Typical agriculture sectors like animal production and processing, aquaculture and its processing, and fruit and vegetable processing, can be water-intensive and generate complex and sometimes severe pollution. Controlling pollution hinges on knowing its quantity (wastewater and solid waste volume) and characteristics (major pollutants and their concentration range, nature of wastes, …
The Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project in China, once promoted as a major money-spinner for multinationals, is now turning out to be a liability for Beijing. The international financial agencies as well as private investors are steering clear of the project, which has been at the recieving end of a …
THE depleting fish stock of the world may yet not take a headlong plunge with the first international treaty to curtail overfishing in the open seas being approved by governments of more than 100 countries last month, at the UN headquarters in New York. The protocol marks the end of …
THE Egyptians are ready for battle to protect what they consider their nature- al right over the river Nile. The threat comes from neighbouring Sudan, which shares the river and has declared its plans of blocking it. The Nile travels 6,695 km from its remotest headstream in Burundi to the …
For the Chinese fish- erfolk operating in certain areas of the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, it will be another 2-month wait before they can reach for their nets, as the ban on fishing has been extended by the min- istry of agriculture. The ban, which was in …
Filipinos in the island of Palawan are fighting to prevent an environmental catastrophe in their seas caused by cyanide fishing - a technique where cyanide is squirted on fish to stun and bag them. Since the dead ones are left to rot the corals gets irreversibly damaged. Now, Philippines' International …
On May 28,1995, 3 jeeps full of uniformed officers and forest guards along with a truck and a tractor arrived in Haliasahi, a remote Adivasi hamlet in Kashipur block, Rayagada district, Orissa, and seized the entire stock of hillbrooms belonging to the local Mandibisi Mahila Mandal (MMM). Hillbrooms are a …
Smoking in public places may soon become a punishable offence in Delhi. With effect to this, on August 7, Delhi state health minister Harsh Vardhan introduced a bill- christened as the "Delhi Prohibition of Smoking and Non-smokers Health Protection Bill" -in the legislative assembly. The first of its kind to …
In Angola, 95 children are dying everyday. Not from bullets or mines, but from disease and malnutrition. The United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has come up with this shocking fact. Thousands of Angolan children lost one or both parents during the 19-year-long civil war between Unita rebels and government …
The Bugasong Greenbelt Foundation (OGF), a voluntary organisation in the Philippines, has launched an ambitious "Plant for Life- campaign. Launched from the Bugasong town of Antique province on June 12 this year, it was started,to return abandoned fields that have been colonised by the useless weed, Imperata cylindrica, or cogon …
Tourism Concern, a London network drawing attention to the rights of people living in the tourist hotspots of the world, recently publiclsed Goa's tourism problems in the UK's mainstream media. The group's coordinator Tricla Barnett said to Down To Earth that it hadbeen 'telling tour operatort...for several years" that there …
THE ongoing controversy in the us involving the Endangered Species Act (Down To Earth, Vol 4, No 5) has taken yet another turn. This time, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has lit the fuse by proposing that the coho salmon should be listed as "threatened" under the Act. The …
The voyage towards consensus building on ocean resources has always been protracted. Take the 3rd United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which began in 1972. It took nearly 10 years to reach consensus on the single negotiating text. On the appointed date -- 10 December 1982 …
The poor man's access to common property resources which is declining due to rapid commercialization, needs to be protected, says a United Nations Development Programme report on Human Development in Bangladesh, focussed on the environment. The report was released on the eve of the World Environment Day on June 4. …
SPARKS are flying as yet anotber fish war gains momentum in the Pacific Ocean; the protagonists this time are Canada and Alaska. Canada's feisty fisheries minister, Brian Tobin, has taken strong offence to Alaska's refusal to fall in line with Canadian proposals for conserving dwindling stocks of the Pacific salmon. …
INDOMITABLE France lit the fuse again. Barely a month after the Big 5 nuclear nations made a solemn pledge at New York, during the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (npt) Conference, to exercise "utmost restraint", France reneged and flexed its muscles. The newly-elected French President, Jacques Chirac, has announced his decision to …
THE Chinese government appears to have suddenly woken up to the importance of protecting its ocean resources. An unprecedented official order has been issued, banning fishing in a 37 sq km area off its east coast for 2 months to give its depleted fish stocks a chance to recover, reports …
Beset by falling fish catches, Cuba has decided to create new, highly independent and flexible production units, with economic and labour conditions which will guarantee worker stimulation. The move will not put an end to the massive loss-making state-run enterprises, but will definitely mean reduced centralism. Cuba has only 1 …
Cultural pressures are slowly decimating Mexico's rich heritage of indigenous languages. The 200 languages and dialects spoken in Mexico when it was overrun by Spanish colonisers 5 centuries ago have been throttled to 70, although the indigenous population has more than doubled. Bilingual education is offered to only 7.5 per …
A PROGRAMME called Local Initiatives for the Environment -- LIFE -- is using novel approaches to finance and implement environmental projects. A product of Agenda 21, the international agreement drawn up during the Earth Summit (1992) in Rio de Janeiro, LIFE is "aiming to be more of an initiative catalyst …
SCIENTISTS are scratching their heads to figure out an explanation for a mysterious fish plague which has led to the deaths of millions of pilchards along Australia's eastern coastline. Australia's pilchard fish industry earns the US $7.4 million annually; but the plague threatens to disrupt salmon and tuna exports (worth …
