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Many
thanks to Michael Poole, Bob Peart, Mick Collins, Mary-June Pettyfer, Mary
Jane Montgomery, Sharon Jutila, Lindsay Hill, Kildara Farms, Joseph &
Vilma Dubé, Anne Helen Clemence, Margaret Hantiuk, Randyl Carter,
Joy Bailie-Maxham, Andrée Scott, Jocelyn Braithwaite, Gail Schultz,
Joan Hurwood, Rhyall Gordon, Patrick Fawkes, Moireen Phillips, Marilee Goheen,
Marilyn Thaden Dexter, Nöel Taylor, Sheila Gaunt, Shelagh McKiernan,
Troubador Institute, Yvonne Bondarchuk, Rob Wickson, Alsion Vida, Stuart
Wulff, Elizabeth Cruise, Bernice Packford, Barbara Hourston, Ann Gower,
and Gary Moonie.
Donations
can be sent to EcoNews, 395 Conway Rd, Victoria V9E 2B9. For a receipt,
enclose a stamped addressed envelope.
THE
ECO-CORNER
$5
a line (free to non-profits & low-income). 1" box ad $30, $2"
$55.
* YOU
can make a difference! The Sierra Club Victoria Group is dedicated to local
conservation, and your interest, expertise & skills are welcome. Talk
with us about volunteering as a Board Member, advisor or volunteer. Call
Sharon Jutila 386-5255. Decorating and carpentry help also needed call Sarah,
386-5255. Oh yes – and help running a booth at Oceans Day, on June 10th.
sarah@sierraclubbc.org
* Wanted:
Sustainability stories from around BC - real life examples of how people
have attempted to incorporate any aspect of sustainability into their lives.
Goal: to produce an inspirational package that illustrates the costs, barriers,
and benefits of "making the switch". Hamish, GAIA Project (250)
384-1534 sustainstory@whale-mail.com
* Coast
Capital Savings. If are you a member, you can vote in the current election.
EcoNews encourages you to vote for Patricia Lane, who has done great
work as an incumbent, and Jim Hackler, who is asking lots of relevant
questions.
* There’s
still no sign of our friend Roy McFarlane, who has not been seen
since May 14th. If you can help in any way, please call Al Rycroft,
592-8307.
VICTORIES
FOR ANIMALS
As
humans, we love our cats and dogs, but in most other areas, we are a very
cruel species. Things may slowly be improving, however, thanks to the persistence
of animal rights activists around the world. This edited list, from the
May issue of Animal Rights Online, illustrates some recent successes:
* A
North Carolina grand jury handed down the first ever felony animal abuse
indictment against pig farmers.
* The
Smithsonian canceled plans for a foie gras celebration due to pressure from
many animal groups and celebrities.
* European
government Farm Ministers signed an agreement banning battery cages for
hens (taking effect in 2012).
* New
York passed a bill elevating intentional and extreme animal cruelty to a
felony offense.
* New
Mexico, Maryland, Maine, Virginia & Nevada enacted laws to allow courts
to order psychological counseling for animal abusers.
* National
Institutes of Health banned the use of mice in monoclonal antibody production,
saving the lives of up to one million mice each year.
* 21
chimps, formerly owned by the Air Force and awarded to the Coulston Foundation
for live animal research, will instead be retired to a Florida sanctuary.
* Nationwide
protests dramatically altered the EPA’s HPV industrial chemical testing
program, reducing the number of animals used from 1.3 million to 500,000,
thereby saving 800,000 lives.
* Mary
Kay Cosmetics pledged not to use animals to test its products, or to buy
ingredients from companies that do.
* The
New Zealand Parliament banned the use of all great apes in research, testing
or teaching "unless such use is in the best interests of the nonhuman hominid".
* Slovakia
banned all cosmetic tests on animals after a three-year campaign by Slovakian
animal protection groups.
* Pepsi
withdrew its sponsorship of Mexican bullfighting and ordered all its signs
removed from bullfighting arenas.
* A
Sacramento jury sentenced a pit bull dogfighting promoter to 7 years in
prison.
* France
became the final member of the EU to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam, recognizing
animals as sentient beings capable of feeling fear and pain, and of enjoying
themselves when well treated.
* Montgomery,
New Jersey, prohibited electric prods at its annual benefit rodeo. Johnson
& Johnson, the top supporter of the rodeo, dropped its sponsorship.
* Major
British supermarkets withdrew "exotic meat" from their shelves.
* The
Queen's Speech in the British Parliament vowed to abolish fur farms.
* Israel
banned animal experiments in junior high and high schools.
* Harvard
and Georgetown law schools began teaching classes on animal law. First Animal
Law casebook published.
* The
FDA approved Cenestin, a plant-based estrogen replacement that can be used
instead of Premarin (the drug made from the urine of pregnant mares).
Dusting
Divas
House
cleaning will never again be an unpleasant chore with Dusting Divas all
natural, non-toxic aromatherapy cleaning products.
Maia
Gibb
391-4058
888-2022 cell
divas@coastcompanies.com
WHAT
IS NEW BC?
