World's Plants in Danger
GENEVA - One in eight of the Earth's plant species is threatened with extinction. In a comprehensive 20-year assessment by world botanists, nearly 34,000 plant species have been added to the World Conservation Union's growing Red List of imperiled organisms. Among the plants most at risk are roses, with 14 percent of the family's member species in danger, lilies (32 percent), irises (32 percent), and palms (29 percent). Conifers and island plant species are also especially vulnerable. The census is a first, rough approximation. The one-in- eight figure is probably an underestimate, as data are fragmentary from species- rich tropical nations where the countryside is being rapidly cleared. The situation in the US looks comparatively grim because plants are more thoroughly surveyed here than elsewhere. With 4,669 species at risk, the US ranked first in the world in total number of plants at risk - 29 percent of 16,108 plant species.

Are Seed Banks Running a Deficit?
GERMANY - The institutions entrusted with preserving genetic diversity of plant populations in seed banks may be mishandling their collections, resulting in loss of genetic information. Researchers at Germany's University of Hohenheim have found that stocks of heirloom oats and spelt (an ancient form of wheat) have been "contaminated" with genetic material from newer crop varieties. The contamination most likely occured during regrowing of the crop varieties, a practice necessary to maintain seed collections in viable condition.

Whale Oil
RUSSIA - As gray whales face new threats along the Baja California coast (see story on page 39), their more rare cousins in the western Pacific are being placed in peril by a consortium of Japanese and western oil companies, in collusion with the Russian government. The Western Pacific's 200 surviving gray whales migrate through the Sea of Japan to feed in the shallow waters off Russia's Sakhalin Island: an area slated for massive oil and gas drilling. Stormy winter seas and the likelihood of major earthquakes in the area threaten serious oil spills that could wipe out the whales' food supply. If a spill were to take place during the whales' summer visit, it could also kill the whales themselves.

Egrets, We've Had a Few
US - In April, city employees in Bethany, Oklahoma illegally killed over 200 great egrets and wounded many more in an attempt to displace the birds from a heron colony. The US Fish and Wildlife Service had issued a permit for the city to shoot as many 500 adult cattle egrets. Employees mistook the great egrets for cattle egrets. The great egret is the symbol of the National Audubon Society. (The effort to protect these birds from the feather trade was one of the society's earliest conservation projects.)

Just Say No
COLOMBIA - The US wants Bogota to use the herbicide tebuthiuron to kill illegal crops of coca and opium poppies. Colombian officials and environmentalists fear the powerful herbicide could turn the nation's dense tropical forests into arid grasslands. Environment Minister Eduardo Verano de la Rosa said his country would only use the herbicide on an experimental basis pending further tests. Tebuthiuron remains active for 18 months after application, seeping into groundwater and killing any vegetation it comes into contact with. "If what [critics of this herbicide] say is true, our massive Amazon forests could basically be converted into prairies," Verano said. The World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace have both recommended against using tebuthiuron.

Soot Scam Saves Selva, Screws Skies
COSTA RICA - a program launched in April to sell carbon emission credits to corporations in industrial nations will generate enough money to buy more than 1.25 million acres of Costa Rican rainforest for protection as parks. The plan would be the first greenhouse-gas trading project developed under guidelines set at last December's Kyoto climate summit. Costa Rican officials hope to sell $20 million in carbon credits this year and $300 million over the life of the project. Switzerland's Societe Generale de Surveillance Holding S.A. (SGS) boasts that the plan would remove more than one million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, none of these carbon-trading schemes are designed to actually remove any carbon from the atmosphere - they simply change the location of the additional emissions.

Euro-cides
BRUSSELS - According to the European Crop Protection Association's 1996/97 annual report, Western Europe's pesticide market value amounted to approximately $8.2 billion in 1996, up 8.3 percent since 1995. Europe controls 29.5 percent of the $30.5 billion world pesticide market. European Union (EU) countries exported 1,944 metric tons of pesticides in 1996, worth approximately $2.1 billion, and imported 618 metric tons of pesticides, worth $680 million. According to The Pesticides Trust (UK), Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden purchase relatively small amounts of pesticides - less than 5,000 metric tons per year - while France and Italy purchased approximately 88,000 and 79,000 metric tons respectively in 1997. Some EU countries are working to reduce pesticide reliance. Since the late '80s, Sweden, Holland and Denmark have enacted effective national pesticide reduction policies.

