AR-NEWS Digest 374

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) (Romania) Urgent help needed by vegetarians
     by vadivu 
  2) [DE] Cattle claim diplomatic BSE immunity
     by David J Knowles 
  3) [UK] Ministry blocks fishermen's armada
     by David J Knowles 
  4) [UK] 'Linseed loophole' mocks conservation rules
     by David J Knowles 
  5) [UK] Sharp fall in numbers of endangered grouse
     by David J Knowles 
  6) [UK] Never Mind The Ballots - Reclaim The Streets! 
     by David J Knowles 
  7) [UK] Eco Friendly Nuclear Missiles! 
     by David J Knowles 
  8) [UK] Riot police clear Trafalgar Square after demo
     by David J Knowles 
  9) [CA] Designer chromosomes developed by Vancouver firm
     by David J Knowles 
 10) [US] DEC buys muskrat-trimmed hats
     by David J Knowles 
 11) [US] Biotech Firm Might Sponsor Classes at Wildlife Refuge Site
     by allen schubert 
 12) (MY) Successful breeding of rhinoceros hornbill at zoo
     by vadivu 
 13) (MY) Mutilated dolphin found on beach
     by vadivu 
 14) Fwd: Campus May Be Monkey Cloning Center
     by LMANHEIM@aol.com
 15) BioTech Global Days of Action Update
     by allen schubert 
 16) Anti-hunting calls needed
     by Horgan 
 17) (US) RFI: Dog/Animal Bite Protocol
     by allen schubert 
 18) Blurring the Line
     by Andrew Gach 
 19) (US) Tourism endangers Thailand's turtles
     by allen schubert 
 20) Yellowstone Bison Herd Cut in Half Over Winter
     by Vegetarian Resource Center 
 21) World Week at Rockefeller U.
     by bstagno@ix.netcom.com (Barbara Stagno)
 22) (CH) Japanese Peacocks Grace U.N. Lawns
     by allen schubert 
 23) (BR) Cats in Court to Protect Brazil Pad 
     by allen schubert 
 24) (CA-US)B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again 
     by allen schubert 
 25) B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again
     by NOVENAANN@aol.com
 26) (CHINA) "Wise-users" gain influence
     by jwed 
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 14:54:19 +0800 (SST)
>From: vadivu 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (Romania) Urgent help needed by vegetarians
Message-ID: <199704130654.OAA22096@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


This is a forwarded message from Veg-news from 
 John Davis .

- Vadivu

  ------- Forwarded message follows -------

URGENT NOTICE
VEGETARIAN ORPHANAGE UNDER THREAT OF CLOSURE IN ROMANIA

An orphanage which is home to 12 children in Domnesti, a suburb of
Bucharest, is threatened with closure due to government objections to the
vegetarian diet which it offers its children.

The orphanage is run by the Romanian branch of AMURT (Ananda Marga
Universal Relief Team). AMURT is an international non-governmental
organization providing development assistance and aid to victims of
disaster.  

THE AMURT Children's Home  was opened in 1993 when six children were
transferred there from the state run Buffea orphanage, an institution in
which 200 children were housed.  All the children were suffering from a
variety of diseases (including chronic scabies, malnutrition, hepatitis)
when they arrived at the AMURT Home.  After treatment at a local dispensary
and a lot of care, and a pure vegetarian diet, the children were cured of
their ailments and today are happy and healthy.

The remarkable improvements in the children at the AMURT Home were noted by
several institutions including the Ministry of Education which in 1994
selected the AMURT Home as a model orphanage. At that time, delegates from
more than 40 countries who were attending an international conference in
Bucharest visited the home and were impressed with conditions there.

Recently six more children were admitted to the AMURT Home which is now
housed in a newly constructed building. Despite permission  from the
Romanian Ministry of education for the transfer of these children to AMURT,
the Commission of Minor's Protection (in the Ilfov jurisdiction--a
Bucharest Suburb) has now raised an objection and they cite the vegetarian
diet at the AMURT Home as the primary reason.  They have ordered that six
children be sent back to the large Buffea orphanage, and on 16 April will
hold a hearing at which they will make a definitive decision on the recent
transfer and also on the right of AMURT to care for any children at all. An
unfavourable decision would effectively close this facility.

CALL TO ACTION

The values of the vegetarian diet are not well known in Romania. A recent
TV programme about the AMURT Home also condemned the vegetarian diet. 
Thus, we call on vegetarians to write to the Commission of Minors
Protection and express your support for the right of AMURT to offer a
vegetarian diet to these children. Any supporting documentation about the
benefits of vegetarianism would be helpful.  If you have any medical or
professional qualification please mention it.

Write or fax:

Protection of Minors
Mr. Cazacu Alexandru
Secretary of Local Council
Ilfov jurisdiction
street Gheorghemanu
nr. 18, sector 1, Bucharest Romania
Telephone and Fax: +40 1 3111 417
(if you are sending a fax ask them to turn on the fax machine

For additional information about AMURT see our web site  
http://www.oneworld.org/amurt

Contact person for information about this appeal:  A.V. Avadhuta, e-mail:
newren@compuserve.com     tel.+49 6131 834262  fax: +49 6131 834628
postal address: AMURT, Weisenauer Weg 4, 55129 Mainz Germany 

  ------------------ end of forwarded message -----------------
 
Please forward this elsewhere as appropriate.


John
-- 
http://www.ivu.org        - International Vegetarian Union
http://www.ivu.org/evu    - European Vegetarian Union


Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:22 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [DE] Cattle claim diplomatic BSE immunity
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001603.23276770@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997

Cattle claim diplomatic BSE immunity
By Anthea Hall 

THREE elderly Scottish cows have claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid being
slaughtered under BSE regulations in Germany.

The 12-year-old British-born Galloways are affectionately called "the
Galloway ladies" by their eccentric owner, the lawyer and notary public Axel
Schultze-Petzold of Loxstedt near Cuxhaven, who also happens to be honorary
consul for Barbados. This January, after five
cases of BSE, the German federal government decreed that all cattle born in
Britain and Switzerland should be slaughtered. Mr Schultze-Petzold was among
the cattle farmers who successfully challenged the law in regional courts,
arguing that it was based on a false premise.

The idea of giving the cows diplomatic protection occurred to Mr
Schultz-Petzold as he was about to set off on his annual promotion visit to
the Caribbean. Two years ago, when he sold the herd bred from five original
Galloways, he kept the three old ladies, so that they could spend "the
eventide of their lives in my pasture".

He also insisted that there was no chance of his Galloways developing BSE.
"We know the incubation period for the disease is a maximum of six years.
I've had the cows on my land for 10 years. The last possible time for the
infection to appear was at least four years ago."

It was not then clear whether the slaughter decree would be upheld and he
was determined that the cattle would not be killed while he was away. He hit
on the idea of putting them under the jurisdiction of the Bajan ministry of
agriculture with whom he was negotiating.

Local farmers were amazed to see the following notice pinned to the fence of
the Lower Saxony pasture where the "old ladies" were grazing: "Consulate of
Barbados. No entry. Galloway Cattle Control - Minister of Agriculture,
Bridgetown, Barbados."

Mr Schultze-Petzold, who returns from the Caribbean this week, explained his
dilemma from Martinique: "I wrote the notice in a hurry. I was desperate to
make sure my cattle were not killed in my absence." 

He hopes that the cattle may yet be saved by a research project he has
devised with the Bajan veterinary authority surgeon in Bridgetown. "It would
not be the first time that animals' lives have been saved by a research
project. The Barbadan authority agrees that there's no scientific basis for
killing my old cattle. Their survival would give their vets the chance do
research on them - they have no experience of such cattle. If they are
killed there will be no chance to see what happens to them."

However, it now appears that nothing will save the old Galloways. Dr Richard
Peters, agricultural attaché to the German embassy in London, described Mr
Schultze-Petzold's diplomatic immunity ruse as  "absurd" and said that the
5,000 or so British and Swiss-born cattle in Germany would be slaughtered
this summer.

"The law, now agreed by both the federal and the 16 LŠnder governments, will
take effect six months after the original order in January. No cattle born
in either Britain or Switzerland will escape the slaughter." Mr
Schultze-Petzold has vowed to continue his battle in the courts.

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:27 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Ministry blocks fishermen's armada
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001607.0d3f1184@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997

Ministry blocks fishermen's armada

HUNDREDS of fishermen from Devon and Cornwall had hoped to stage the most
dramatic and poignant demonstration of this election campaign next Friday
but have been threatened with having their boats impounded.

Sailing en masse from Plymouth, they wanted to draw attention to the fact
that this may be the last time it will be possible to see an armada of
British fishing boats. By the time of the next election, under the EU's
Common Fisheries Policy, much of our fleet will be no more.

Astonishingly, however, the fishermen have been threatened by the Ministry
of Agriculture and Fisheries that, if they try to put their case in this
way, their boats will be impounded. This is on the excuse that they might
hinder the passage of other shipping, but inevitably the
fishermen see this as yet another attempt to stifle public discussion of
what has become the biggest single scandal of Britain's entanglement with
"Europe".

There are four reasons why this has become one of the most extraordinary
political stories of our time. First was the treacherous way in which the
British people were forced to hand over to the EC the richest fishing waters
in the world, containing four-fifths of all Europe's fish, an asset worth
billions of pounds a year.

Second was the way Brussels then set up the ludicrously bureaucratic system
of the Common Fisheries Policy which, by forcing fishermen to throw dead
back into the sea more fish than they are allowed to land, has led to one of
the world's greatest man-made ecological disasters. A new report from the
UN's Food and Agriculture organisation estimates that the CFP now leads to
the pointless destruction of 3.7 millions of tonnes of fish each year. 

Third has been the relentless war waged by Brussels to eliminate much of
what remains of Britain's fishing fleet, to make room for the fishermen of
the rest of Europe to fish in those British waters. In the next five years
this process of destruction will reach its climax, in
preparation for the CFP's "definitive" stage in 2003, when national fishing
fleets are no more, and "Community fishermen" are allowed to fish only if
they have permits from Brussels.

But last, and perhaps most shocking of all, has been the way our politicians
have consistently tried to hide all this from the British people, an
exercise in systematic deceit being perpetuated by all three main parties in
this election.

One small instance can be seen by comparing the 1997 Conservative Campaign
Guide with that of 20 years ago. In 1977 the fisheries section was dominated
by the Fisheries Limits Act 1976 which, under international law, gave
Britain control over all fishing waters round her
coasts out to 200 miles (or the median line). It quoted both Tory and Labour
spokesmen promising that this would give British fishermen exclusive rights
over much of this area.

Only later did they discover that Edward Heath had secretly signed away all
Britain's fishing rights, so that, under EC law, British ministers are now
forced to sign "designation orders" allowing fishermen of every other EU
country (including Luxembourg and Austria) access to
British waters. In the 1997 Campaign Guide there is no mention of the Act.

Again, in the Conservative manifesto, almost every one of eight sentences on
fishing is an evasion of the truth or worse. For instance it says"we reject
any idea of a single European fishing fleet", completely ignoring the fact
that, since 1994, European Commission documents have dropped any mention of
national fleets (plural) and now routinely refer just to "the Community fleet". 

As for the Labour Party, it wriggles out of the insoluble mess with a vague
promise to "seek a thorough overhaul of the CFP" which it knows is meaningless.

The truth is that the disaster now confronting Britain's fishermen is so
total, and the reasons for this so shameful, that candidates who do not
wholly repudiate the CFP must be considered to be in favour of it  -
betrayal, lies, conservation catastrophe and all. So profound are the
political and moral implications of this that no such candidates deserve
support.

