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EarthWINS Daily #3.50
1/13/98
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:28:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Alice McCombs <amccombs@igc.apc.org>
Contents
1. Open Letter to World Bank
2. Oceans in deep trouble
3. Greener Marketing
4. Greener Purchasing
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
REGENWALD
en.alerts
12:46 PM Jan 9, 1998
(at UMWELT.comlink.apc.org)
(From News system)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
## Originalempfaenger: /APC/DEV/WORLDBANK
Mr. James Wolfensohn,
President
The Wolrd Bank Group
1818 H. Street, NW
Washington DC 20433
FAX : 001 202-5223031
USA
January 9, 1998
Open letter
Dear Mr. Wolfensohn,
We have learned that you have invited members of the private
forestry sectors and some chosen NGO for a discussion on forest
issues on January 9, 1998.
The meeting will take place at a time when logging companies
are more than ever held responsible for the degradation and
destruction of forests.
In Indonesia the Environment Minister Mr Sarwono Kusumaatmadja
accused logging and plantation companies as responsible for 92
percent of the desasterous forest fires which ravaged the country,
resulting in ununprecedented impacts to the economy and human
health in the region.
In Brasil military sources have highlighted the role of the timber
trade when they identified 80 percent of the timber trade as
illegal.
A study of the World Resource Institute has demonstrated clearly
that logging is the main threat to the remaining 20 percent of
relatively undisturbed frontier forests of the world.
A list of news reporting the critical condition of world forests
and indirectly or directly highlighting the role of the timber
trade can be perpetuated.
Although we share the preoccupation of the Bank to work toward
sustainable management of forests, the study of the list of
participants of the meeting causes great concern to us.
Some of the persons on your invitation list are among those who
represent the most ruthless companies. Being the owner, Mr.
Mohammad Hasan, also represents three companies namely PT. ICTI
Hutan Manunggal, PT. Kiani Lestari and PT. Tanjung Redep Hutani
which were accused of arson in Indonesia during the last forest
fires. The company Samling has been involved in logging on the
traditional land of the Penan in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Of cause the Bank may consult with all sorts of stakeholders. But
it sounds cynical when the Bank in internal memo writes that the
objective of the meeting is:
* to reach an understanding if the group might work as a "global
forest leadership group"
* to "advise the Bank on barriers to sustainable forestry and
conservation".
* to "encourage each company to make a first time pledge of a
significant step towards sustainable forestry."
Some of the participants are undoubtedly the very reason for the
global forest crisis and experts in unchallenged exploitation at
the expense of the environment and millions of people, who are
depended on forests.
We must note that the people and the NGO's of the forest regions
are not invited and that some NGOs are who have asked for an
invitation are refused, because the business representatives might
regard their presence as "incondusive to a frank and focused
discussion".
This, Mr President, we fear is indeed the capitulation of the Bank
in face of private business interests. Each day people in the
tropics and in other regions are being deprived of their
traditional habitat and their forsts are destroyed simply because
their interests are considered a nuissance to the interest of the
timber industry.
We have expected that the Bank, having learned from past
experiences, would start with taking account of the interests of
those who have become more and more marginalised. Instead, now we
learn that the Bank even wants to spare the business community the
inconvienience of meeting the victims.
We are very much concerned that the meeting organised by the World
Bank withthe forestry industry will help the companies gain a
respectability of which many of them do not deserve. We are
especially worried about the idea of propagating model projects
without binding obligations of the companies, in order to
effectively change their operations. This will end up in
windowdressing and greenwash.
We are very much worried, that for remedies to the forest crisis
the Bank feel it has to rely on the main factors of deforestation.
and raw material scarcity.
This indicates a lack of will to tackle the true causes of raw
material scarcity. Instead it may help to create a veil of disguise
for the loggers who have just come under growing public pressure.
The meeting takes place at a time when the Bank is reviewing its
forest policy. Anxiety exists about efforts to lift the 1991 ban on
financing logging operations in primary forests.
We request that the Bank:
* identifies clearly the culprits of forest destruction and with
whom the Bank is involved,
* that the Bank actively commissions an independent investigation
in criminal and unlawful activities by members of the industry and
other interests of commercial logging, which will further decrease
the forests,
* respect the forest people by allowing their representatives have
the same opportunity to consult their concerns and whenever
possible supports them and their organisations
* implement a genuine and first time pledge to transparancy of all
files and reports on its forest projects for public scrutiny
* conserve the last remaining 20 percent of primary forests as the
remaining heritage for the forest people community and all mankind
* uses its influence to stop further exploitative activity in the
forestry sector, in particular in situations where people and their
governments have been seen of being unable to challenge those
activities, but are in the position to introduce more social and
environmentally responsible forestry sector.
