In Danger: Drill

Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus)

Conservation experts consider the drill to be Africa`s most endangered primate. This large-bodied short-tailed baboon roams the lowland and coastal rainforests of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. Drills are social creatures and have a highly developed system of communication, including complex visual displays, postures and vocal signals.

The drill`s habit of living in groups as large as 20 adults — and congregating in super-groups of up to 200 individuals — makes them a relatively easy target for bushmeat hunters. West Africa`s escalating bushmeat trade has wiped out entire populations of the drill, which now number fewer than 3,000 in the wild.

The E-LAW network has joined Cameroonian attorney Samuel Nguiffo in his struggle to ensure that the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project complies with Cameroon`s laws, benefits Cameroonians and is carried out in a sustainable manner. As currently planned, the oil project would not only destroy and fragment the drill`s natural habitat, but would open up previously inaccessible forest tracts to bushmeat hunters.

According to Dr. Tony Rose, a primate expert directing the Bushmeat Project at the Biosynergy Institute in Hermosa Beach, California, "the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project will become a pipeline for the supply of illegal bushmeat... [and will] merely expedite the trend towards wildlife extinctions and ecosystem collapse."

E-LAW U.S. thanks Dr. Rose for providing pro bono scientific expertise to help protect the drill. E-LAW U.S. calls on more than 200 scientists to provide pro bono help to E-LAW advocates around the world.

Inside E-LAW: Comings and Goings

Glenn Miller

E-LAW U.S. board member Glenn Miller

New E-LAW U.S. board member and mining expert Dr. Glenn Miller has helped E-LAW advocates around the world challenge environmental damage caused by mines.

Glenn is the Director of the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences and Health at the University of Nevada at Reno. His research interests include the effects of mine waste on aquatic systems. He holds a Ph.D. in agricultural chemistry from the University of California at Davis.

In 1997, Glenn helped E-LAW Advocate Hector Huertas of Centro de Asistencia Legal Popular (CEALP) convince the Panamanian government to suspend plans by a Canadian company to mine gold from hillsides occupied by rural peasant communities in Los Santos. Glenn identified a serious flaw in the company’s plans — inadequate measures to prevent acid mine drainage from its waste rock dumps. Waste rock often contains sulfide, which converts to sulfuric acid when exposed to air or water. The acid leaches heavy metals from the waste rock into surrounding surface and ground water. Once started, the leaching can continue for decades and is nearly impossible to stop or clean up.

Glenn submitted a letter to Panama’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry with an analysis of the company’s plan to use a cheap and unproven method to control acid mine drainage. As a result, government authorities indefinitely suspended preparatory work at the mine and formed an independent committee to re-examine the project proposal.

Glenn is currently working with E-LAW advocates in South Africa to challenge abusive mining practices.

Sidney Jones

E-LAW U.S. board member Sidney Jones

E-LAW U.S. welcomes Sidney Jones of Human Rights Watch to the Board of Directors. Sidney has been the Executive Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch since 1989. An Indonesia specialist for 20 years, she took an eight-month leave of absence from Human Rights Watch in December 1999 to serve as director of the Human Rights Office of the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor.

Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Sidney was the Indonesia and Philippines researcher at Amnesty International in London and a program officer at the Ford Foundation, first in Jakarta, then New York.

Sidney holds degrees in Oriental Studies and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and spent a year at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran. Sidney has written extensively on human rights in Asia with a particular focus on Indonesia and East Timor. She appears frequently as a television and radio commentator on Asian issues.

Derek Snelling

E-LAW U.S. Brightwood Law Fellow Derek Snelling

Many thanks to Derek Snelling for doing an extraordinary job, under tight deadlines, to advance environmental law and protect the global environment. Derek served as E-LAW U.S. Brightwood Law Fellow from 1998 to 2000.

Derek graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law then served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Solomon Islands before joining E-LAW U.S. As Brightwood Law Fellow, Derek responded to hundreds of requests for assistance from E-LAW advocates seeking information on: wildlife policy, rice patents, access to information, pesticide laws, enhanced risk and dioxin exposure, retroactive application of environmental laws, factory farms, EIA law, and more.