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:30 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] 'Linseed loophole' mocks conservation rules
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001610.0d3f3a38@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997
'Linseed loophole' mocks conservation rules

WHEN Clinton Marston, who farms at Syresham, Northants, read two stories in
The Telegraph last week, he might have been forgiven for reaching for his
shotgun.

These reported how two Sussex farmers had exploited a loophole in EU laws to
make a mockery of conservation rules by ploughing up large areas of chalk
downland that included rare flowers and butterflies. Although Derek
Robinson, a member of the Government's
Farming and Wildlife advisory group, had been given £25,000 of taxpayers'
money to seed 250 acres with downland flora, he had now discovered he could
get EU subsidies of £180 an acre by covering his fields with useless blue
linseed instead.

Justin Harmer went even further, ploughing up a 40-acre Site of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSI) containing a mass of rare orchids and 33 species
of butterfly, because under EU rules this is perfectly legal. The "linseed
loophole" overrides the law that SSSIs must
remain untouched.

Mr Marston found these stories particularly interesting because, for the
past year, he has been locked in a bizarre battle with the officials over
some boggy fields he added to his farm in 1995.

Having paid £82,000 for 26 acres, he then had a letter from the DoE's
"European Wildlife Department" telling him they had been made subject to an
order designating them an SSSI. It would now be a criminal offence for him
to use them for any purpose whatever. In other words, they were worthless -
and even more remarkable was that the officials gave not a single specific
reason why his fields should be an SSSI, apart from claiming they were of
"national importance".

Having vainly spent more than £10,000 fighting a public inquiry, at which
English Nature still could not name a single plant worthy of such draconian
protection, Mr Marston has lost well over £100,000 for no purpose at all,
although English Nature now permits him to graze a few Highland cattle on
part of the land.

As a keen conservationist who has planted 40,000 trees, Mr Marston is
totally baffled by this episode, hardly improved by learning that these
Sussex farmers are not only encouraged by Brussels to destroy fields of far
greater natural importance but rewarded with £50,000 of EU money into the
bargain. Of England's 3,800 SSSIs no fewer than 1,927 were damaged by 1994,
nearly 500 permanently, and Brussels is obviously doing all it can to let
this continue.

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:32 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Sharp fall in numbers of endangered grouse
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001612.23276e8e@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997

Sharp fall in numbers of endangered grouse
By Greg Neale 


ONE of moorland Britain's most endangered birds, the black grouse, is
suffering a rapid decline in numbers, a survey says.

Figures to be released this week show there are now just 500 black grouse
cocks left in England, a halving of the population in eight years. In Wales,
there are only 150 male birds left.

Across Britain, numbers have fallen from 10,000 to 6,350 since 1972. The
survey was carried out by English Nature, the Game Conservancy and the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds, who are launching a plan to halt the
bird's decline in Durham and Northumberland.

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:33 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Never Mind The Ballots - Reclaim The Streets! 
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001614.0d3f2180@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

[In the interests of fairness, I am posting this account of the demo, in
addition to the one that appeared in the Telegraph - DJK]

>From The Urban75 web site (http://194.112.40.4/Urban75/news.html)

Never Mind The Ballots - Reclaim The Streets! 

The RTS crew took to the streets again, this time taking out Trafalgar
Square and turning into into a car-free party zone. Marching up from
Kennington, South London, the march took in     such sights as the Houses of
Parliament and a close encounter with Downing Street,     illuminated by
orange smoke flares, before successfully thwarting the police and getting the
sound system kicking in the Square.

Despite a wholly peaceful crowd, there was a huge police presence, ominously
clad in black
boiler suits, steel toecapped boots and - most disturbingly - face masks
(why would the
police want to hide their faces?).

While ravers danced happily on the steps of the National Gallery to the
banging choons   coming from the McSpotlight sound system, a police
helicopter hovered expensively
overhead while riot police adopted a wholly inappropriate aggressive stance
and sealed off
the area.

It came as no suprise to learn that there were outbreaks of trouble and
several arrests all of
which left us wondering exactly who the police were supposed to be
'protecting' and why they
needed to be dressed in full riot gear. Provocation perhaps?

UPDATE: Six people from the McSpotlight Sound System have been (incredibly!)
arrested for
conspiracy to murder after they drove their van through the police lines to
get into Trafalgar
Square.

If you witnessed the lorry driving through the police lines please get in
touch with RTS at the
numbers below. It is vital that we give all the help we can to these people. 

Information line: 0171 281 4621 - Legal Defence Line: 0181 533 7116 Pirate
Radio station
87.8 FM


Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:36 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Eco Friendly Nuclear Missiles! 
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001616.0d3f015a@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Found this on the Urban75 site as well. Thought you might enjoy.

Eco Friendly Nuclear Missiles! 

This is almost too ridiculous to be true. Because of a new Government ban on
chlorofluorocarbons, the US Air Force has had to refit all its nuclear
missiles with new     eco-friendly cooling systems that don't use CFC's. 

So if you ever see a nuclear missile heading your way, rest assured - it's
making the
environment that little bit safer for us all!

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:37 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [UK] Riot police clear Trafalgar Square after demo
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001618.0d3f17b6@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


>From The Electronic Telegraph - Sunday, April 12th, 1997

Riot police clear Trafalgar Square after demo

RIOT police charged protesters last night after a demonstration in which
thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to support striking dockers and
environmental causes.

Crowd trouble in Whitehall, on the route of the Social Justice March, and
confrontational scenes later between riot police and protesters in the
square ruined the "party atmosphere" that the organisers had intended for
the event.

Police cleared Whitehall shortly after 3pm when marchers who split from the
main group tried to climb the security gates that seal off Downing Street.
An orange smoke bomb was thrown into the street, distress flares were let
off and cans and bottles were thrown. Violence flared again after more than
30 mounted officers in riot gear forced the demonstrators back into
Trafalgar Square. 

Meanwhile, the main body of protesters assembled in the square to listen to
speeches in support of the sacked Liverpool dockers. At the same time, the
anti-roads direct action group Reclaim the Streets -  joined by other groups
including Public Nuisance (slogan: They want
to fight - we want to dance) - celebrated in carnival atmosphere to the
techno-strains of sound system Desert Storm.

But after a second sound system was driven in a truck past police lines and
parked in front of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square,
police, who had seemed content to watch the antics of protesters, moved in.
Vans, some of them bearing the name of a Banbury- based rental firm, were
driven up to all exits of the square and parked two-deep; parallel with
lines of riot police.

By around 5pm the police had up to 1,000 riot officers in place. People
wishing to pass through the cordon from the square were allowed to do so,
but the atmosphere turned more and more threatening as the riot police
refused to admit people wishing to return. Police lines then fanned out to
push the remaining protesters further from the central area. 

Splinter groups from the demonstration were directed south of theThames over
Westminster and Waterloo bridges, and there were several minor scuffles as
they made their way away from the square.

But about 1,500 protesters refused to leave and riot police, including some
on horseback, moved in, prompting further scuffles and several hand-to-hand
clashes. After further action involving baton-charges, the area was finally
cleared shortly after 9pm.

Scotland Yard said last night that 29 people were arrested, including four
for conspiracy to commit murder after a vehicle was allegedly driven at
police lines. 

Police said that the violence did not appear to have involved the striking
Liverpool dockers, many of whom brought their families with them for the
march, during which a petition was handed in to Downing Street.

Jim Davis, a dockers' shop steward, said: "As far as we are concerned, we
were here to make a protest over our dismissal, certainly not to get
involved in any violence. There are children here."

Superintendent Jo Kaye, in charge of the march, said: "Police found
themselves in a situation where everybody's safety was threatened by
irresponsible and violent behaviour and that is why mounted police were
brought in.

"The sacked dockers wanted a carnival atmosphere especially as children were
involved in the march. I think on the whole they achieved that. It was a
small section of the crowd that caused the trouble outside Downing Street."

Home Secretary Michael Howard said in a statement that he congratulated
police on "the swift action they took to deal with the situation". The
statement added: "I am delighted that the Government has provided the police
with the necessary powers to deal with lawlessness of this kind."

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:50 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [CA] Designer chromosomes developed by Vancouver firm
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001631.0d3f10cc@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>From The Vancouver Sun - Saturday, April 12th, 1997

City firm creates designer chromosomes
By Magaret Munro - Sun Science Reporter

A Vancouver company says it is creating artificial chromosomes designed to
turn mice, rabbits, goats and other animals into drug factories.

"There is no other company in the world producing mammalian artificial
chromosomes," said Henry Geraedts, president of Chromos Molecular Systems
Inc., which is putting the final touches to its production facility on the
University of B.C. Endowment Lands. 

Chromosomes are microscopic structures inside cells that carry genes, which
control the growth and function of cells and organisms.

Geraedts said artificial chromosomes may also be capable of genetic repair
jobs in people suffering from genetic disorders, which can cause cystic
fibrosis, Huntingdon's disease and some forms of cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

"The application for gene therapy is quite a while away. We're talking well
into '98," Gertaedts said, as he ran through a polished slide presentation
aimed at potential investers and partners.

In the interim, he said, the company will get down to business producing
MACS, short for mammalian artificial chromosomes,  for use in drug-producing
cells and animals.

For example, rabbits might be programmed to produce insulin in their milk. 

The insulin could then be extracted from the milk.

"The engineering of MAC's is what this lab is all about, to produce them by
the millions for ourselves and our partners," said Gersaedts, gesturing
toward the expansive new lab complete with a computerized chromosome sorting
machine worth about $500,000 U.S.

Geraedts said about 15 labs around the world are working on artificial
chromosomes but no other company has moved into production. 

The UBC lab opened in January and will have its full complement of 10
scientists and technicians by May. It already has six technicians and
scientists.

The artificial chromosomes are like tiny box cars that carry genes into
cells. Geraedts saidthe idea is to load them with "genes of choice" - such
as  genes that prompt production of growth hormone or the blood-clotting
agent Factor 8. Carrying space can be added to MAC's as needed, like extra
cars on a train.

Once the artificial chromosomes are introduced into cells, they act as
production platforms, Geraedts explained. The new genes instruct the cells
to produce large quantities of the desired compounds.

He said the artificial chromosomes reproduce like other chromosomes and are
passed on as cells multiply and divide. They should also pass from one
generation from one generation of animal to the next, though company
scientists have yet to prove it.

Despite its presence at UBC, Chromos does not have a high local profile. Dr
John Hobbs at UBC's Biotechnology Lab said there is considerable interest
and potential in artificial chromosomes "but I must say it's not a firm I'm
familiar with." His comment was echoed by many people in the local
biotechnology sector who have never heard of Chromos.

Geraedts said both the company's founding scientists work outside Canada,
and it was a business decision to put the lab in Vancouver.

The founders are Gyula Hadlaczky, who continues to do research in Hungary,
and Aladar Szalay, formerly of the University of Edmonton and now at Loma
Linda University in California.

Hadlaczky leads a 15-member team in Hungary that collaborates with the
Vancouver lab.

Others involved with the company include Larry Kedes, director of the
genetic medicine institute at the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles, who chairs the company's scientific advisory board.

Also on the board are Dr Robert Church, former associate dean of medicine at
the University of Calgary. Dr William Cochrane, former president of both the
University of Calgary and the pharmacutical company Connaught Laboratories
Ltd., is chair of Chromos' board of directors.

For years, researchers have been trying to get genes into cells using
disabled viruses and tiny molecular capsules.

These so-called vectors can only carry a small amount of genetic material.
And there is often no way of telling where the genes will land or if they
will "express" themselves and produce the desired proteins.