We are very sceptical about the possible success of an initiative
that counts on the good will and voluntary involvement of this
industry sector to change the growing tendencies of forest
destruction.
We believe, it is necessary, on the part of the World Bank to also
act on the governments in certain tropical countries which are the
owners of the forests to install firm control over the practise of
the timber industry and to make World Bank policy act in this
direction.
Yours sincerely
Reinhard Behrend
Rettet den Regenwald e. V.
Poeseldorfer Weg 17
20148 Hamburg, Germany
Fax: 49- 40 - 4500144
Dr. Samuel Nguiffo
Centre pour L'Environnement et
le Developpement
Yaounde, Cameroon
FAX: 237- 223859
Hasjrul Junaid
Skephi Support Office Europe
Jan Zwanenburg 19-3
NL- 1063 Jl Amsterdam, Netherlands
FAX: 31-20-6147972
John Kuenzli
Bruno Manser Fond
Heuberg 25
CH- 4051 Basel, Switzerland
FAX 41- 61- 2619474
Gabriel Rivas-Ducca
Asociacion Ecologista Costarricense
Apdo. 11812
CR- 1000 San Jose, Costa Rica
FAX 506- 223 3925
Appendix
Indonesia: a brief profile of the main actor and its forestry
Among the invitees are men such as Bob Hassan from Indonesia, who
chairs and controls the Indonesian timber industry, which has just
been identified even by government sources as one of the main
culprits of the desastrous forest fires. * PT. ICTI Hutan
Manunggal, PT. Kiani Lestari and PT. Tanjung Redep Hutani are
only
three of the known companies (timber plantations) under the
leadership of Mr. Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, which licenses have been
suspended for causing forest fires in East Kalimantan.
You have invited a person who represents the cynical and totally
unchallenged control of the timber industry over government policy
and practices and millions of people in Indonesia whose life are
dependent on the forest. Besides being the most powerful
industrialist, a MEP, the leading manager of the army business in
logging and mining concessions, Mr. Bob Hasan is known as the
President's private financial manager.
It was not surprising, that the suspension of above mentioned
companies concessions were soon lifted. Protected by the decree of
the President of the Republic, we have seen that hundreds of
millions of US dollars of the Reforestation Fund are being used for
the country's ambitious aeroplane industry and even recently the
establishment of his group's pulp and paper industry, PT. Kiani
Kertas, worth of approximately one billion US dollars.
You may recall that several years ago the role of APKINDO has been
challenged for it's trade monopolistic practices in the country as
well as overseas. The price of rattan, a non-timber-forest-product
commodity, in which many millions of people are dependent, has for
the last decade decreased drastically, while world prices have
increased. This sub-sector has been reported of being under control
of groups within the forestry industry.
Mr. "Bob" Hasan, in 1994, is the very same person behind a twenty
million US dollars media campaign, claiming Indonesian timber
industry's commitment in sustainable forestry management. In that
year, Mr. Hasan's European tour did not only turn out to be a total
fiasco, but also embarrasment to the Indonesian government. In the
UK and the Netherlands TV ads of the Indonesian Forestry Community
were banned, following legal actions by NGOs.
Today, what we can see in Indonesia is that the forestry sector is
facing an ever out of the hand anarchy. National Parks and other
protected forest areas are even not spared from illegal logging, in
which the industry is known of being involved directly or
indirectly.
For some years, the Indonesian Forestry Community has even been
involved in buying up illegal timber confiscated by the goverment.
This powerful industry community, always playing the role of the
"good-guys" in public fora and media, seems to be happy with
existing situation in the country. The capacity of the government
in "sustainably" managing the forests, could clearly be seen
in
its incapability to prevent and fight this year's forest fires. In
the light of this situation, the role of the Indonesian Forestry
Community, chaired by Bob Hasan, should be understood.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998
23:52:13 EST
Sender: Environmental Studies Discussion List <ENVST-L@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
From: C <THCLAX00@UKCC.UKY.EDU>
TROUBLED WATERS: A Call for Action
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
January 6, 1998
Contact:
Dr. Elliott A. Norse
Amy Mathews-Amos
(703) 276-1434
1,600+ SCIENTISTS WARN THAT THE SEA IS IN PERIL, CALL FOR ACTION NOW
Washington DC...At the start of the United Nations's International
Year of the
Ocean, more than 1,600 marine scientists and conservation biologists
from 65
countries have issued an unprecedented warning to the world's
governments and
citizens that the sea is in trouble. Troubled Waters: A Call
for Action
summarizes the urgent threats to marine species and ecosystems
and calls for
immediate action to prevent further damage.
Troubled Waters paints a dismaying picture of the destruction
of marine
biological diversity from five causes: 1) overexploitation of
species, 2)
physical alteration of ecosystems, 3) pollution, 4) alien species
from distant
waters disrupting local food webs and 5) global atmospheric change.
