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May 11, 1999
"Now I know that the next trial - whenever it happens - will be the last." --Alexandr Nikitin, responding to a ruling by Russia's Supreme Court that returning cases for further investigation is unconstitutional.
1. TAKE ACTION: PROTECT THE WILD AREAS OF OUR NATIONAL FORESTS
2. RUSSIA'S SUPREME COURT BANS 'DO-OVER' CASES
3. JACKSON, WYOMING DOES EARTH DAY RIGHT!
TAKE ACTION
PLEASE TAKE ACTION
1. PROTECT THE WILD AREAS OF OUR NATIONAL FORESTS
The still wild, roadless areas of our National Forests are vital to a healthy environment: they provide clean drinking water for many communities, recreation opportunities, valuable wildlife habitat and they are a part of the natural heritage we want to protect for our children to enjoy.
Earlier this year, the Forest Service announced a moratorium that restricted road building in some of our nation's roadless areas. Unfortunately, the moratorium is both temporary and full of political loopholes that leave tens of millions of acres of America's scenic wilderness wide open to logging, mining, and road building. Many forests in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska's Tongass are exempt from the roadbuilding moratorium. The Clinton Administration has taken a half-step toward protecting the still wild areas of our National Forests from roadbuilding. But we believe all roadless areas of 1000 acres and larger should receive permanent protection from all destructive activities.
Please call or write your Representative and ask him/her to support a final plan that will *permanently* protect all remaining roadless areas of 1,000 acres or more from all destructive activities, including road building, mining and logging.
Representatives can sign the "Dear Colleague" letter being circulated by Representatives Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Steve Horn (R-CA). Urge your Rep. to "sign the Hinchey/Horn letter on roadless area protection."
Tell your Representative to protect our last remaining roadless forests, for our families, for our future. Thank You!!
You can call your Representative through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
You can also write your Representative at:
The Honorable YOUR REPRESENTATIVE US House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515
THANK YOU !!
2. Russia's Supreme Court Bans 'Do-Over' Cases
In a decision that should impact the fate of persecuted environmentalist Alexandr Nikitin, Russia's Supreme Court ruled on April 20 that cases can no longer be sent back for further investigation once they have been tried. The Court ruled unconstitutional the practice of returning weak or unproven cases to the Prosecutor's Office for further investigation, a practice that in the United States is banned under Fifth Amendment protections against double jeopardy.
Last November, the City Court of St. Petersburg decided to send the case against Alexandr Nikitin back to the Prosecutor General's Office for further investigation. Nikitin continues to face charges of treason and divulging state secrets for co-authoring a report on the threat of radioactive leaks in decaying nuclear ships of the Russian Northern Fleet.
On February 4, Russia's Supreme Court rejected Nikitin's appeal, and on April 11, the Prosecutor General's Office granted the FSB (Russia's FBI) three additional months to create a case against Nikitin.
The ruling will also force courts to apply the presumption of innocence by interpreting gaps in the investigation in favor of the accused. Nikitin responded to the decision with renewed confidence. "Now I know that the next trial - whenever it happens - will be the last."
3. Jackson, Wyoming Does Earth Day Right!
The Teton Group of the Sierra Club along with other groups in Jackson sponsored "Earth Fest"- a week long schedule of events honoring Earth Day.
Hundreds of Jackson residents attended a multi-media event on oil and gas threats to the Arctic and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystems, followed by an vast array of activities that weekend including a one-act play reciting from the life of John Muir performed by Steve Archibald of the Teton Science School, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem slide show by Franz Camenzind of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, and crowned by the viewing the rough cut of the much-awaited film, "Arctic Dance: The Mardy Murie Story," by Bonnie Kreps and Charlie Craighead. Page McNeill, Wyo. Ch. Chair., Liz Howell, Chapter Staffer, Janet Maxwell, Chapter activist, and Jen Ferenstein, National SC Board Member were on hand to discuss the SPARE Report (where the Bridger-Teton NF is the target of threats from oil and gas development), Wyo. Chapter's roadless area protection campaign,and the grizzly bear ecosystems project.