The same problems have bedeviled several costly and ambitious attempts to
install new genes in the cells of human volunteers suffering from genetic
diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Scientists have been unable to come up
with a transport mechanism to deliver the genetic cargo to the right place.

"MAC's bring a level of control that's been missing," said Geraedts.

Kedes said that with artificial chromosomes "you can bring a in a lot of
regulatory and control features that are misssing from DNA and genes brought
in by viruses or other vectors."

Geraedts and Kedes said the other big advantage of the artificial
chromosomes is carrying capacity. "These chromosomes are capable of handling
tens of thousands of copies of a gene," Kedes said. Which means MAC's, at
least in theory, can program cells to produce a lot more theraputic proteins.

He said Chromos scientists have demonstrated artificial chromosomescan
produce large amounts of test proteins. The next step, Kedes said, is to do
the same with a pharmacutically valuable protein, such a s insulin or growth
hormone.

Geraedts said the company, which has two patents on its technology and
several more pending, will soon announce partnerships with various academic
groups and private sector companies. He wouldn't name any of the prospective
partners.

He said the MAC's first application will be to mass produce, in cell
cultures, theraputic drugs for the pharmacutical industry.

By year end, Geraedts says the company hopes to be producing MAC's that can
be "installed" in animal embryos by Chromos' industry partners.

He mentioned rabbits, cows or goats has possible recipients.

He said a mouse programmed with artificial chromosomes, and capable of
passing chromosomes onto its offspring, is being created by the company's
scientists in Hungary.

Geraedts said the team hopes to have the altered mouse in hand by the fall.
In theory, he said, the artificial chromosomes will replicate every time the
animal's cells divide. So the MAC's will end up in every cell in the
creature's body.

Geraedts said it should be possible to create "transgenic" animals that will
produce desired proteins in their milk. The milk would be harvested and the
protein removed for use in drugs and theraputics.

Several companies around the world already have created transgenic goats and
sheep for use as pharacutical factories.

 

Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:15:54 -0700 (PDT)
>From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [US] DEC buys muskrat-trimmed hats
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970413001634.0d3f57b4@dowco.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

[Not sure how old this story is - it only appeared in today's paper]

>From The Vancouver Sun - Saturday, April 12th, 1997

The New York state department of environmental conservation's decision to
buy new winter hats for 275 fish and game offices has angered animal-rights
activists. The hats, reports the newsletter  'Dispatches', are made in
Canada and trimmed with muskrat fur.

"The public feels the DEC's job is to protect animals," said Marion Stark of
the Fund for Animals. "The animals really suffer terribly in the traps. It's
unnecessary and cruel."

The fish and game officers are unhappy with the choice of muskrat, too. It's
"kind of cheesy looking," said an officer who would have prefered beaver,
which is more expensive.

"We looked at beaver because it's the state animal," said DEC official Gary
Sheffer, "but muskrat was an affordable option."

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 09:46:04 -0400
>From: allen schubert 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [US] Biotech Firm Might Sponsor Classes at Wildlife Refuge Site
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414094602.006aba9c@clark.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

from WashingtonPost.com:
----------------------------------------

Biotech Firm Might Sponsor Classes at Wildlife Refuge Site

Environmental Group Hopes to Form Venture

By Eric L. Wee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 13 1997; Page V01
The Washington Post

A major biotechnology company and a local environmental
group are talking about teaming up to provide scientific
education courses for schoolchildren on a
soon-to-be-formed national wildlife refuge in
Woodbridge.

Late last month, senior executives from American Type
Culture Collection took a three-hour tour of the
580-acre site with the head of Woodbridge Foundation
Inc., a group that has been trying to lease buildings on
the property for environmental education programs.

Although company representatives say any alliance is 
from a sure thing, officials from Woodbridge Foundation
are more enthusiastic.

James Waggener, head of Woodbridge Foundation, said he
got a strong, positive response from his corporate
guests. He said the American Type executives shared his
vision of holding environmental education courses on the
refuge. He also said the potential sponsors indicated
they might be willing to help renovate dilapidated
buildings on the property for lab and classroom space.

That has been a major worry for U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service officials who will take control of the property
from the Department of Defense in the coming months.
They have estimated that it might cost about $500,000 a
year to operate and maintain the 1950s-era buildings on
the former military base.

If the two groups team up, American Type would be the
foundation's first major corporate sponsor. The
environmental group has been scrambling for just such a
benefactor to put it on sturdier financial footing. The
group already has a tentative agreement with George
Mason University.

"I'm just delighted," said Waggener, adding that the
discussion is still in the preliminary stages. "They've
expressed an interest and agreed in principal with us.
They have the necessary administrative, technical,
scientific and financial resources to provide us a very
hopeful picture for an early and successful start for
this project. . . . There is a very real prospect of
substantial cooperation with one of the new major forces
in the county."

But a spokeswoman for American Type played down the
discussions with Waggener's group. Kaye Sloan Breen,
vice president of public affairs, said the refuge
group's plan is interesting but is just one of many
projects the company is considering in Prince William
County. She said her company also is talking with the
Prince William Symphony, Prince William Hospital and
others to see how it can contribute to the county.

American Type plans to move from Rockville to a new $12
million lab just west of Manassas later this year. The
company is one of the world's largest keepers of
research microorganisms, housing 45,000 types of cells,
bacteria, fungi, yeasts and viruses. Breen said the
company is looking for ways to increase the public's
scientific knowledge through programs such as the one
proposed at the refuge.

"We want to be a good corporate citizen," Breen said.
"We're talking to a lot of groups."

The site that Waggener hopes to use was formerly a
secret Army radio transmission and electromagnetic
research facility. But with the end of the Cold War, the
Defense Department decided to let the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service take over the undisturbed land, where
more than 200 species of birds have made their home.

Woodbridge Foundation is battling to make its education
programs a reality. Waggener had planned to start
environmental courses this summer. Schoolchildren could
learn first-hand about wetlands and wildlife, he said,
and college and postgraduate students could use the site
for biological research.

But just recently, Fish and Wildlife officials put on
hold Waggener's lease to use the buildings in the middle
of the site for classroom and laboratory space.

Officials said they did so because they received a
proposal from another group that would give 50 acres of
the refuge to a developer for the expansion of a golf
course.

The main advantage to that plan is the hundreds of
thousands of dollars the developer would give the rest
of the refuge to use. Fish and Wildlife officials have
said such money would be helpful at a time when the
service is strapped for cash.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing to hold
public hearings this month to get input on what should
be done and will make a decision in the coming months.

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 00:19:57 +0800 (SST)
>From: vadivu 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Cc: jwed@hkstar.com
Subject: (MY) Successful breeding of rhinoceros hornbill at zoo
Message-ID: <199704131619.AAA15731@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


> The Star Online  

   Sunday, April 13, 1997


                   Nature
                   Birds of the same feather
                   By Yvonne Oh

                   With a loud and resonating Honk!, a Buceros rhinocerous
                   called attention to himself as it sat up on a high
                   branch in its cage.

                   His beady red eyes stared hard at the keeper who dared
                   encroach his territory. Leaving a bowl of chopped fruits
                   and vegetables, the keeper closed the cage door.

                   After a few minutes assessing the situation, old Red
                   Eyes decided it was safe and swooped down for his
                   morning meal.

                   Cutting an imposing figure, Buceros rhinocerous, or the
                   rhinoceros hornbill, is one of the larger species of
                   hornbills (about 42cm tall) to be found in the world.
                   The bird's name is derived from the upward curving
                   casque on top of its bill.

                   The casque is an appendage that is hornlike and is
                   either hollow or filled with a spongy cellular tissue.
                   The rhinoceros hornbill's "roar", a very loud resonating
                   gr-Honk, is amplified by its hollow casque.

                   Both the casque and bill are brightly coloured in
                   yellow, orange and red, which stands out in contrast to
                   the bird's glossy black torso feathers.

                   One distinguishing feature between females and males is
                   a black line on the bill.

                   Their distinct tail feathers - the only hornbill species
                   to have white feathers with a black band - were once
                   prized by the Iban people who used the feathers for
                   decorating ceremonial garments. In the Gawai Kenyalang
                   celebrations, an elaborately carved figure of the bird
                   is at the centre of ceremony.

                   The significant role of this beautiful bird makes it one
                   of the hornbills that make Sarawak the Land of the
                   Hornbills.

                   However, these days the keepers at the Bird Section of
                   the zoo are more keen on the fact that this particular
                   rhinoceros hornbill is a proud father of a geeky-looking
                   hornbill chick.

                   According to supervisor at the Bird Section, M. Ganesan,
                   this was the first time a rhinoceros hornbill has
                   successfully been bred at the zoo.

                   "We have handraised wrinkled chicks before but not the
                   rhinoceros hornbill," Ganesan said.

                   "Hornbills are quite difficult to breed. They're very
                   fussy and need their privacy," he said, adding, "That's
                   why we cover the cages with canvas so they don't see
                   us.'

                   The zoo has four species of hornbills: the greater, the
                   wrinkled, the rhinoceros and the wreathed. There are 13
                   species of hornbills in South-East Asia.

                   The rhinoceros hornbill is a protected species under the
                   Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
                   (CITES). Trade in the bird is only allowed with official
                   permits.

                   There are no figures on the number of rhinoceros
                   hornbills there are in the wild.

                   As captive breeding is difficult, Zoo Negara keepers
                   were quite excited when this pair of rhinoceros
                   hornbills started displaying nesting behaviour,
                   indicating that they might have mated sometime late
                   October. The zoo has had the birds since the end of
                   1989.

                   So as not to disturb the nesting birds, the keepers kept
                   away from the hornbills' cage as much as possible.

                   "We don't even maintain the cages because we want to
                   keep disturbance to a minimum," Ganesan said. The birds
                   had two nesting boxes to choose from, one which had a
                   viewing-glass which keepers could use to peep into the
                   box.

                   The wrinkled hornbill was the first to have been
                   successfully bred as well as hand-reared at the zoo.

                   In the wild, hornbills would search out a hollow in a
                   tree and use that as a nest. Sometimes sticks and
                   rubbish would be used to line the floor of the nest-hole
                   so that the female hornbill can easily reach the opening
                   when she's inside.

                   Once the nest-hole has been prepared, the female
                   hornbill will seal herself inside using a mixture of
                   droppings and regurgitated food. The male hornbill will
                   help her from the outside, patting on the mixture with
                   his bill as a trowel.

                   The nesting female at the zoo was sealed in on Oct 30,
                   said Ganesan. "We also noticed that the male was digging
                   the ground for worms to feed the female so we increased
                   their amount of food," he said.

                   Through a narrow slit - less than a half inch wide and
                   about three inches long - the male will pass food to the
                   female. She will also toss out her droppings through
                   this slit.

                   Her confinement will last until the chick is ready to
                   fly, which is usually about two months. The female
                   hornbill usually emerges very fat and dirty, so stiff
                   that she can hardly fly.

                   If anything should happen to the male while the female
                   is imprisoned, other hornbills can take over the task of
                   feeding her. Otherwise she will starve to death, her
                   instincts not allowing her to abandon her chick.

                   After two and a half months, cheeping sounds from the
                   nesting box indicated that the egg had been successfully
                   hatched. Ganesan said that mice was added to the diet to
                   give the birds, especially the chick, more protein.

                   In the wild, the hornbills will eat fruits as well as
                   insects or small lizards that are slow-moving enough.

                   The chick hatches completely naked and defenceless. In
                   two months, it will grow its full black and white
                   plumage. Then it is ready to come out of the nest.

