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.