Environmental Crisis Looms by 2000

***********************************************

WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

***********************************************

Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

8/21/98

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

The sky is falling. Greenpeace reports in their annual report that

forests and species are being destroyed, fisheries are being

exhausted, global warming is underway, and nuclear wastes and PVC

plastics remain problematic. Greenpeace concludes, "we need

solutions, not excuses. We need actions, not words."

g.b.

LIST NOTE: Thanks to the readers that caught the misspelling of

"Penan" in the recent article regarding the Malaysian economic

downturn. It was an inadvertent typographical error.

*******************************

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Environmental crisis looms by 2000: Greenpeace

Source: Agence France-Presse

Date: August 17, 1998

AMSTERDAM, Aug 13 (AFP) - About 25,000 species could become extinct

and 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of ancient forest

significantly degraded or destroyed by 2000, the environmental group

Greenpeace warned on Thursday.

"Significant steps must be taken before the year 2000 to reverse these

trends," the executive director Thilo Bode urged in the group's annual

report.

"It is undeniable that the use of renewable resources -- including

land, forest, fresh water, coastal areas, fisheries and urban air --

is beyond their natural regeneration capacity," Bode stressed.

The use of fossil fuels and the resulting increase in global warming

had caused cracks to appear in a major ice shelf in Antarctica and the

whole shelf is likely to collapse by the turn of the century, the

group said.

While fossil fuels had led to a marked rise in global temperatures,

nuclear energy also presented serious dangers to world ecology, the

environmental watchdogs stressed.

"More than 115 tonnes of highly radioactive plutonium will be produced

(by 2000), thereby increasing the risks of potentially lethal

discharges," Greenpeace said from its international headquarters in

Amsterdam.

Plastic PVC also presented disposal problems. Another 35 million

tonnes of plastic will be introduced into the environment in the 505

days left this century but there is still no waste solution in sight,

Greenpeace pointed out.

The environmental campaigners also called for stricter controls on

commercial fishing.

By the next millennium, the catch of the industrial fishing fleet will

exceed recommendations by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation by

about 20 million tonnes, the group said.

A further 30 million tonnes of fish and other forms of marine life

being caught killed and thrown back in the sea as unwanted "by-catch,"

Greenpeace added.

In an attempt to avert these environmental disasters, Greenpeace

appealed to governments to consider six urgent measures.

PVC must be banned, industrial logging of ancient forests must stop,

the industrial fishing fleet should be halved and nuclear energy and

the reprocessing of radioactive waste should be halted.

The commercial release of genetically-engineered crops should also

stop and government must no longer issue licences for new oil

exploration projects, Greenpeace urged.

"These demands are an absolute minimum to protect the planet for the

future generations," Bode asserted. "We need solutions, not excuses.

We need actions, not words."

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

This document is a PHOTOCOPY for educational, personal and non-

commercial use only. Recipients should seek permission from the

source for reprinting. All efforts are made to provide accurate,

timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all

information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia Forest

Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/

Networked by Ecological Enterprises, gbarry@forests.org