                   While the chick is still in the nesting box, there's
                   very little the keepers can do. "Sometimes if they nest
                   in the box with the (viewing) glass and we can look in
                   and see how the mother and chick are doing," Ganesan
                   said.

                   However the birds had chosen another box and the keepers
                   had to just wait and see.

                   After about five months, mother hornbill and chick
                   emerged from the box, allowing keepers to get their
                   first glimpse of the zoo's latest addition. Looking
                   geeky, the shy chick follows its parents about the cage.

                   Its first step out into the world will be a large one,
                   as it is expected to be able to fly the minute it leaves
                   the nest.

                   At the moment, keepers cannot determine if the chick is
                   male or female. "The male has red eyes and the female
                   has white eyes," Ganesan said.

                   "Right now the chick has brown eyes. It will be a while
                   before we can tell."

                   Visitors to the zoo will have to be patient about seeing
                   this new zoo baby as it will not go on display until it
                   can feed itself.

                   For the moment, Junior is happily testing its wings in
                   the world-outside-the-nesting-box, albeit within a cage,
                   and chasing tired but proud mum and dad whenever it is
                   hungry.



Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 00:20:21 +0800 (SST)
>From: vadivu 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: (MY) Mutilated dolphin found on beach
Message-ID: <199704131620.AAA16314@eastgate.cyberway.com.sg>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


> The Star Online

                   Sunday, April 13, 1997

                   Mutilated dolphin found on beach

                   KOTA KINABALU: A five-metre-long dolphin, believed to
                   have been slaughtered by fishermen, was washed up on the
                   beach of Tuaran, about 25km from here, three days ago.

                   Workers of Mimpian Jadi Golf and Beach Resort found the
                   dead mammal on Thursday and alerted the Fisheries
                   Department which removed it yesterday.

                   Believed to belong to the largest of the dolphin class
                   termed ''pilot whales,'' the mammal was badly lacerated
                   and had an open wound.

                   A rope was found attached to the tail of the dolphin
                   whose underside had been cut open.

                   Fisheries officials believed fishermen might have caught
                   the dolphin in the deep sea and cut it for certain parts
                   which they thought were edible.

                   Dolphins have frequently been spotted off Sandakan in
                   the east coast.

                   Last year, a mutilated whale shark was found on a beach
                   in Kota Kinabalu.


Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:59:42 -0400 (EDT)
>From: LMANHEIM@aol.com
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: Fwd: Campus May Be Monkey Cloning Center
Message-ID: <970413125937_82850598@emout05.mail.aol.com>

In a message dated 97-04-13 12:05:14 EDT, AOLNewsProfiles@aol.net writes:

 << Subj:Campus May Be Monkey Cloning Center
  Date:97-04-13 12:05:14 EDT
  From:AOLNewsProfiles@aol.net
 
 .c The Associated Press
 
       By WILLIAM McCALL
       HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) - Thousands of monkeys play and fight,
 chase one another and chatter away inside eight corrals in the
 rolling hills of suburban Portland.
       The Oregon Regional Primate Research Center must rely on the
 walled corrals, each about the size of a football field, to build
 communities of monkeys for experiments.
       But the arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep in Scotland, and
 monkey twins cloned from embryos at the center could make monkey
 corrals obsolete.
       If cloning technology proves practical, the center could produce
 monkeys on demand, or tailor them for specific experiments.
       ``It is within the realm of possibility that the primate center
 here could subcontract cloning work, or a biotechnology company
 could work in collaboration with the primate center,'' said Don
 Wolf, lead researcher on the monkey cloning project.
       Producing monkeys that are genetically identical in every
 respect would allow scientists to speed up experiments on new drugs
 or medical treatments.
       ``The immediate practical benefit is that it reduces the number
 of animals required for research. It could have a huge impact on
 the cost of research using nonhuman primates, which is frightfully
 expensive,'' Wolf said.
       In addition, research on the basic biochemistry that makes
 cloning work could lead to ways to unlock the secrets of cell
 regeneration, allowing victims of spinal injuries to regrow nerve
 cells, or reverse degeneration in the eye caused by various
 diseases, such as diabetes.
       ``It could be possible for paralyzed people to walk again, for
 blind people to see again,'' said Ronald Green, director of the
 Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
       Wolf, a medical biochemist, created a media stir recently at the
 250-acre primate center, hidden among trees in a valley better
 known for sprouting big computer-company campuses.
       Wolf's announcement that he had cloned two monkeys from embryos
 brought more than 70 requests for interviews by media from 16
 countries. After the publicity and a brief protest by animal rights
 activists, work has returned to normal at the center.
       There was a basic difference between the results in Scotland and
 here.
       In the Scottish experiment, Dolly the sheep was created by
 cloning a mature, highly specialized adult cell taken from the
 udder of another sheep that already was six years old.
       At the primate center here, the rhesus monkey twins - Neti and
 Ditto - were created by cloning an egg cell just before it began to
 expand and specialize and develop into a living creature.
       Every cell in the body of every living creature has all the DNA
 it needs to create an exact duplicate of itself. But most of that
 DNA gets switched off as an animal grows and the cells specialize
 into the brain, the heart, skin and bone.
       There was no way of working backward, of forcing the DNA to
 switch on every gene and start over to create an identical copy of
 itself, until Scottish embryologist Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly.
       ``This is quite a powerful tool,'' said Richard Stouffer, a
 biochemist and Wolf's research partner. ``I think it's the future
 of primate research. I don't think this place will ever be the
 same.''
       The Oregon experiments were an outgrowth of Wolf's work on
 in-vitro fertilization at Oregon Health Sciences University, the
 state's medical school, and the primate center.
       The center, one of seven scattered across the country, has been
 providing monkeys for research since Congress established the
 regional system nearly 40 years ago.
       Now its director, Susan Smith, hopes public attention to cloning
 will build interest in biological research by the National
 Institutes of Health, similar to the way the lunar landing program
 built support for NASA.
       ``Events like this capture the public imagination,'' Smith said.
       Still, researchers are wary about public reaction after
 President Clinton ordered a ban on federal funds for human cloning
 research.
       ``Clinton's response is a bit of a knee-jerk response,'' Wolf
 said. ``It's certainly appropriate to begin starting a dialogue on
 cloning technology, but cloning a human being is still a long, long
 way away.''
       But it may be difficult to overcome a public perception about
 cloning already colored by frightening books and movies, such as
 ``Jurassic Park,'' said Green, the Dartmouth ethicist.
       ``The public has a lot of science fiction in its head, and it is
 fiction,'' he said.
       Facts about the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center:
       Formally dedicated in 1962 as one of seven U.S. centers in the
 Regional Primate Research Centers Program established by Congress
 in 1959.
       250-acre campus has eight monkey corrals about the size of
 football fields or larger.
       Four veterinarians and 44 laboratory animal support staff,
 including specialists in psychological well-being, care for four
 species of 2,200 nonhuman primates.
       Facilities supported by the National Center for Research
 Resources of the National Institutes of Health, with scientific
 projects supported primarily by NIH grants.
       Affiliated with Oregon Health Sciences University. Most of the
 staff of 50 scientists have faculty appointments at the OHSU School
 of Medicine, with support staff of about 130.
       Research focuses on reproductive biology and behavior,
 neurobiology, and pathobiology and immunology. >>


---------------------
Forwarded message:
 >From:AOLNewsProfiles@aol.net
Date: 97-04-13 12:05:14 EDT