Sierra Club representatives Janet Maxwell, Meredith Taylor, and Liz Howell, were invited to meet with Mardy Murie at her home in Grand Teton National Park where they presented her with a bouquet of spring flowers from the Sierra Club to honor her accomplishments and convictions.
"It really should help taxpayers get more bang for the buck in terms of protecting natural areas, and all of this could be multiplied if talk of similar programs on the federal level also come to fruition" --Jack Darin with the Illinois Sierra Club, reacting to a new $160 million land preservation program approved by the Illinois State Legislature to fight Suburban Sprawl.
1. TAKE ACTION: Stop Anti-environmental Riders!!
2. Now You Can Learn How To Fight CAFO's.
3. RI Sierrans and Students Speak Out.
TAKE ACTION
PLEASE TAKE ACTION
We are getting through! Your calls and faxes on the anti-environmental riders in the emergency funding bill are beginning to take effect. But we don't have much time -- members of the relevant committees are expected to meet tomorrow to hammer out the differences between their two versions of the Supplemental Appropriations Bill, and we could be seeing votes in the House and Senate this week. The bill provides funding for victims of Hurricane Mitch and for the Kosovo mission, but it also contains so much more!
As we reported in Friday's SC-ACTION #83, there are already three riders on the bill, and more are popping up daily. The media is picking up on the riders, with a Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial on Friday ("Don't use the suffering of the war victims in Kosovo or the misery of hurricane victims in Central America to advance the goals of mining companies...Surely some common human decency governs political gamesmanship, even in the U.S. Congress.") and one from the San Francisco Chronicle today ("restraint can go by the wayside when politicians get their hands on legislation they know the president will not veto...legislators should not be exploiting natural disasters or war.") Even several leaders in Congress are starting to speak out against the riders.
In addition to trying to put the breaks on government efforts to protect Glacier Bay National Park from commercial fishing and to reform hardrock mining and oil industry tax breaks (see #83), a new rider trying to cling to the bill would threaten endangered wildlife. The rider by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) would stop the federal government from identifying and designating critical habitat for endangered species, a key step in the recovery of species. The rider may be specific to a New Mexico species (the Rio Grande silvery minnow) or it may apply nationwide.
Now is the key time for you to call your representative and senators and ask them to speak out publicly against the riders. Tell them to work to get the riders out of the Kosovo spending bill, and to vote against the final conference report if it contains the riders.
THANK YOU !!
2.FIGHT BIG PIG AND BIG CHICKEN CAFO Training at Big River Week
Big River/Clean Water Week (June 11-15) in Washington, DC, will feature training on one of the Sierra Club's four priority campaigns: stopping pollution and health threats from giant pig, poultry, and dairy operations (called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs). This will provide a great opportunity to receive training on CAFOs and to learn about this campaign.
Some of the nation's top CAFO experts will attend this event, and training will be available for people with all levels of expertise. Participants will learn about the successful work that some Chapters have done to stop CAFOs and how to access the resources the Sierra Club can offer Chapters that want to take on CAFOs.
Sierra Club's Clean Water Campaign has substantial scholarships available to cover travel and expenses for those who want to participate in the CAFO campaign, and we plan to distribute these funds to encourage participation from as many Chapters and Groups as possible.
For information on registration and scholarships, contact Ed Hopkins (ed.hopkins@sierraclub.org).
3. "Don't Trade Away our Bay,"
RI Sierra Club Gives Hell to Commerce Secretary Daley
With a message of "Don't Trade Away Our Bay," Rhode Island Sierrans and a van-load of Sierra Student Coalition activists from Brown University turned out on a soggy Monday afternoon, May 3, to protest the first leg of the "National Trade Education Tour" organized by Commerce Secretary Bill Daley and the Business Roundtable. During the run-up to the Seattle Summit of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that takes place later this year, Daley plans to tour nearly two dozen cities with high-powered corporate executives in tow to tout the Clinton Administration's free trade agenda to a skeptical public.