Overfishing has decimated commercial fish populations and caused
the collapse
of many fisheries worldwide, including the once-bounteous cod
fisheries of
Georges Bank off New England. Destructive fishing methods such
as bottom
trawling have crushed and buried bottom-dwelling species by scouring
a vast
area of seabed. Coastal development has consumed mangrove forests
and salt
marshes. Reef corals and marine mammals are falling victim to
new diseases,
perhaps caused by pollution. And global warming has dramatically
reduced the
sea's productivity off Southern California since 1951 and contributed
to the
steep decline of salmon in the North Pacific.
The call for action comes from scientific leaders in renowned
marine research
institutions such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the
Australian
Institute of Marine Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences,
from
scientists in universities, federal agencies, local governments,
tribal
fisheries commissions, conservation groups and private industry.
Endorsers
include marine scientists such as Drs. Jane Lubchenco, Past President
of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science; Paul Dayton
of Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and Sylvia Earle of Deep Ocean Exploration
and
Research. Leading conservation biologists who are expert on conserving
species
and ecosystems on land and are all too familiar with threats
to biological
diversity, including Drs. Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University;
Peter Raven
of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Michael Soul©, the
father of the science
of conservation biology, have also endorsed Troubled Waters.
The signatures
were collected in only eight months, starting just before the
first Symposium
on Marine Conservation Biology in June 1997.
"A recent New York Times poll found that only 1 percent of Americans
consider
the environment the most important problem facing our country,"
said Dr.
Elliott Norse, marine ecologist and President of Marine Conservation
Biology
Institute (MCBI), the nonprofit organization that coordinated
the statement.
"Because few of us spend much time below the surface, it is easy
to overlook
signs that things are going wrong in the sea." But the signs
are increasingly
obvious to the experts," according to Norse. "The scientists
who study the
Earth's living systems are far more worried than the public and
our political
leaders. That's a wake up call that nobody can afford to ignore."
Dr. JoAnn Burkholder of North Carolina State University, who discovered
the
linkage between coastal pollution and outbreaks of nightmarish
fish-eating
Pfiesteria piscicida, said "It's hard to imagine that farming
on land and
building in cities could harm the marine environment and fishermen,
but it
does. The tons of sewage produced by millions of people don't
just go away
when we flush... a lot of it winds up in our coastal waters.
And construction,
agriculture and logging send clouds of choking sediments and
excess nutrients
into marine waters, smothering sensitive habitats. What we do
on land
profoundly affects life in the sea."
"If it's business as usual," said Dr. M. Patricia Morse, a marine
biologist
from Northeastern University, "we'll see more declines in corals,
fishes,
marine mammals and seabirds. That spells disaster for industries
like fishing
and tourism that depend on healthy marine life, and for every
human on Earth,
because we all use goods and services provided by the sea every
day. Oceans
regulate our climate, provide a breathable atmosphere and break
down wastes.
Coastal wetlands protect our shores from flooding and storm damage,
improve
water quality and provide crucial habitat for fishes and other
marine life.
When we destroy these ecosystems, we lose both their products
and services."
Troubled Waters calls on citizens and governments to act now to
reverse
current trends and avert even more widespread harm to marine
species and
ecosystems. It outlines needed changes, including elimination
of government
subsidies that encourage overfishing, an end to fishing methods
that damage
fish habitat, reduction of non-point source pollution from activities
on land,
cuts in emissions that cause global warming and the creation
of an effective
system of marine protected areas from the shore to the open ocean.
"Getting scientists to agree on anything is like herding cats,"
said Norse,
"so having 1,600 experts voice their concerns publicly highlights
how
seriously the sea is threatened. Troubled Waters shows that the
world's
experts want the public and our leaders to know that threats
to marine species
and ecosystems are urgent, and that we must change what we're
doing now to
prevent further irreversible decline. A White House Conference
on the Marine
Environment would help to highlight what's known about marine
environmental
problems and to address the most pressing ones. The International
Year of the
Ocean provides the ideal opportunity to move forward in protecting,
restoring
and sustainably using life in the sea. We need to do it for two
reasons:
because it's essential to our well-being and survival and because
it's the
right thing to do."
For more information, visit http://www.mcbi.org
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1956
22:20:00 +0000
Sender: Environmental Studies Discussion List <ENVST-L@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
From: John Stuart <greenleaf@worldscope.co.uk>
Organization: Greenleaf Publishing
CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST AND PAPERS
GREENER MARKETING:
A Global Perspective to Greening Marketing Practice
Second Edition; Greenleaf Publishing, UK
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES are becoming increasingly important in marketing
activities around the world. It is, however, difficult for practitioners
to keep up to date with complex and rapidly changing information and
ideas.