.c The Associated Press
By WILLIAM McCALL HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) - Thousands of monkeys play and fight, chase one another and chatter away inside eight corrals in the rolling hills of suburban Portland. The Oregon Regional Primate Research Center must rely on the walled corrals, each about the size of a football field, to build communities of monkeys for experiments. But the arrival of Dolly, the cloned sheep in Scotland, and monkey twins cloned from embryos at the center could make monkey corrals obsolete. If cloning technology proves practical, the center could produce monkeys on demand, or tailor them for specific experiments. ``It is within the realm of possibility that the primate center here could subcontract cloning work, or a biotechnology company could work in collaboration with the primate center,'' said Don Wolf, lead researcher on the monkey cloning project. Producing monkeys that are genetically identical in every respect would allow scientists to speed up experiments on new drugs or medical treatments. ``The immediate practical benefit is that it reduces the number of animals required for research. It could have a huge impact on the cost of research using nonhuman primates, which is frightfully expensive,'' Wolf said. In addition, research on the basic biochemistry that makes cloning work could lead to ways to unlock the secrets of cell regeneration, allowing victims of spinal injuries to regrow nerve cells, or reverse degeneration in the eye caused by various diseases, such as diabetes. ``It could be possible for paralyzed people to walk again, for blind people to see again,'' said Ronald Green, director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Wolf, a medical biochemist, created a media stir recently at the 250-acre primate center, hidden among trees in a valley better known for sprouting big computer-company campuses. Wolf's announcement that he had cloned two monkeys from embryos brought more than 70 requests for interviews by media from 16 countries. After the publicity and a brief protest by animal rights activists, work has returned to normal at the center. There was a basic difference between the results in Scotland and here. In the Scottish experiment, Dolly the sheep was created by cloning a mature, highly specialized adult cell taken from the udder of another sheep that already was six years old. At the primate center here, the rhesus monkey twins - Neti and Ditto - were created by cloning an egg cell just before it began to expand and specialize and develop into a living creature. Every cell in the body of every living creature has all the DNA it needs to create an exact duplicate of itself. But most of that DNA gets switched off as an animal grows and the cells specialize into the brain, the heart, skin and bone. There was no way of working backward, of forcing the DNA to switch on every gene and start over to create an identical copy of itself, until Scottish embryologist Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly. ``This is quite a powerful tool,'' said Richard Stouffer, a biochemist and Wolf's research partner. ``I think it's the future of primate research. I don't think this place will ever be the same.'' The Oregon experiments were an outgrowth of Wolf's work on in-vitro fertilization at Oregon Health Sciences University, the state's medical school, and the primate center. The center, one of seven scattered across the country, has been providing monkeys for research since Congress established the regional system nearly 40 years ago. Now its director, Susan Smith, hopes public attention to cloning will build interest in biological research by the National Institutes of Health, similar to the way the lunar landing program built support for NASA. ``Events like this capture the public imagination,'' Smith said. Still, researchers are wary about public reaction after President Clinton ordered a ban on federal funds for human cloning research. ``Clinton's response is a bit of a knee-jerk response,'' Wolf said. ``It's certainly appropriate to begin starting a dialogue on cloning technology, but cloning a human being is still a long, long way away.'' But it may be difficult to overcome a public perception about cloning already colored by frightening books and movies, such as ``Jurassic Park,'' said Green, the Dartmouth ethicist. ``The public has a lot of science fiction in its head, and it is fiction,'' he said. Facts about the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center: Formally dedicated in 1962 as one of seven U.S. centers in the Regional Primate Research Centers Program established by Congress in 1959. 250-acre campus has eight monkey corrals about the size of football fields or larger. Four veterinarians and 44 laboratory animal support staff, including specialists in psychological well-being, care for four species of 2,200 nonhuman primates. Facilities supported by the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health, with scientific projects supported primarily by NIH grants. Affiliated with Oregon Health Sciences University. Most of the staff of 50 scientists have faculty appointments at the OHSU School of Medicine, with support staff of about 130. Research focuses on reproductive biology and behavior, neurobiology, and pathobiology and immunology. AP-NY-04-13-97 1202EDT
To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles. For all of today's news, go to keyword News. Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 14:25:37 -0400 >From: allen schubert To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: BioTech Global Days of Action Update Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414142534.006bc9b8@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" from McLibel e-mail list: ------------------------------------- Subject: BioTech Global Days of Action Update Date: Apr 13, 1997 >From: Ronnie Cummins Global Days of Action Against Biotechnology & Cloning Campaign Progress Report April 11, 1997 by Ronnie Cummins, Pure Food Campaign USA (218) 226-4164 Fax (218) 226-4157 email: world wide web: As of April 10, activists from 24 nations have committed themselves to organize actions and press events against genetic engineering and cloning during the week of April 20-27. A number of groups have planned actions as well for the week of April 14-20. These countries and contact persons include the following: (1) United States--anti-biotech events in New York, Washington, D.C., Burlington, Vt., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Duluth, Milwaukee, Madison, Detroit, Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, Tucson, Norwalk, Ct., Albuquerque, Boulder, and Iowa City; with anti-biotech activities also being incorporated into Earth Day Week activities in other cities as well. Among some of the most newsworthy events will be grain dumps and street protests in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. on April 21 and April 23 and teach-ins in Albuquerque April 20 and New York City on April 27. Contact: Pure Food Campaign (Ronnie Cummins) Tel. (218) 226-4164 Fax. (218) 226-4157 e-mail: USA April Events Contacts: New York City (Mitchell Cohen Tel. 718-449-0037); (Andy Zimmerman Tel. 914-478-8639); (Asha Golliher Tel. 212-226-7171); (Greg Todd 718-858-8803). NYC Events Planned: April 23 at 7:30 p.m. Forum on Biotechnology and Gene Foods at Broooklyn Society for Ethical Culture 53 Prospect Park West with Dr. Michael Hansen from the Consumers Union and Mitchell Cohen from Brooklyn Greens. Also in NYC on April 27 there will be an all-day teach-in sponsored by the Learning Alliance starting at 10 a.m. at 324 Lafayette St. 7th Floor with speakers including Vandana Shiva, Debra Harry, Kristen Dawkins, and Ronnie Cummins. After the teach-in there will be a street protest at Monsanto's headquarters. Washington, D.C. (Foundation on Economic Trends Tel. 202-466-2823). Protest against biotech foods and cloning on April 22. Chicago street protest noon April 21 (Jane Alexander Tel. 773-338-7182). Los Angeles (Steve Urow Tel. 310-399-9355) Student forum and press conference at noon April 21 at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. Grain dump and press conference at Ralph's Supermarket at Barrington & Olympic Streets in West L.A. on April 23 at noon. San Francisco (Michael Phillips Tel. 415-695-1591), street action and press conference at the Marina Safeway in S.F. on April 21 at noon. Minneapolis-St. Paul (Pat Kerrigan Tel. 612-870-1473), protest and press event at headquarters of Pillsbury Corporation in downtown Minneapolis at noon April 23, followed by a forum that evening at First Universalist Church (Dupont Ave. S. And 34th Street). Duluth, Mn. (Jan Conley 715-392-5782) Protest, free food, and literature distribution on the Duluth Lakewalk near Leif Ericson Park noon April 26. Milwaukee (Louise Quigley Tel. 414-962-2703 or Frances Bartelt Tel. 414-332-3576) protest in front of FDA offices at 2675 N. Mayfair Road April 22 at 5:30 p.m. Madison (John Peck Tel. 608-262-9036), protest and press event on steps of the Memorial Union at Univ. of Wisconsin noon April 25. Detroit (Key Halverson Tel. 810-476-3403). Atlanta (Anne Melfi Tel. 404-365-9582). Austin (Neil Carmen Tel. 512-288-5772). Tucson (Gwen Cadenhead Tel. 520-624-7893). Norwalk, Ct. (Lela Florel Tel. 203-374-4646) grain dump and press conference at Pathmark supermarket in Norwalk at noon on April 22. Albuquerque (Robin Seydel Tel. 505-265-4631), citywide teach-in on biotechnology with featured speaker Brian Tokar on April 20 starting at 11:30 a.m at Silver Street entrance of La Montanita Co-op, Carlisle & Amherst Streets. Iowa City (Teresa Carbrey Tel. 319-338-0635) citywide teach-in April 22 featuring Beth Fitzgerald from Greenpeace. Burlington, Vermont--teach-in and protest at the University of Vermont April 22 (Alice Stokes 802-864-4665). Boulder, Colorado April 24 forum on genetic engineering with featured speech by Vandana Shiva at the University of Colorado. (2) Canada--protest action planned at the GATT Codex Alimentarius labeling meeting in Ottawa April 14 at 10 a.m. on Parliament Hill. Also press conference planned the following week for Prince Edward Island and leafletting in Peterborough, Ontario. Contact: Council of Canadians (Dave Robinson) Tel. (613) 233-2773 Fax. (613) 233-6776 e-mail Also contact: Campaign to Ban Genetically Engineered Food (Richard Wolfson) e-mail: (3) U.K.--continuous actions planned April 18-27 in London and a dozen other cities by Women's Environmental Network and other groups. National Conference of anti-biotech activists in Herefordshire April 18-20. Protests against Monsanto and other biotech corporations April 21-22. Lobbying of government and legislators April 23-24. Nationwide leafletting of supermarkets on April 25-27. Contact: Women's Environmental Network (Ricarda Steinbrecher or Zoe Elsord) Tel. +44-171-247-3327 Fax. +44-171-247-4740 e-mail (4) India--actions planned in April. Contact: Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy (Vandana Shiva) Tel. +91-11-696-8077 Fax. +91-11-685-6795 e-mail (5) Malaysia--actions planned by Third World Network and Consumers Association of Penang. Contact: Third World Network (Martin Khor) Tel. +60-4-226-6728 Fax. +60-4-226-4505 e-mail (6) Philippines--actions (still tentative) planned by Center for Alternative Development Initiatives. Contact CADI (Nicky Perlas) Tel. +63-2-928-3986 Fax. +63-2-928-7608 e-mail: (7) France--actions planned in Paris by Ecoropa and other groups. Contact: Ecoropa (Etienne Vernet) Tel. +33-1-43-38-38-17 Fax. +33-1-43-38-37-88 e-mail: (8) Austria --actions planned by Global 2000 including an important national referendum on biotech foods April 14. Contact: Global 2000 (Daniel Hausknost) Tel. +431-812-57300 Fax. +431-812-5728 e-mail (9) Netherlands--protest action planned by ASEED, the Amsterdam-headquartered European youth network on April 18 in Amsterdam. Leafletting by Natuurwetpartij (e-mail ) across the country. Contact: ASEED (Stephanie Howard or Rod Harbinson) Tel. +31-20-668-2236 Fax. +31-20-665-0166 e-mail: (10) Spain--Actions planned by AEDENAT, the Ecological Association for the Defense of Nature. Simultaneous street actions and petition gathering in front of government buildings in Madrid, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga, Sevilla, Valladolid, Zaragoza, Oviedo, Logrono, Santander, and Burgos. Motions to be introduced in more than 500 city councils and provincial parliaments, and public speeches and forums in Gijon (Asturias), Marbella (Malaga), Daganzo (Madrid), Almeria (University), Ecija (Sevilla), and other cities. Contact: AEDENAT (Ramon Duran) Tel. +34-1-319-8782 Fax. +34-91-571-7108 e-mail: (11) Australia--activities planned by Australian GeneEthics Network and Australian Consumers Association. Protest at Monsanto's headquarters in Melbourne at noon April 23. International videoconference on biotech sponsored by Consumers Association in Sydney April 16. Contact: GeneEthics Network (Bob Phelps) Tel. +61-3-9416-2222 Fax. +61-3-9416-0767 e-mail: Australian Consumers Association (Carole Renouf) Tel. +61-2-9577-3332 Fax. +61-2-9973-2328 e-mail: (12) Japan--actions planned by Network for Safe and Secure Food and Environment and Consumers Union. Public protest in Tokyo April 23. Seminars and forums in a number of Japanese cities April 25-30. Contact: NESSFE (Mika Iba) Tel.+ 813-3327-6444 Fax. +813-3325-5890 e-mail: Consumers Union of Japan (Setsuko Yasuda) Tel. +813-3711-7766 Fax +813-3715-9378 (13) Sweden--actions planned, including a protest at the American Embassy. For further information contact Martin Frid Tel & Fax. +46-479-10010 e-mail (14) Norway--actions planned including a march by small farmers and anti-biotech activists in Oslo April 22. Contact: GATT WTO Campaign (Helge Christie) Tel. & Fax. +47-6249-6096 e-mail: (15) Belgium--actions planned. Contact: Pesticide Action Network Belgium (Catherine Wattiez) Tel. +322-358-2926 Fax. +322-358-2926 e-mail Also contact: CPAQ (Patrick Vander Linden) Tel. +322-218-4727 Fax. +322-217-6078 e-mail Also contact: BRABANT Ecologie (Christian Jacques) Tel. and Fax +322-633-1048 e-mail <100137.2210@compuserve.com (Taty Lauwers) (16) Denmark--Protest march by Danish environmental organization Ecotopia starting at Monsanto's headquarters in Copenhagen during Global Action Week. Contact Ecotopia (Svenning) Tel. +45-3135-3540 (17) Germany--actions planned in Bonn, Munich, Dusseldorf (April 26) Bochum, and Cologne (Teach-in on Genetic Engineering April 26, march to proposed location of Bio-Genetic Center April 27). Contact Gen-Ethisches Network (Werner Reisberger) Tel.