At a "town-hall" at Bryant College just outside Providence, Karina Lutz, the Club's Rhode Island organizer, challenged Secretary Daley when the floor was opened for questions. "You want to put a `human face' on trade," she said. "But the real `human face' of trade belongs to the Rhode Island fishermen who will lose their way of life if Governor Lincoln Almond dredges Narragansett Bay to build the largest, deep-water container port on the East Coast." (Quote provided by Mike Dolan, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch)
Rhode Island Sierrans are fighting the planned mega-port at Quonset Point, fearing the port -- projected to be larger than Los Angeles/Longbeach -- could ruin the state's greatest natural asset, Narragansett Bay.
Karina's confrontation ended a bad day for the Commerce Secretary, whose Boston-to-Providence free trade bus tour was hounded all along its route by fair trade activists. Protestors picketed Daley at a press breakfast in Boston. His deluxe motor coach was tailed out of Boston by a yellow van emblazoned with a huge sign, "Free Trade Fat Cats on Board." In Fall River, where thousands of jobs were lost to cheap imports, textile workers pinned down Mr. Daley in a diner. (Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, May 4, 1999) And, finally, Mr. Daley's caravan was greeted in Providence by activists from the Sierra Club, SSC, The Alliance for Democracy, Public Citizen, Clean Water Action, The Green Party of RI, and others.
Rhode Island Sierrans are among the first in the nation to realize that economic globalization could provoke a major overhaul of the nation's transportation systems and wreak havoc on our environment. As ship traffic grows to accommodate more trade, dredging, pollution, and introduced pests carried in ship ballast water could cause devastating cumulative impacts on America's marine ecosystems, according to Mike D'Amico in the Club's Atlantic Coast Ecoregion office.
As NAFTA and the WTO transform America from a national economy into a continental and global economy, pressure will grow to build new north-south and coastal highway links. Already, some 43 new north-south "NAFTA Superhighway" corridors are on the drawing boards across the country.
Karina's comments at the Bryant College demo got extended air time on Rhode Island NPR's "All Things Considered" while her exchange with Secretary Daley was picked up in the Providence Journal. (Tuesday, May 4) Bill Daley's "National Trade Education Tour" travels next to Chicago on May 24. Watch for Illinois Sierrans to make an appearance.
"Don't use the suffering of the war victims in Kosovo or the misery of the hurricane victims in Central America to advance the goals of mining companies..." Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Editorial, 5/7/99
1. TAKE ACTION: STOP THE ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL RIDERS
2. AMERICA'S REDROCK WILDERNESS BILL INTRODUCED IN THE HOUSE
3. OGONI RE-LAUNCH PROTESTS AGAINST SHELL
TAKE ACTION
STOP THE ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL RIDERS
Anti-environmentalists in Congress are up to their usual tricks -- attaching damaging environmental provisions or "riders" to unrelated must-pass funding bills. The Supplemental Appropriations bill -- which will provide emergency funding to Kosovo and victims of Hurricane Mitch -- passed through the House and Senate with anti-environmental riders attached. Now, the House and Senate are meeting in conference committee to iron out the differences in their two versions of the spending bill and there are threats of new riders being tacked on at the last minute. The completed package is expected to come up for a final vote in the House and Senate early next week.
Popular support for protecting our air and water, our National Forests -- America's environment -- is so strong that a full frontal attack on the laws that protect our environment would be political suicide. That's why some Members of Congress have resorted to burying their attacks deep, often in unrelated bills, as "riders." Three anti-environmental riders are buried in the Supplemental Appropriations bill. The anti-environmental riders would:
· Block the National Park Service from protecting the fisheries of Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park during a long period of litigation over commercial fishing. · Put the breaks on the reform of regulations governing oil industry tax breaks · Delay long-overdue hardrock mining reform
Now, there are threats of new anti-environmental riders being attached in conference committee at the very last minute. The following new riders are of great concern:
· One damaging rider would take away a powerful new tool for protecting our wild lands from the giant gold mines now springing up across the West. By limiting the number of so-called mill-sites that a single operation can have, the Clinton Administration added a reason to put the brakes on some of the worst new mines now planned in the West, including one in Washington and another in California. Now, however, Slade Gorton (R-WA) wants to take this tool away from pro-wildlands activists with a sneaky backdoor rider. · Senator Domenici has expressed his intent to attach an anti-environmental rider that would attempt to undermine a key provision of the Endangered Species Act -- critical habitat.