Derek is now in private practice and working to protect the environment in the Pacific Northwest. You can reach him at snelling@efn.org.

Bridging the Language Divide

If you read Russian, you know that sentence says: "We must work together to protect the environment." If you don`t, you`re out of luck. Finding a common language is a tremendous challenge as E-LAW works with advocates in Eastern Europe.

Piotr Gorbunenko (left) works with Glenn Gillis, E-LAW U.S. Information Technology Manager

Support from the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is now helping E-LAW reach out to advocates in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, in languages they can understand.

Piotr Gorbunenko, President of the Biotica Ecological Society in Moldova, and Andriy Andrusevych of Ecopravo-Lviv in Ukraine, visited E-LAW U.S. this fall to begin work on a project to empower advocates in the west New Independent States (West NIS) to use the Internet to access and share environmental information.

Leading the project is Svitlana Kravchenko, President of Ecopravo-Lviv, joined by Elena Laevskaya, President of Ecopravo-Minsk in Belarus; E-LAW co-founder John Bonine, professor at the University of Oregon School of Law and Director of the University of Oregon-Lviv Partnership; and E-LAW U.S. Staff Scientist Mark Chernaik.

Multilingual Networks

The project is already working with more than 20 public interest advocates and their non-profit organizations to build electronic networks in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, and link these national networks to a regional network and the E-LAW international network. Local experts are translating e-mail communication to and from five languages: Ukrainian, Moldovan-Romanian, Belarussian, Russian and English.

As the E-LAW network grows, requests for assistance and offers of help are increasingly posted in languages other than English. E-LAW U.S. staff and interns facilitate communication in English, Spanish, French and Indonesian, with nearly one quarter of current messages being posted in Spanish. Participation by Indonesian advocates has grown markedly since E-LAW U.S. began regular Indonesian translation last year.

Local translators based in Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus will now use Cyrillic character sets to bridge the language divide between advocates in the former Soviet Union and E-LAW advocates around the world.

West NIS Circuit Rider

Andriy Andrusevych trains staff at Ecopravo-Lviv, Ukraine (Photo: John Bonine)

E-LAW U.S. has equipped and trained advocates all over the world to use electronic communication tools. E-skills help advocates in more than 50 countries tap E-LAW`s electronic network and get the legal and scientific resources they need to protect the environment through law. The E-LAW network helps advocates draw on the experience of their colleagues — the world`s leading public interest attorneys — at no charge.

Technology "circuit riders" do much of the electronic capacity building. A Sri Lankan computer engineer, Shantha Fernando, serves as E-LAW Circuit Rider for South Asia while computer technician Miguel Peirano of Uruguay serves as Circuit Rider for Latin America.

Andriy joins the team as West NIS Circuit Rider. Based in Ukraine at Ecopravo-Lviv, Andriy will travel to the offices of environmental advocates in the region to assess needs, provide training, upgrade equipment and help organizations use electronic communication tools to protect the local environment.

E-Workshop

In April 2001, environmental advocates from the region will gather in the Ukraine for intensive, hands-on training. The workshop will cover web page design, web-searching, use of multiple Cyrillic fonts, e-mail skills, anti-virus protection, remote file transfer, Internet telephone connections, and more.

From the early days, when E-LAW brought the first e-mail to Mongolia, E-LAW has been a leader in using technology to help advocates around the world reach across borders for help and support. The West NIS project is a new initiative to erase language barriers and strengthen the worldwide community of public interest advocates fighting for a greener future.

Travel Notes: Working Exchange Fellow Fernando Baptista

Attorney Fernando Baptista of Brazil’s Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) put many miles on the E-LAW bicycle this fall. Fernando came to Eugene as a Working Exchange Fellow to help protect indigenous rights and the environment in Brazil.

Fernando Baptista, Brazil

A vintage three-speed Schwinn gave him freedom to pedal between his home and office at E-LAW U.S. and classes at the University of Oregon School of Law and American English Institute.