+ 49-234-540-294 Fax. +49-234-540-239 e-mail: Also contact AntiGen in Cologne-Kalk (Christiane Niesel) Tel. +49-221-830-2561 (18) Switzerland--action planned for Basel April 21 at Novartis corporate office. Contact: No Patents on Life (Florianne Koechlin) Tel. +41-61-411-26-34 Fax. +41-61-411-26-88 e-mail (19) Poland--actions planned. Contact Krakow Green Federation (Darek Szwed) e-mail (20) Hungary--actions planned. Contact Daniel Swartz and Ada Amon e-mail or (21) New Zealand--ongoing actions. Contact Natural Food Commission (Guy Hatchard) Tel. +9-522-1043 Fax. +9-524-6003 e-mail (22) Georgia--activities planned. Contact: Georgia Greens and Biological Farming Association "Elkana" (Mariam Jordjadze or Keti Nemsadze) Fax +995-32-22-19-65 e-mail or (23) Ethiopia--activities planned in conjunction with a meeting on plant genetic resources and food security. Contact: Institute for Sustainable Development (Sue Edwards and Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher) e-mail (24) Brazil--activities planned. Contact: IDEC (Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection) (Marilena Lazzarini Tel. +55-11-65-8151 Fax. +55-11-62-9844 e-mail: * * * A number of activists have requested a sample press release to make available to media in their respective countries. The Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. have prepared the following one-page press release as a model or prototype. Groups may simply substitute the name of their group, location, time, and event description (and substitute appropriate polling information and quotes from their spokesperson) in place of the USA information included in this prototype. _________________________________________________________ FIRST GLOBAL PROTESTS OF THE BIOTECH AGE SCHEDULED FOR 25 U.S. CITIES AND 23 OTHER NATIONS FOR APRIL 20-27 NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs) TAKE TO THE STREETS TO VOICE OPPOSITION TO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS, ANIMAL AND HUMAN CLONING AND PATENTS ON LIFE UNPRECEDENTED "GLOBAL DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST BIOTECH" MARK THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA OF ACTIVISM ________________________________________________________ (Washington, D.C.) : The Foundation on Economic Trends announced today the first global protests of the Biotech Age--with demonstrations, picket lines, and press conferences scheduled for 25 U.S. cities and 23 other nations. U.S. cities where anti-biotech actions will take place on the week of April 20-27 include New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta, Austin, Tucson, Albuquerque, and Iowa City. Anti-biotech actions are also scheduled during Earth Day week activities on scores of college campuses. NGO's in 23 other nations will also be taking to the streets to protest animal and human cloning, genetically engineered foods and patents on life. Protests and press conferences are scheduled for the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Malaysia, The Philippines, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Italy, Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, New Zealand, Ethiopia, and Georgia. The global protests are a response to the recent introduction of genetically engineered foods onto the world market, last month's revelation of the first cloning of a mammal and the quickened pace of patents on transgenic plants, animals and human genes. The first genetically engineered food crops--Monsanto's controversial herbicide-resistant soybeans and Ciba Geigy's gene spliced corn were introduced to Europe and other world markets in November of last year and ignited a storm of controversy among angry consumers demanding labeling. According to a recent poll 93% of Americans want all genetically engineered foods clearly labeled and many consumers say they will not buy foods that are genetically engineered. The cloning of a sheep in Scotland last month has raised further concerns among citizens in countries around the world and led to calls for legislation to ban all animal and human cloning. A Feb. 26 Time/CNN poll found 93% of Americans opposed to human cloning and 66% opposed to animal cloning. The increased pace of patents on transgenic animals and human genes has raised similar concerns. In 1995 more than 200 American religious leaders--Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu--publicly announced their opposition to the patenting of transgenic animals and human genes and vowed to mobilize support within the nation\'d5s religious denominations and congregations. Commenting on the unprecedented international campaign, biotech critic Jeremy Rifkin said "Civilization stands at the cusp of a frightening new era of cloning, genetic engineering, and eugenics. The time has arrived for concerned citizens the world over to stand up and make their voices heard--to launch a new global movement dedicated to defending and preserving the Earth's rich genetic heritage. The first global protests against biotech mark a new era of international activism" Rifkin concluded. ### __________________________________________________________ A Campaign Request: Please email or fax specific information on the events planned in your area or country if you have not already done so. This will help the Pure Food Campaign as we talk to media and activists around the world. Also please keep track of the media who contact you in your country, and let us know about the success of your activities. Please have someone take photos of your events and send us a copy as well. Feel free to call or contact us if you want advice or information on what types of events are taking place across the world. For additional background information on the issues, you may wish to access our world wide web site which in turn is linked to other web sites around the world such as Greenpeace and the Third World Network. We congratulate you all for your hard work and creativity in making these first Global Days of Action Against Genetic Engineering and Gene-Foods a tremendous success. Regards and Solidarity, Ronnie Cummins for the Pure Food Campaign ----------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. McLibel Support Campaign Email dbriars@world.std.com PO Box 62 Phone/Fax 802-586-9628 Craftsbury VT 05826-0062 http://www.mcspotlight.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to the "mclibel" electronic mailing list, send email To: majordomo@world.std.com Subject: Message: subscribe mclibel To unsubscribe, change the message to: "unsubscribe mclibel" Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 13:50:54 -0500 >From: Horgan To: ar-news@envirolink.com Subject: Anti-hunting calls needed Message-ID: <33512B0E.6FA4@sprintmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ted Nugent, bowhunter, has a toll free # to call for hunting products. The originating # will show up on his bill however. The number is: 1-800-343-HUNT Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 15:11:23 -0400 >From: allen schubert To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (US) RFI: Dog/Animal Bite Protocol Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414151120.006c9d18@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (from private e-mail) Please send any responses to: "Harry Hoffman, MD" --------------------------------------------------------------------- Can anyone on the list please furnish me a good Animal Bite Protocol? I'm particularly interested in current thinking regarding antibiotic coverage and recommendations for dealing with the Rabies issue with both domestic (known owner, pet available) and unknown (stray) dogs. In our area, the County basically takes care of that with a filing of bite report, but that isn't very reassuring Friday at 10pm with bite from a stray despite its rarity. Most of you realize this is a common injury for Postal workers. Incidentally, there is an interesting UK page debating the limited effectiveness of prophylactic antibiotics in animal bites at: http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band16/b16-2.html Thanks in advance. Harry Hoffman, MD, MPH Occupational Medicine Sacramento/Tahoe Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:54:50 -0700 >From: Andrew Gach To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: Blurring the Line Message-ID: <33513A0A.5D0@worldnet.att.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Controversy Erupts Over Organ Removals By GINA KOLATA, New York Times reporter A prosecutor in Cleveland has accused a nationally renowned medical center there of seeking to hasten the deaths of terminally ill patients to obtain their organs for transplant. Officials at the medical center vehemently deny the charges. Even so, some medical experts fear that the dispute will make an already skittish public even more reluctant to donate organs. A proposal by the Cleveland Clinic Hospital was to allow doctors to take organs from patients within minutes after their hearts had stopped beating. Virtually all donors today are in a different category: their hearts are beating while their brains have all but ceased to function. But many ethicists say it should also be permissible to take organs from patients whose hearts have stopped -- the traditional definition of death. In the last few years, many hospitals have begun using such donors. One recent study of 500 hospitals by Dr. Bethany Spielman, a lawyer and ethicist at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, found that nearly a third were using donors whose hearts had stopped beating in addition to those who were deemed brain-dead. At issue is one of the most delicate areas of medicine. Organ procurement has always made the public nervous, and studies have shown that many people will not sign donor cards because they are afraid that doctors will speed their deaths to get their organs. So, ethicists say,transplant doctors have tried to reassure the public, steering clear of murky areas. But the Cleveland Clinic walked right into an area murky enough that Carmen Marino, the first assistant prosecutor for Cuyahoga County, declared that its proposal was a matter "of grave concern." Under the draft proposal, which has not been carried out, organs would be taken from people who were not brain dead but who were gravely ill, with no chance of recovery, and kept alive only by a respirator. With the consent of family members, the doctors would turn off the respirator while the patient was in an operating room. Within minutes after the heart stopped beating, surgeons would remove the patient's kidneys, pancreas and liver. The patients would receive two drugs that would not benefit them but would help preserve their organs: heparin, which prevents blood clotting, and regitine, which widens blood vessels so the organs would be well supplied with blood. The idea was that some good would come out of the act of turning off a respirator, that the families might be comforted by knowing that another person's life might be saved, clinic officials said. Those who have raised the alarm in the Cleveland case contend that the two drugs, regitine in particular, would hasten death, and that therefore the transplant surgeons would be killing patients to get their organs. Experts disagree about whether the drugs would speed death. The imbroglio began when Dr. Mary Ellen Waithe, the director of advanced studies in bioethics at Cleveland State University, and her student Peggy Rickard Bishop Bargholt began providing Marino with information that Ms. Bargholt had found while she was working at the clinic. Marino said Dr. Waithe and Ms. Bargholt had tried other avenues first, submitting an article to The Journal of the American Medical Association, which, he said, rejected it. Jeff Molter, a spokesman for the journal, said it did not comment on whether it had accepted or rejected papers. Dr.Waithe and Ms. Bargholt also wrote to the Ohio attorney general, who referred the case to Marino's office. Marino, whose jurisdiction includes Cleveland, said a draft of the clinic's proposal revealed what the doctors really wanted. "The ultimate motive for declaring death comes into play -- to harvest organs," he said. He provided the manuscript of the medical paper, which said the proposed program in Cleveland "may cross the line between permitting and inducing death." Marino said he would insist that his office approve any protocols before the clinic tried to take organs from donors whose hearts had stopped beating. Dr. Waithe said she could not comment in detail because she had signed an exclusivity agreement with the CBS News program "60 Minutes," which is to broadcast a report on the dispute Sunday night. But she said she thought that the doctors at the clinic would be murdering patients to get their organs. The patients were about to die, Dr. Waithe said, but "suppose your mother was dying of breast cancer and you knew she was going to die soon but you didn't know when." And then, she said, suppose that "you put a pillow over her face," and so hastened her death. With the use of regitine, she said, "that is exactly what this is." The head of the ethics department at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. George Agich, and his recently retired predecessor, Dr. George Canoti, said they were outraged that Ms. Bargholt and Dr. Waithe had never spoken to them about their concerns and had never told them that they were providing documents to the county prosecutor. Canoti said, "I'm the first to say that if we did something bad we should own up to it." But, he added, "I can't see any major ethical problems" with the proposal. No one was planning to to kill patients or accelerate their deaths to get organs, he said. Agich said that "the clinic has been very baffled" and that the criticisms "are now tarnishing the whole organ procurement program and the donation effort." But would the drugs have hastened the deaths of patients? And, if so, are doctors who use them essentially killing patients to get their organs? Dr. Michael DeVita, an expert in critical-care medicine and the chairman of the ethics committee at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says regitine does lower blood pressure and so, he said, "it can certainly hasten death." When doctors take dying patients off of life supports, DeVita said, they can "use medicines for the patient's comfort that may as a consequence also hasten death." But, he said, "drugs given exclusively to hasten death nd not for a patient's comfort are considered active euthanasia." Regitine could fall into that category, he said. So, he added, "that's specifically why we don't use it at Pittsburgh." But Dr. Hans Sollinger, the chairman of the division of transplantation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and the president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, vehemently disagrees. In recent years, Dr. Sollinger said he had taken organs from 12 donors whose hearts had stopped beating, giving them regitine and heparin. He also said he had given drugs to the thousands of brain-dead patients to preserve their donated organs. And yet, he said, "we have never seen a significant drop in blood pressure and I have, in thousands of cases, never seen a cardiac arrest, never seen a significant cardiac arrhythmia." Dr. Norman Fost, the director of the ethics program at the University of Wisconsin and a visiting professor this year at Princeton University, said it was "flat-out wrong" to say the drugs speed death. "The immediate cause of death is the removal of ventilator support," Fost said. The donors in question are not brain dead, he said, since "it takes the brain a day or two to be completely dead." But he said death "is a philosophical, a legal, a religious concept," not a medical concept. In medicine, Fost said, a patient is dead when a licensed doctor declares the patient dead. In Wisconsin, with organ donors whose hearts have stopped, that moment is defined as five minutes after the heart stops. In other medical centers, it is two minutes or three minutes or, sometimes, six minutes after there is no heart beat. But such definitions, according to some ethicists, are part of the problem. Dr. Spielman, the ethicist at Southern Illinois University, said her survey showed that there was no uniformity in hospitals' policies for such donors. Some hospitals, she said, did not even have a policy. Dr. Arthur Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, described the situation this way: "There's a real danger here. If you scare people about fuzzing the line between