House Speaker Hastert should take the opportunity to make it clear to the new Congress that controversial environmental measures should not be attached to unrelated bills, but debated in the light of day. Please call Congressman Hastert at 202/225-2976. Tell him to protect America's environment and strip the riders from the Supplemental Appropriations bill. While you're at it, please place a call to President Clinton. Call the White House Comment Line at 202-456-1111. Tell the White House not to tolerate anti-environmental riders!! Thank You!!
2. AMERICA'S REDROCK WILDERNESS BILL INTRODUCED IN THE HOUSE
The Sierra Club applauds Representative Maurice Hinchey for leading the charge in the House to protect Utah desert wilderness. Yesterday, Representative Hinchey introduced "America's Red Rock Wilderness Act" (HR 1732) with over 130 original cosponsors!! This landmark legislation would protect 9.1 million acres of publicly owned land in Utah as Wilderness. A companion bill, S. 861 was introduced in the Senate by Senator Durbin last month.
The wildlands of Utah are known for their spectacular beauty, with deep, narrow redrock canyons, isolated mesas and wild rivers. Utah desert provides home to desert bighorn sheep, cougar and the endangered desert tortoise and peregrine falcon. Nowhere else in the lower 48 states can so much intact wilderness be found. But Utah's wildlands are threatened by oil and gas development, mining, damaging grazing practices, off-road vehicle use and road construction. This legislation would protect these vulnerable wildlands forever by designating them as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
"I believe these exceptional sites deserve the protection that a permanent wilderness designation would offer, and so do the wildlife that inhabit these areas, " Hinchey said. "...the Red Rock Wilderness should be regarded as much a national treasure as the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty or the Bob Marshall Wilderness," Hinchey added.
3. Ogoni Re-launch Protests against Shell
As the shareholders and directors of Royal Dutch Shell met today in London and Amsterdam for the company's annual general meeting, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) will be protesting outside Shell's headquarters in Port Harcourt Nigeria -- for the first time since the repression of General Sani Abacha was lifted in May of last year. MOSOP, which is now allowed to hold environmental meetings in public without fear of military retribution, is expecting a crowd of tens of thousands to deliver their message to Shell.
MOSOP is protesting the failure of the company to act on U.N. recommendations for an independent audit of the environmental impact of its operations and because of Shell's continued practice of avoiding all contact with community groups which do not promote its interests. Speaking in Port Harcourt Acting President of MOSOP Ledum Mitee reviewed his communities' plans.
"True to our nature of non violence, MOSOP will match Shell's corporate irresponsibility with a remarkably responsible march. While even the current military regime has acknowledged that MOSOP has peacefully pursued the cause of the Ogoni people, Shell continues to hide from any meaningful dialogue."
MOSOP has consistently been disappointed by the continued gap between the claims made by Shell to the international community and the reality of its operations.
"Where it claims to spend $100 million on environmental improvements we find nothing on the ground to account for this claim other than the overdue replacement of old pipelines," said Mitee.
"We must advise that there is no future for companies in Nigeria which seek to minimize their costs by applying divide and rule tactics to the Niger delta," said MOSOP UK President Lazarus Tamana. "The frustration which you now see spreading across the Niger delta is the direct result of this disastrous approach."
The Sierra Club is supporting MOSOP in their struggle against Shell because most of Nigeria's oil is exported by Shell to the United States. In 1995, following the Nigerian military's execution of writer and MOSOP leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Sierra Club Board of Directors adopted a boycott of Shell because of the company's collusion with the Nigerian military. The Club's boycott of Shell will continue until the company has addressed MOSOP's concerns of cleaning up polluted farmlands and fisheries and adequately compensating affected villagers.
For more information on how you can help, visit the Sierra Club's Human Rights and the Environment Campaign website at www.sierraclub.org/human-rights, or e-mail stephen.mills@sierraclub.org. You can also send your comments to Shell's PR lackey at wkjacobs@shellus.com.
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