New Marine Park
AUSTRALIA - The world's two largest marine parks are now found Down Under. First was the Great Barrier Reef National Park. In April, the 4.2 million acre Great Australian Bight Marine Park was established, comprising a 20 nautical mile band from the boundary of the South Australian state reserve to the edge of the country's exclusive economic zone. A million acres along the coastline is reserved for mammal protection, while a 3.2 million acre benthic protection area will protect sea floor wildlife, including sponges, algae and sea fans.

"Natura 2000" Lag Leads to Lawsuit
BRUSSELS - Failing attempts to protect Europe's dwindling bear and bittern populations have prompted the European Commission to sue seven European Union countries n the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. The EU's "Natura 2000" project was supposed to create a network of new conservation areas from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and from Ireland's west coast to the Polish border by 1995. But three years later, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Luxembourg have still not produced adequate plans. Rural and farming communities in France and Finland are resisting what they see as attempts by the EU to end their traditional way of life.

Pesticides Degrade, Yet Still Do Damage
US - Deformed frogs found throughout North America in recent years may owe their injuries to a common insecticide. In the world wide web edition of Environmental Science & Technology, Scripps Institute researchers report that S- methoprene, an insect growth regulator introduced in the late 1970s to control fleas and mosquitos, breaks down into harmful chemical by-products when exposed to sunlight, heat and organic matter. When Scripps scientists added minute amounts of these by-products to developing embryos of the African clawed frog, the frogs developed deformities similar to those seen in the field. The report emphasizes that researchers assessing chemical risks posed by pesticides must look not only at the host pesticide but must also include the effects of chemical breakdown products.

Los Fuegos
MEXICO - Authorities are calling the wildfires in central Mexico one of the worst environmental tragedies of the past half-century. More than 200,000 acres of forests and grasslands burned in the first quarter of 1998. Flames consumed extensive areas in 11 of Mexico's 32 states. Abnormally dry weather and fires set by farmers clearing land for crops have been blamed for the blazes. Mexico could lose more than two million hectares by the end of the year, according to the Secretariat of the Environment. Hardest hit are Puebla, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Recovery of the old-growth forest ecosystems and ecological reserves could take more than three decades. Roughly 20 fire-fighters have died in the line of duty this year. The worst is yet to come: Temperatures are rising, and April-May is the driest season. Mexico is home to 10 percent of all of the planet's known plant and animal species.

Clean Fish: A Civil Right
US - In May, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) accused the State of California of violating US civil rights laws for failing to remove pollutants from San Francisco Bay. CBE noted that 76 percent of the people who catch and consume fish from the bay are African- and Asian-American. The bay is filled with mercury, pesticides, PCB and dioxin, primarily from the exhaust of diesel engines, but the state's Water Resources Control Board has done little more than issue health advisories. "If it's bad enough to have an official health warning, it's bad enough to tell polluters to stop poisoning the bay," says CBE's Greg Karras.

Irradiated Wildlife
UK - Residents living near the Sellafield reactor have been warned to stop hunting and eating the local wildlife. According to Friends of the Earth Scotland [72 Newhaven Rd., Edinburgh EH6 5QG, Scotland], pigeons in the Sellafield area were recently classified as "flying radioactive waste," and the Scottish government has drawn up plans to "cull" the local fauna to keep radioisotopes from "flying or hopping off the site." The cull will include mice, rabbits, crows, starlings, sparrows, mosquitoes and lobsters. Local wildlife has been shown to contain radioactive technetium up to 28 times higher than EU limits for consumption after a nuclear accident.

Biodiversity Blues
US - The US has neither signed nor ratified the UN Convention on Biological Diversity which commits signatories to conserve, sustainably use and equitably share the benefits of biodiversity. The US has even argued before the Council of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) that proposals promoting the equitable sharing of benefits be rejected as being beyond the scope of the GEF. Meanwhile, notes Wouter Veening, of the Netherlands Committee for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), "the short-term interests of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries seem to prevail" inside the European Union and the World Trade Organization" while "the interests of large-scale agriculture and the food industry... easily dominate discussions at the FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization)."

Sidebar: Nothing to Fear but the Biosphere Itself