must be labeled starting in March 2002. Selling GM foods with improper labeling could result in a maximum three-year prison sentence or $26,000 fine.

The ministry had previously introduced similar rules for GM corn, soybeans, and bean sprouts, which must be labeled by March 2001. Produce containing less than 3 percent GM organisms would be considered "GM-free" and would not require labels. Korean officials indicated, however, that emerging international trends and food inspection technologies may lead them to lower the GM-free cut-off point to one percent in the future.

Can You Dig It?
UK -- A farmer in England decided to dig up his crop after discovering that the some of the seeds he had sown were genetically modified. His shipment of supposedly natural spring oilseed rape variety (Hyola 38) from the US-based Advanta Corporation was accidentally contaminated with as much as one percent GM seeds.

"This is a brave action by an individual farmer facing company pressure and government indifference," said Peter Riley of Friends of the Earth/UK [Contact info]. "The government has a duty to see that all contaminated crops are removed from the ground at once, and that farmers are properly compensated for any losses they suffer."

By contrast, the Swedish government moved vigorously to ensure that the contaminated Advanta seeds were quickly removed from farmlands in Sweden. Major British supermarkets have said they will not take produce from plants grown from GM seeds.

Test Tube Trees
US -- Several forsty activist groups have announced a campaign to oppose genetically engineered trees. At a joint-press conference on April 13 in Washington, DC, the Rainforest Action Network, ACERCA (Action for Community and Ecology) and Native Forest Network [(802) 863-0571], warned that "Frankentrees" would threaten biodiversity and extend the growing dominance of a few large chemical and biotech companies -- including Monsanto, ForBio, and International Paper. Fletcher Challenge Forests, GenFor, Canada Interlink, Silvagen, Shell, Toyota and the Chilean Development Agency are also involved in GM tree research projects.

Against the backdrop of April's demonstrations against the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, the "Biodevastation 2000" coalition noted that free-trade agreements can prevent countries from taking action against domestic or foreign corporations that clear-cut native forests and replace them with plantations of "test-tube trees."

"We are at a crossroads," said ACERCA's Oren Langelle who warned that the world is facing "the threat of a future where all life, trees, animals, food and even humans are engineered to maximize the profits of a few transnational corporations."

Archie's Forests
US -- Sierra Pacific Industries, a California-based timber company that is the second-largest private landowner in the US, plans to clear-cut much of its 1.52 million acres and replace it with so-called tree "plantations."

The company has practiced selective logging on much of its holdings, which stretch more than 350 miles from Mount Shasta to Yosemite National Park. Company officials said that selective logging had emptied the forests of good timber, and that they had no choice but to cut down the rest and start over.

California forestry official Louis Blumberg claims that Sierra Pacific boosted its rate of clear-cutting 156 percent from 1998 to 1999, but he defended the practice. "With clear-cutting, the impact happens once and the land recovers. With selective cutting, you keep going back and back."

Plantation logging maximizes timber production by planting genetically-modified trees, spacing them precisely, and applying herbicides to reduce competition. Forbes magazine lists Sierra Pacific owner Archie Emmerson as one of the 200 wealthiest Americans.

Calling All Tooth Fairies
Canada -- The Tooth Fairy Project collects baby teeth to test for traces of Strontium-90, a radioactive element emitted from nuclear facilities during accidents and government-sanctioned releases. Mothers transfer the deadly element during pregnancy to their children, who store it in their bones and teeth.

In July 1999, the Project reported higher levels of Strontium-90 in children living downwind from nuclear reactors. They also found higher-than-average levels of rare childhood bone cancers and breast cancer in the same areas. The Tooth Fairy Project, which is part of the Radiation and Health Project [www.radiation.org], hopes to collect 10,000 baby teeth in the next two years.

Now We're Cooking with Gas
UK -- A man-made greenhouse gas much stronger and longer-lasting than carbon dioxide is becoming more prevalent.

The gas, known as SF5CF3 (trifluoromethylsulphur pentafluoride), is found mostly in the upper atmosphere between 5 and 20 miles high, where it traps heat radiating from the Earth's surface.

In the last 30 years, the trace amounts of SF5CF3 found in snow have increased rapidly. Scientists aren't sure where it's coming from, but think it may be a by-product of some kind of industrial production.

"Most of the important greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide -- occur naturally," says Vincent Gauci of the Department of Earth Sciences at Britain's Open University. "However, this new molecule is unnatural and seems to be extremely stable, so the atmosphere has a hard time breaking it down. [T]he fact that it has such a long lifetime means that, unless its production is prevented, it will continue to accumulate."

Stop the Madness
US -- The Center for Food Safety and other public health advocates have asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to close loopholes in animal feed regulations that are allowing the spread of a "Mad Cow"-type disease in deer and elk that can be transmitted to people.

The fatal "chronic wasting disease" is already epidemic among deer, elk, and sheep, whose meat can legally be used to make pet food and feed supplements for farm-raised pigs, chickens, and cows. The meat from those animals can produce Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human version of Mad Cow disease that has already killed 56 people in Britain. Last year, two US deer hunters died of CJD after eating venison that may have been contaminated.

No Dopes When It Comes to Hemp
US -- North Dakota has become the first US state to re-legalize the cultivation of hemp, which was one of the nation's largest and most widely used crops for hundreds of years until it was outlawed in 1937.

Hemp is the same plant as marijuana, but it contains only minute quantities of tetrahydrocanabinol (THC), the chemical that causes marijuana's mellowing effect.

Republican Governor Ed Schafer signed a bill in May that allows licensed farmers to legally "plant, grow, harvest, possess, sell, and buy industrial hemp" with no more than .3 percent THC.

Rice to the Bottom
Geneva -- Attempts by transnational agribusiness interests to promote the adoption of "hybrid rice" are under attack in Asia, reports Someshwar Singh of Third World Network Features.

A report by Devlin Kuyek, Hybrid Rice: An Unfolding Threat, charges that "hybrid rice is not about feeding people. Rather, it is about creating a corporate-controlled rice-seed industry leaving farmers dependent on bought seed and expensive pesticide inputs."

The promotion of hybrid rice is seen as a springboard for the introduction of genetically engineered crops. (Large transnational corporations control 40 percent of all plant biotechnology patents.) According to the International Rice Research Institute, the hybrid rice seeds will cost 15 times more than conventional seeds.

Elephants Shrinking (in Numbers)
New Delhi -- India's wild elephants are threatened with extinction from poaching, loss of habitat, and abuse at the hands of humans. Maneka Gandhi, India's Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment and head of India's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said that there are now fewer than 800 adult male elephants left in the country. Animal rights activist Iqbal Malik said that poachers are killing ten percent of India's remaining pachyderms each year in order to sell their tusks on the underground ivory market.

The Nitrogen Threat
Kenya -- "Half of all nitrogen applied to plants in the form of fertilizers is lost to the air or dissolved in water," UNEP's GEO-2000 report noted. "We are fertilizing the Earth on a global scale and in a largely uncontrolled experiment." Nitrogen accounts for six percent of the greenhouse effect and prompts algal blooms that kill aquatic life. In addition, "nitrogen run-off from fertilizers can lead to brain damage in children."