life and death, if you frighten people into thinking that doctors kill patients to obtain organs, you will devastate the system. The whole system depends on altruism, and altruism depends on clear standards that everyone agrees to. You can't innovate in this area, institution by institution, doctor by doctor." Already, said Debbie May-Johnson, a spokeswoman for Life Banc, the Cleveland area's organ depository, news reports about the controversy appears to be having devastating effects. Normally, there are three organ donations every four days in the area. But since The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported the accusations by Marino on April 3, there has been a single donation, and it came on Friday. ============================================================ The fact that transplant surgeries and follow up care may bring in more than $100,000 each is never mentioned in the utterances of bioethicist and the reporting of the science writers. Is it too far fetched to raise the specter that eagerness over netting a sizeable sum of money may tempt the hospital staff to bend the rules? In all other areas of human endeavor, the matter of conflict of interest would be raised - but as we all now, scientist and doctors are above such things - aren't they? Andy Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 16:30:22 -0400 >From: allen schubert To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (US) Tourism endangers Thailand's turtles Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414163019.006bf5e4@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" from CNN web page: ------------------------------ Tourism endangers Thailand's turtles April 13, 1997 Web posted at: 2:09 p.m. EDT (1809 GMT) PHUKET, Thailand (Reuter) -- The beaches of Phuket in Thailand have become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region, but the island is paying a price for its popularity. The intrusion is causing the island's wild turtles, which have for so long been a feature of the area, to disappear. Many young turtles are unable to make the arduous journey from their hatchery in the sand dunes to the sea. It may only be a few meters, but many of them never survive that journey -- they are picked off by birds before they enter the water. Of those that do make it, there are hungry schools of fish waiting in the shallows for the chance to plunder. Phuket was once one of the most popular places for turtles to lay their eggs. But now, the crowds of beach-goers seem to have changed that. The local turtle population has dwindled by 90 percent. Phuket's Marine Biological Center is trying to turn the tide. Phensri Boonrueng oversees a local operation that releases young turtles into the sea each year. He says the operation reduces the chances of the turtles perishing before they even reach their natural habitat. Even then, the odds for survival are apparently very low; Boonrueng puts it at about 1 percent. The pressures of fishing and pollution from tourist resorts have compounded the problem. Environmentalists fear that the turtles could become extinct if there are no comprehensive measures taken to protect them. Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:44:05 -0400 >From: Vegetarian Resource Center To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: Yellowstone Bison Herd Cut in Half Over Winter Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970413174403.00b59f74@pop.tiac.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" April 13, 1997 Yellowstone Bison Herd Cut in Half Over Winter By JAMES BROOKE GARDINER, Mont. -- As spring unfolds across Yellowstone National Park, biologists calculate that less than half of the park's bison survived the herd's worst winter since 1902, the year that Congress ordered Yellowstone to rescue bison from extinction. With ice like concrete covering winter forage, about 850 of the shaggy giants starved or froze to death in the park. An additional 1,080 lumbered out of the park, to be shot by Montana officials worried that the bison could spread disease to cattle. "Got to kill the buffalo for the holy cow," chanted members of the Bison Action Group at a recent protest in Bozeman. "Got to shoot the buffalo, pow, pow, pow." Emotions over the shootings have run high, often trampling the facts as thoroughly as bison stampeding across the plains. Ranchers and the federal Agriculture Department want to make sure cattle in states on Yellowstone's border are not contaminated. American Indians and environmentalists say there are alternatives to shooting the bison. And many rural Westerners criticize the Interior Department's herd and range manangement. This tourist village at the park's northern entrance has become the epicenter of the bison battles. One morning in March, as 150 American Indians and their white allies gathered in "a circle of life" to pray for the bison, gunfire could be heard from a mile away as Montana officials shot 14 bison approaching grazing cattle. Two weeks later, a woman burst into a public meeting in Gardiner and tried to dump a 5-gallon bucket of rotting bison innards on a panel of public officials, including Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, the state's two senators, Conrad Burns and Max Baucus, and the governor, Marc Racicot. Park rangers have placed black mourning tape over the bison image on their gold badges. Some environmentalists have called for a summer tourism boycott. And a billboard in Billings reads, "Grown in Yellowstone, slaughtered in Montana." By contrast, Burns, a Republican, drew wild applause at a recent meeting of the Montana Farm Forum when he referred to Michael Finley, the park superintendent, as "this jughead we've got running Yellowstone Park." Burns represents a state where agriculture is the No. 1 industry and cows outnumber people 3-to-1. Finley works for the Interior Department, an agency that features the bison in its seal. Every year, Yellowstone is visited by about 3 million people, many of them attracted by the chance to see bison grazing by roadways. The park has received thousands of letters and telephone calls in recent months from people concerned about the fate of the bison. Two factors have brought about the current situation: overpopulation of bison in the park, and the park's status as the last major reservoir in the United States of brucellosis, a disease that crops up in humans as undulant fever. While some environmentalists portray Yellowstone's herd as the last wild bison herd in the United States, it is in reality the nation's only unmanaged herd. Hunting keeps in check the nation's two other wild -- or unfenced -- bison herds, one in Alaska and one in Utah. In the effort to save bison from extinction, Yellowstone officials brought bison bulls here from Texas, plowed up native grasses and planted hay, and, for half a century, ran a "Buffalo Ranch," complete with corrals and salt licks. As the bison population grew, rangers distributed the animals around the park by truck, castrated bulls, sold excess animals and sent some animals to a National Park Service slaughterhouse. In 1967, culling was stopped on the theory that "natural regulation" -- starvation and disease -- would keep the herd in check. Yellowstone's bison herd then increased tenfold in 30 years, hitting about 3,500 last fall. Bison are so fecund that the national herd increases by 25 to 30 percent a year, according to the National Bison Association, a trade group. With about 250,000 bison in the United States today -- most are on buffalo ranches -- Yellowstone's herd of about 1,500 accounts for less than 1 percent of the total. Many range professionals argue that the park cannot support more than 1,000 bison. "If we ran our ranch and overgrazed it the way Yellowstone is run, we would have picketers at our mailbox," said Wally McRae, a cattle rancher who is spokesman for a Montana environmental group, the Northern Plains Resources Council. Indeed, other Western parks with bison herds routinely reduce their numbers through hunting or fall auctions. Last year, Custer State Park in South Dakota covered one-third of its annual operating expenses by holding a bison auction that netted $665,000. If free of brucellosis, the roughly 2,000 bison that have died around Yellowstone since January could have fetched at least $2 million at auctions. Yellowstone officials say their park is too important a part of the Rocky Mountain ecosystem to be run like a ranch. They add that Yellowstone, almost half the size of Massachusetts and 31 times the size of Custer State Park, is far too large to fence. But by clinging to "natural regulation" as the best form of bison control, Yellowstone officials ignore history. For centuries, bison control was carried out by American Indian hunters. "Indians were the major and most effective predator of bison in North America," said Alston Chase, a Montana naturalist and author of "Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America's First National Park." (1986) Michael Fox, a Gros Ventre Indian and the newly elected president of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative, agrees. His group represents 30 American Indian tribes with buffalo herds. "They are trying to make the park a natural system," Fox said, from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana. "Well, in the 1960s, they removed the presence of man that had been the natural regulator for thousands of years. That's when everything got out of whack." Shoshone Indians, the Wyoming descendants of the tribe that hunted in Yellowstone in the 1800s, have proposed renewing traditional bison hunts to control the park population. Park officials have declined, citing rules that limit hunting to problem grizzly bears. Although 41 bison were accidentally killed by Montana motorists this winter, the annual spillover of Yellowstone bison seeking winter range would probably have been ignored if about 10 percent of the herd did not carry brucellosis. In animals, the disease causes spontaneous abortions. Some scientists believe cattle could acquire the disease by licking or sniffing the afterbirth of such an abortion from an infected bison cow. Humans, in turn, generally acquire undulant fever by drinking milk. Generally a lifelong affliction, undulant fever causes stiffness of joints, similar to a recurring flu. Brucellosis, which once cost American stock growers about $300 million a year in lost calves and milk, now infects fewer than 30 cattle herds, costing ranchers about $1 million a year in losses. Today, the Agriculture Department certifies 36 states as brucellosis free, including the three states of Yellowstone Park -- Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. With brucellosis infecting Yellowstone's elk, moose and grizzly bears as well as its bison, the department has threatened to withdraw certification from the three states. In recent weeks, Alabama, Colorado, Oregon and Texas have threatened to demand blood tests and quarantines for cattle from the Yellowstone border states. Among Montana ranchers, the fear is real. "The buffalo just blast through the fences," said Wade Peck, who runs about 500 head of cattle on Royal Teton Ranch, only four miles north of the park. "Who is going to want to buy bulls who have been exposed to brucellosis?" Although dairy cows at Yellowstone's "Buffalo Ranch" probably first infected park bison with brucellosis around 1915, park officials say they do not know if bison can transmit brucellosis back to cows. Of the disease in Yellowstone animals, John D. Varley, the park's lead biologist, said, "You can't clean up one species, like bison, and then put them back and expect them to be disease free." Believing that there is no short-term solution to the problem, the Interior Department has chosen to finance research on a vaccine and to pay for the continuation of an environmental impact study. American Indian tribes have come up with a pragmatic proposal to treat the symptom, if not the cause. Fox, of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative, proposes building a $2 million quarantine center on land at Fort Belknap to hold all bison that test negative for brucellosis after capture outside of Yellowstone. To avoid any possible contamination of tribal cattle, 1,280 acres would be encircled by two 8-foot high game-proof fences and a third fence, of barbed wire. "All the government agencies involved are going to spend a ridiculous amount of money, anyhow, doing nothing," Fox said. Noting the signs of spring here, he added, "We are hoping to get in on the Montana construction season -- instead of waiting until everybody starts screaming again next winter." Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:34:28 -0500 (CDT) >From: bstagno@ix.netcom.com (Barbara Stagno) To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: World Week at Rockefeller U. Message-ID: <199704140134.UAA22792@dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com> WORLD WEEK FOR ANIMALS IN LABORATORIES DEMONSTRATION AND CANDLELIGHT VIGIL Wednesday, April 23, 4:30 to 6:45 pm Rockefeller University 66th Street and York Ave. New York City, NY Speakers: Peter Wood, PETA Dr Ray Greek, PCRM & MRMC Dr. Peggy Larson, DVM Cleveland Amory, FFA and others One year ago, In Defense of Animals initiated a campaign to expose Rockefeller University vivisectors Alan D. Miller and Victor J. Wilson, whose invasive cat-brain experiments have gone on ad infinitum at a cost of millions of dollars and hundreds of animal lives. IDA's campaign has been very successful in focusing the spotlight on these hideous experiments, and forcing the university to acknowledge the public's disapproval of this institutionalized animal cruelty and misuse of tax dollars. Since September, 1996, we have held weekly protests outside the university each Friday afternoon. IDA recently learned that Victor Wilson is scheduled to retire. We are awaiting the university's decision as to the future of Miller's research at ROckefeller University. If Miller is permitted to continue these experiments, Wilson's retirement will have little impact, since the same experiments will continue under MIller. IT IS MORE CRUCIAL THAN EVER BEFORE THAT WE PUT PRESSURE ON THE UNIVERSITY TO ELIMINATE MILLER FROM THE FACULTY AND PERMANENTLY END THE BRAIN-MAPPING EXPERIMENTS ON CATS. Please, everyone, make an attempt to be there on the 23rd. Even if you must come late, it will be worthwhile. Most speakers won't start until 5 pm. Unseen they suffer Unheard they cry In agony they linger In loneliness they die. Let their cries be heard!! For more information: (914) 693-6559 or (914) 561-0577 Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 21:56:39 -0400 >From: allen schubert To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (CH) Japanese Peacocks Grace U.N. Lawns Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414215545.006ca820@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" from AP Wire page: ----------------------------- 04/11/1997 15:40 EST Japanese Peacocks Grace U.N. Lawns By ERICA BULMAN Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) -- Devoured as treats by local foxes or squashed under diplomats' cars, the United Nations' resident peacocks were facing extinction until five new birds arrived Friday. Dozens of the brightly plumed birds have graced the 62-acre park surrounding the U.N. complex in Geneva ever since the land was donated to the city nearly 100 years ago. Former owner Gustave Revilliod bequeathed the land on the condition there should always be peacocks living on it. When the city donated the land to the League of Nations, the U.N.'s predecessor, the stipulation stood. The preening peacocks are a must for picture-taking tourists visiting the vast U.N. complex, although the birds' screams and their abrupt landings on the U.N. cafeteria terrace don't make them very popular with U.N. bureaucrats. The park is off-limits to dogs and all other domestic animals, but a set of codes posted at all gates of the world's largest conference center warns it is ``forbidden to provoke the peafowl.'' But despite its protected status, the peacock population had dwindled to a mere three males, dashing hopes for any offspring. ``The foxes ate all the females,'' said Dario Colombo, the U.N. gardener for the past 28 years. ``The foxes aren't generally picky. They've been eating the males for years.'' Close to 50 peacocks have been killed in the past 80 years. Victims include a prize specimen donated by the late Shah of Iran and a peahen offered as part of a couple by Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi in 1981. Others had come to an undignified end in the U.N. parking lot, Colombo said. The five new birds, which landed at Geneva airport Friday, were a gift from Japan's privately owned Izu National History Park. If offered to help after reading reports last November about the U.N. plight. The new arrivals -- one male and four females -- will be quarantined in a cage in the park for four weeks before being released. Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:04:38 -0400 >From: allen schubert To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (BR) Cats in Court to Protect Brazil Pad Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414220436.006c6240@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (one Brazil court ruled that animals have no legal rights) from AP Wire page: -------------------------- 04/11/1997 18:58 EST Cats in Court to Protect Brazil Pad SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Cats may have the luxury of nine lives, but do they have the right to live them in a posh penthouse? In the weeks to come, five judges of Brazil's Superior Justice Tribunal must decide whether three of them can continue to romp around the 5,800-square-foot apartment bequeathed to them by their late owner. When Luci Carmen Bianchi died in 1995, her will stipulated that her cats Puppy, Laika and Branquinho have all the creature comforts they were accustomed to while she was alive -- including her apartment in Porto Alegre, 700 miles south of Sao Paulo. A local court sided with disgruntled family members who challenged the will, saying ``animals do not have legal rights or obligations.'' But Mrs. Bianchi's brother, Altamiro, was on the cats' side. He appealed. ``All I want is for my sister's will to be respected, at least while the animals are still alive,'' he said in a telephone interview Friday. The court said no date had been set for the case to be heard. In the meantime, the cats are living with Altamiro. Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:15:36 -0400 >From: allen schubert To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (CA-US)B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970414221532.006cb468@clark.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "hunting" whales from AP Wire page: ---------------------------- B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again SEATTLE (AP) -- Commercial whalers in Japan and Norway are getting behind a group of British Columbia Indians and other indigenous groups as part of a worldwide effort to revive whaling. Leaders of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Indians told The Seattle Times they plan to hunt gray whales off the west coast of Vancouver Island for the first time in 70 years. ``It is our intention to go whaling again,'' said Tom Happynook, a chief of Huu-ay-aht Nation, one of 14 native nations that make up the Nuu-Chah-Nulth. ``We want to bring back respect to the whaling people and whaling countries.'' The proposed hunt -- which could take place as early as next fall -- is allied with efforts by commercial whalers in Japan and Norway who hope to promote what they call ``community-based whaling'' among indigenous people for cultural, dietary or economic reasons. In Washington state, the Makah Indians are waiting for permission for a similar hunt from an international commission that meets in October. Gray whales usually swim past Vancouver Island in April or May, heading north toward the Arctic Ocean, then return in September or October on their way to Mexico. In its initial hunt, Happynook said Indian whalers would likely kill one gray whale, dividing the meat and blubber among tribal members, and selling the bones to artists or others. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth people have not ruled out eventually engaging in commercial whaling, Happynook said. Environmentalists and animal-rights activists, who promised a protest, fear the Japanese and Norwegian whalers are using the aboriginal approach as a stalking horse for reviving commercial whaling worldwide. ``There is a surprising amount of pressure to increase whaling around the world that I never would have expected,'' said Jim Darling, a biologist who heads the West Coast Whale Research Association in Torfino, British Columbia. ``The precedent of starting these local coastal whaling operations is a good way to accomplish that.'' Tribes like the Inupiat of Alaska, Greenland Eskimos and the Makah say their traditional dependence on the giant mammals warrants them an exemption from a worldwide ban on whale-killing. But whalers from Japan and Norway argue that they, too, have hunted whales for generations and are deserving of ``aboriginal status.'' Japanese and Norwegian whaling interests have joined with aboriginal groups to form the World Council of Whalers. Last month the group opened an office in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island with Happynook as the council chairman, the Times reported in Sunday's editions. The group has plans to promote aboriginal whaling in Russia, Indonesia and the tiny Caribbean island of St. Vincent, as well as among the Indians of Vancouver Island, Happynook said. ``This new organization will provide an informed, international voice in support of communities engaged or interested in sustainable whaling, as well as working to protect whalers' livelihoods, health and cultural integrity,'' the group said. Leaders of the Makah Tribe at Neah Bay say they have rejected offers of support from Japan. ``Japan wanted to give us money, to help us buy boats, to show us how to kill the whales, everything,'' said Ben Johnson, president of the Makah Whaling Commission. ``We said no because we knew it would be very controversial, and we want to do everything by the book.'' The Clinton administration has promised to support the Makah whale-hunt when the 39-nation International Whaling Commission meets in Monaco in October. But that support would evaporate if the Makah decided to sell the whale meat or affiliate with large-scale commercial whalers, according to past statements of James Baker, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and head of the U.S. whaling delegation. The arguments that Japanese and Norwegian whalers deserve aboriginal status have been ignored because both countries sanction a commercial whale industry, said Scott Smullen, Baker's spokesman. Commercial whaling is largely blamed for driving many whale species to the brink of extinction at the turn of the century. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth have been asserting their traditional whaling rights in negotiations with the Canadian government over sovereignty and fishing rights. Canada is not a member of the international whaling body, but its government would not permit Canadian Indians to hunt whales except for ``food or social or ceremonial purposes,'' said Diane Lake, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver. Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 22:52:21 -0400 (EDT) >From: NOVENAANN@aol.com To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: B.C. Indians Plan To Hunt Again Message-ID: <970413225058_-1502396254@emout17.mail.aol.com> --------------------- Forwarded message: >From:AOLNewsProfiles@aol.net Date: 97-04-13 18:48:31 EDT
.c The Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) - Commercial whalers in Japan and Norway are getting behind a group of British Columbia Indians and other indigenous groups as part of a worldwide effort to revive whaling. Leaders of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Indians told The Seattle Times they plan to hunt gray whales off the west coast of Vancouver Island for the first time in 70 years. ``It is our intention to go whaling again,'' said Tom Happynook, a chief of Huu-ay-aht Nation, one of 14 native nations that make up the Nuu-Chah-Nulth. ``We want to bring back respect to the whaling people and whaling countries.'' The proposed hunt - which could take place as early as next fall - is allied with efforts by commercial whalers in Japan and Norway who hope to promote what they call ``community-based whaling'' among indigenous people for cultural, dietary or economic reasons. In Washington state, the Makah Indians are waiting for permission for a similar hunt from an international commission that meets in October. Gray whales usually swim past Vancouver Island in April or May, heading north toward the Arctic Ocean, then return in September or October on their way to Mexico. In its initial hunt, Happynook said Indian whalers would likely kill one gray whale, dividing the meat and blubber among tribal members, and selling the bones to artists or others. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth people have not ruled out eventually engaging in commercial whaling, Happynook said. Environmentalists and animal-rights activists, who promised a protest, fear the Japanese and Norwegian whalers are using the aboriginal approach as a stalking horse for reviving commercial whaling worldwide. ``There is a surprising amount of pressure to increase whaling around the world that I never would have expected,'' said Jim Darling, a biologist who heads the West Coast Whale Research Association in Torfino, British Columbia. ``The precedent of starting these local coastal whaling operations is a good way to accomplish that.'' Tribes like the Inupiat of Alaska, Greenland Eskimos and the Makah say their traditional dependence on the giant mammals warrants them an exemption from a worldwide ban on whale-killing. But whalers from Japan and Norway argue that they, too, have hunted whales for generations and are deserving of ``aboriginal status.'' Japanese and Norwegian whaling interests have joined with aboriginal groups to form the World Council of Whalers. Last month the group opened an office in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island with Happynook as the council chairman, the Times reported in Sunday's editions. The group has plans to promote aboriginal whaling in Russia, Indonesia and the tiny Caribbean island of St. Vincent, as well as among the Indians of Vancouver Island, Happynook said. ``This new organization will provide an informed, international voice in support of communities engaged or interested in sustainable whaling, as well as working to protect whalers' livelihoods, health and cultural integrity,'' the group said. Leaders of the Makah Tribe at Neah Bay say they have rejected offers of support from Japan. ``Japan wanted to give us money, to help us buy boats, to show us how to kill the whales, everything,'' said Ben Johnson, president of the Makah Whaling Commission. ``We said no because we knew it would be very controversial, and we want to do everything by the book.'' The Clinton administration has promised to support the Makah whale-hunt when the 39-nation International Whaling Commission meets in Monaco in October. But that support would evaporate if the Makah decided to sell the whale meat or affiliate with large-scale commercial whalers, according to past statements of James Baker, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and head of the U.S. whaling delegation. The arguments that Japanese and Norwegian whalers deserve aboriginal status have been ignored because both countries sanction a commercial whale industry, said Scott Smullen, Baker's spokesman. Commercial whaling is largely blamed for driving many whale species to the brink of extinction at the turn of the century. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth have been asserting their traditional whaling rights in negotiations with the Canadian government over sovereignty and fishing rights. Canada is not a member of the international whaling body, but its government would not permit Canadian Indians to hunt whales except for ``food or social or ceremonial purposes,'' said Diane Lake, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver. AP-NY-04-13-97 1845EDT
To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles. For all of today's news, go to keyword News. Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:35:47 +0800 >From: jwed To: ar-news@envirolink.org Subject: (CHINA) "Wise-users" gain influence Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970414113547.007a9be0@pop.hkstar.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" China Daily Date: 04/14/97 Author: Cao Min WWF aids nation's wildlife THE Ministry of Forestry plans to expand the range of co-operative projects with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) in the field of nature conservation, especially protecting China's biodiversity. At an opening ceremony at WWF's China Programme Office over the weekend, Vice-Minister of Forestry Liu Yuhe said China will strengthen bilateral and multilateral co-operation with all organizations and institutions including WWF International. "The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the development of the natural environment and takes environmental conservation as a basic State policy," Liu said. The country took the lead in the world in formulating a national agenda for the 21st century and other actions plans. Liu added that as a developing country with 1.2 billion people, China is still facing great challenges, one of which is the shortage of funds and technology. Since 1979, WWF started its fruitful co-operation with China, such as giant panda protection, conservation and wise use of wetlands, and conservation and wise utilization of tropical rain forests. The two sides have also signed two five-year co-operation frameworks since 1990, Liu said. At the meeting, Director-General of WWF International Claude Martin said that China's development paths is of great importance not only to its citizens but also to the rest of the world. "How China chooses to use its natural resources including land, forests and water will determine the sustainability of China's economic miracle," said Martin. China is the only temperate nation which ranks as one of the world's "megadiversity" countries. Its diversity of biological resources matches those of tropical nations like Brazil and Indonesia, Martin said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Every child has the right to a healthy diet - that means no meat. http://www.earth.org.hk/
ARRS Tools  |  News  |  Orgs  |  Search  |  Support  |  About the ARRS  |  Contact ARRS

THIS SITE UNDERWRITTEN IN PART BY:
Cyberian Outpost

The views and opinions expressed within this page are not necessarily those of the
EnviroLink Network nor the Underwriters. The views are those of the authors of the work.