“What I enjoy the most is sharing experiences and talking strategy with public interest lawyers from other parts of the world. We face similar issues and it’s valuable to meet face-to-face,” he said.

During Fernando’s three-month visit, he shared housing with E-LAW advocates from the Philippines, Moldova and Sri Lanka. E-LAW advocates from 50 countries collaborate daily through E-LAW’s electronic conference. Meeting in person, through Working Exchange visits or at Annual Meetings, builds the personal ties that make the E-LAW network strong.

Fernando spent time in Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood where he met with local environmental activists. “These activists have a social conscience. Meeting them was a rich experience,” he said.

Attorneys at ISA have been active in the E-LAW network since 1993. In a recent landmark case, ISA won compensation for the Panará, an indigenous group that suffered many losses when a government highway project brought an epidemic of diseases to their remote forest area. This was the first time the Brazilian Government was found responsible for inflicting harm upon indigenous peoples.

“The path to sustainability depends on bringing marginalized peoples and minorities into the decision making process. These people, particularly the indigenous communities, fishermen and small farmers, can teach our industrialized society to live in harmony with nature. They have done so for hundreds of years,” says Fernando.

Brazil is home to more species of primates, amphibians and plants than any other country. Many of these species are under threat due to destruction of rainforests, desertification in the northeast, poaching in the Pantanal and coastal pollution.

Brazil’s indigenous peoples have been under threat as well. An estimated two to five million indigenous people lived in Brazil when the Portuguese first arrived. Mining and logging operations have moved into their territory and reduced the population to fewer than 300,000. Now, the future is looking brighter and the number of indigenous people is increasing.

At ISA’s Sao Paulo office, Fernando divides his time between litigation, community support and research on socioenvironmental law. He helps indigenous groups build strong organizations and provides information about social and environmental issues.

In Eugene, Fernando worked with E-LAW U.S. staff to tap legal and scientific resources, including information on: protecting indigenous rights in environmentally protected areas; U.S. standards for water quality and effluent emissions; legal protections for endangered plants in logging areas in the U.S.; and legal tools used around the world to protect indigenous cultural property rights.

E-LAW U.S. staff provided Fernando with U.S. forestry regulations; information on endangered species protection; American Indian rights to hunt, fish and gather; as well as corporate and scientific research to help ISA campaign against destruction of rainforests and mangroves by Brazil’s tobacco and shrimp industries.

Fernando says that while contact between indigenous groups in Brazil and the outside world is inevitable, ISA is building bridges that give communities the tools they need to protect themselves. “Indigenous groups need the choice to participate, or not, in the outside world,” he said.

For more information on Instituto Socioambiental, visit http://www.socioambiental.org.

Headlines: E-LAW in the News, Winter 2001

Araucarias: Danger of Extinction at Hands of Brazilian Environmental Agency

Agencia Estado, one of Brazil’s largest news agencies, reports: Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) has filed suit against Ibama, Brazil’s national environmental agency. The suit seeks to halt logging of endangered species in the Atlantic rainforest region. Araucarias, or the monkey puzzle tree, has been reduced to 2% of its original population. It is officially recognized by Ibama as an endangered species. (December 4, 2000)

E-LAW U.S. has worked with lawyers at ISA for many years. ISA’s Fernando Baptista was recently in Eugene for a Working Exchange program.

Guatemalans Take Texas Oil Company to Court

The Christian Science Monitor reports: Guatemalan law forbids resource extraction in national parks, but a Texas oil company is extracting oil and prospecting for new sources in Laguna del Tigre National Park. E-LAW advocate Alejandra Sobenes says, “There are clear illegalities in this case. First the energy and mines ministry puts national park land up for auction as a petroleum lot. Then it signed an exploration contract... and on top of it all, an inappropriate government body approves the environmental impact study.” (November 22, 2000)

Alejandra is Director of the Instituto de Derecho Ambiental y Desarrollo Sustenable (IDEADS), host of E-LAW Guatemala. She has worked with E-LAW since 1994.