The purpose of this book is to provide practitioners with
best-practice examples and actionable recommendations on how to
implement green marketing activities. It will provide information and
ideas for those involved in marketing on how to incorporate
environmental considerations, as well as providing new perspectives
on
marketing for environmental managers. As such, we are seeking
high-quality contributions from authors from around the world.
This book is being designed to enable the dissemination of
leading-edge global practice, as well as to create an important bridge
between theory and practice. To achieve a comprehensive viewpoint,
the
book will address three fundamental areas, as reflected in the following
sections.
The first section will include chapters that set out a broad overview
of the strategic issues and rationale for green marketing. Contributions
are invited in the areas of:
- Greening Marketing Managers
- Greening the Marketing Process
- Green Marketing Regulation
- Sustainable Marketing
- Greening is Good Business
The second section is designed to address specific strategic and
tactical issues in more detail, but in a way that provides substantive
guidance for marketing and environmental practitioners. Contributions
are invited in the areas of:
- Green Consumerism and Green Purchasing
- Green Services
- Green Packaging
- Green Product Design
- Eco-Innovation
- Green Distribution/Logistics/Retailing
- Green Pricing
- Greening International Activities
- Green Communications
- Green Alliances/Partnerships
- Green Business-to-Business and
Industrial Marketing Issues
The third section of the book will provide case studies discussing how
firms have addressed green marketing issues. These are designed to
highlight actual practice, and cases related to the issues raised in
Section 2 are invited.
All papers must be of practical relevance; academics submitting
material should target their papers as if for bridging journals such
as
Long Range Planning, Business Horizons or Sloan Management Review.
Any
empirical discussion needs to be in easily accessible format for a
practitioner audience. The editors would also look extremely favourably
on articles jointly written by academics and practitioners.
Papers for the first two sections will be in the area of 3,500-5,000
words and cases will be around 2,000-3,000 words. Arguments for
deviations from these prescriptions will be considered.
Requests for further information, expressions of interest and initial
submissions should be sent to either one of the following:
Martin Charter
The Eco-Innovation Partnership
48 Beavers Road
Farnham
Surrey GU9 7DS
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1252 722162/732229
Fax: +44 (0)1252 732274
E-mail: 101336.3560@compuserve.com
Michael Jay Polonsky
School of Management
The Marketing and Enterprise Group
University of Newcastle
Newcastle NSW 2308
Australia
Tel: +61 (2) 4921 5013
Fax: +61 (2) 4921 6911
E-mail: mgmjp@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Web-page: http://www.fec.newcastle.edu.au/~mgmjp
The closing date for expressions of interest is 15th Feburary 1998.
The closing date for paper submissions is 1st May 1998.
The proposed publication date is November 1998.
Michael Jay Polonsky
Phone (61-2) 49215013
The Marketing and
Fax (61-2) 49216911
Enterprise Group
Email mgmjp@cc.newcastle.edu.au
School of Management
University of Newcastle
Newcastle NSW 2308
AUSTRALIA
Webpage: http://www.fec.newcastle.edu.au/~mgmjp
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1956
22:53:40 +0000
Sender: Environmental Studies Discussion List <ENVST-L@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
From: John Stuart <greenleaf@worldscope.co.uk>
Organization: Greenleaf Publishing
Greenleaf Publishing invites case studies and practical papers in the
area of
GREENER PURCHASING: THREATS AND INNOVATIONS
AS THE ENVIRONMENT becomes an integral part of everyday management
responsibilities, it is having a growing impact on most corporate
functions. Greener Purchasing is a key area: a potential driver towards
greener products and services, because companiesÑas customersÑcan
influence the whole supply chain. Public procurement is certainly going
green, and governments will increasingly exert considerable pressure
on
their suppliers. So too can the private sector.
What are the business reasons for adopting greener purchasing
strategies and policiesÑwill such policies give companies a
competitive
edge? How do companies develop a greener purchasing strategy?
What are
the key elements of a successful greener purchasing policy?
To answer some of the questions raised, Greenleaf Publishing has
commissioned a book on this important area which is now nearing
completion. In order to give the practical emphasis necessary, further
material is being sought in the following areas:
¥ Practical experiences with greener purchasingÑcustomers'
and suppliers
viewpoints
¥ Developing criteria for rating suppliers
and validating their
performance
¥ Case studies of business approaches
If you wish to contribute to this important book and can meet the
deadline of March 1st, 1998, please contact:
John Stuart
Co-ordinating Editor
Greenleaf Publishing
Broom Hall
8-10 Broom Hall Road
Sheffield S10 RDR
UK
Tel: +44 (0)144 2663789
Fax: +44 (0) 114 2679403
E-mail: greenleaf@worldscope.co.uk
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