Anti-tobacco Group to Push for Tougher Laws

Uganda’s leading independent daily, The Monitor, reports on the activities of Action Against Tobacco (AAT), a pioneering anti-smoking group in Uganda. Attorney Phillip Karugaba is leading efforts in Kampala to protect Ugandans from the ills of tobacco. AAT is exposing British American Tobacco’s efforts to associate smoking with sports and good health through its “Sportsman” brand cigarettes. AAT also calls for stronger warning labels on cigarettes sold in Uganda. (November 6, 2000)

Phillip met with E-LAW U.S. Staff Attorney Jennifer Gleason and Communications Director Maggie Keenan in Kampala earlier this year. Since then, E-LAW U.S. has created an electronic mailing list for Ugandan tobacco activists and provided legal and scientific resources for their efforts.

Chile Faces Rainforest Dilemma

The Globe and Mail reports: U.S. multinational Boise Cascade has plans for a controversial project to build what would be the world’s largest timber mill in Chile’s Lake District in northern Patagonia, a major tourist destination.

Despite strong opposition, Chile’s national environmental agency approved Cascada Chile’s environmental impact study for the project. This approval has since been challenged by environmental groups, whose lawyers filed a complaint under the Canada-Chile Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, part of the free-trade agreement signed by the two countries in 1997. E-LAW advocate Jose Ignacio Pinochet of Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente (FIMA) says a positive ruling could push Cascada Chile into conducting a new environmental study. (November 2, 2000)

E-LAW has been providing FIMA with legal and scientific information to challenge Boise Cascade’s plans in Chile for many years. In July, FIMA became the host of E-LAW Chile.

Indiana Jones: Eco Warrior

British Airways’ in-flight magazine, High Life, reports: a new hydroelectric dam threatens to destroy some of the richest rainforest in Central America. Sharon Matola, director of the Belize Zoo, is pleased that Harrison Ford and Conservation International have thrown their support behind the campaign to stop the Chalillo Dam. “It is imperative this does not go ahead. It will destroy an ecosystem that is not duplicated anywhere else in the Caribbean,” she says. (October 2000)

E-LAW U.S. is working with Sharon Matola and public interest environmental lawyers in Belize who are challenging the Chalillo Dam. E-LAW U.S. staff attorneys and scientists have helped Belizean advocates critique the project’s environmental impact assessment. In May, the Belize government put the project on hold, pending new information.

Endangered Giant Clams Focus of Cement Plant Battle

The Environment News Service reports: Twenty-nine of the largest clams in the world may die because of a proposed multi-million dollar cement plant in the coastal town of Agno in the Philippines. An umbrella organization of fishermen’s groups, Agno Concerned Citizens for Ecologically Secure Development (ACCESS), says pier facilities for the cement plant sit in the middle of a giant clam project initiated by Concerned Divers of the Philippines. Each clam is nearly five feet wide and weighs over 550 pounds. (September 12, 2000)

E-LAW advocates at Tanggol Kalikasan are representing ACCESS in legal proceedings against the cement plant.

Yachats 2001: E-LAW Annual Meeting Set for Oregon Coast

Seal Rock on the central Oregon coast (Photo: Chris Norton)

The seaside town of Yachats, Oregon, will host E-LAW advocates from around the world for the 2001 E-LAW Annual International Meeting, February 25-28. This exciting gathering of the world`s leading grassroots advocates will be held back-to-back with the 2001 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon School of Law.

E-LAW annual meetings provide the world`s leading public interest lawyers and scientists an opportunity to share legal and scientific resources, face-to-face. Advocates get the resources and support they need to take on big polluters, and win. This collaboration is posted daily in E-LAW`s electronic network, so advocates in 60 countries around the world can participate.

Last year, E-LAW`s annual meeting was held in Arusha, Tanzania, hosted by the Lawyers` Environmental Action Team. That meeting included 47 advocates from 27 countries. Yachats 2001 promises an even larger turnout.

Many E-LAW advocates will participate in the University of Oregon`s Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC), open to the public, March 1 - 4, 2001. For more information on the PIELC, see: www.pielc.uoregon.edu.

Additional information about the E-LAW 2001 Annual meeting is available on our website at http://www.elaw.org/yachats.