NEW
BC was borne out of a desire to translate ideas and theories about sustainability
into test cases in BC. We are a non-profit charitable organization with
offices in Victoria and Vancouver committed to educating policy makers,
business leaders, elected officials and the general public about economic
solutions to pressing environmental and social issues. Currently, NEW BC
is focussed on building support for environmental tax shifting – shifting
taxes off labour and income onto pollution and wasted resources. Our New
Economy Project builds tax shifting awareness with new economy business
leaders (tourism, environmental industries, high tech). NEW BC has also
launched a Municipal Outreach Program to provide BC municipalities with
a toolkit and workshops on how tax shifting works to promote community economic
development and environmental improvements. NEW BC also works in the Green
Budget Coalition, formed at Paul Martin’s invitation. We welcome inquiries
and offer a variety of opportunities for involvement. Call us at 595-0577.
www.newbc.org.
ORNAMENTUM
FURNITURE
ENVIRONMENTAL
DESIGNS
1780
Vernon Drive
Vancouver, V6A
3T8
(604)
215-7444
FSC
accredited certification means
that the forest is managed according
to strict environmental,
social and economic
standards. Chain of custody certified by Silva Forest Foundation.
SFF-COC-005
www.ornamentum.bc.ca
FSC
trademark © Forest Stewardship Council A.C.
THE
GARDEN PATH
ORGANIC
PLANT NURSERY
The
healthiest plants at great prices
Organic
Vegetables. Herbs. Flowers. Shrubs. Heritage Roses. Bamboos. Seeds.
Open
Daily 10-5pm
Closing
for the season June 30th
395
Conway Road
(250)
881-1555
www.earthfuture.com/gardenpath
FRESH,
LOCAL, ORGANIC
The
average vegetable travels more than 1400 km before you eat it. To turn this
around, LifeCycles started Common Harvest in 1998, offering training in
farming and business management to 4 local farmers who produce organic fruit
and vegetables from June to October for our brown box program, which is
run by local youth who receive business and life skills training. For a
fresh, organic weekly delivery to your home, we do bike cart delivery to
Downtown, James Bay, Fairfield and Fernwood. Call now - space is limited.
383-5800
WHAT’S
UP AT CITY HALL?
Councillor
Denise Savoie writes: The CRD Round Table on the Environment has been
hard at work on the issue of toxic contaminants, developing an program to
illustrate the impact of pesticide use - posters for doctors' offices; lawn
signs saying no to drugs). If you have any ideas that would help us curb
our use of pesticides, please let me know.
I
have obtained a commitment from my colleagues on Council to retrofit Point
Ellice Bridge for pedestrians and cyclists in the 2002 budget. I have also
initiated a master greenway/blueway plan for the urban core, enlisting the
help of Maeve Lydon and some wonderfully qualified residents. We had our
first mapping exercise in the Burnside-Gorge area, where residents got together
for a BBQ and then worked on mapping their neighbourhood to show obstacles
to walking and biking, and places they love to go. The school principal
was there, and Suzanne Kort talked about using mapping to make routes to
school safer. John Lutz, a UVic History prof, showed us wonderful slides
of when this part of the city was a magical place, before it was fragmented
by major arteries. That night, we dreamt about the possibility of recapturing
some of the beauty through a network of greenways and blueways.
In
the Jubilee neighbourhood, Council has decided to effect a partial closure
of streets that were being overrun with cut-through traffic, seriously affecting
the residents’ quality of life. Traffic calming would not be effective because
of all the "rat-running", so we are trying partial closure, and
will evaluate the impact over the next few months. Cut-through traffic is
a problem in many neighbourhoods, when drivers use residential streets to
avoid lights or bottlenecks on arterials. A person I know well told me recently
that she had never thought about the impact her cut-through habits had,
until it came up in the Jubilee area. Residential streets are for people
who have business in the area; the rest of us should stay on the arterials.
It might slow us down a bit, but where are we going so fast, anyway??
We're
also reviewing a new harbour plan - the more feedback we get, the better.
What kind of harbour do you want? A working harbour, a harbour to recreate
in? How do we clean up the pollution left from our industrial past? Call
City Hall for a copy. We're going review comments in June. Comments? Suggestions?
denises@.city.victoria.bc.ca
City
Green
healthy
· wealthy · wise
Pesticide
Free Naturally kits,
with
lawn signs, now available.
Call
381-9995 or e-mail info@citygreen.ca
CONGRATULATIONS…
* To
David Anderson, for making Canada the first nation to sign the global treaty
to phase out persistent organic pollutants, including PCBs, dioxins &
furans.
* To
Paul Martin, for agreeing to develop a new set of environmental indicators
which will be used as part of our national accounts, starting in 2003.
* To
Elizabeth May, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, whose 17
day hunger strike on the steps of the Parliament in Ottawa helped win a
commitment to proper studies of the homes of people living by the heavily
toxic Sydney Tar-Ponds, in Cape Breton, and to develop a relocation contingency
plan, with $7 million financing.
* To
Chiquita Brands International, for achieving eco-certification of 100% of
its 127 banana farms in Latin America through the Rainforest Alliance's
Better Banana Project, the leading certification program for environmental
and social standards on banana farms.
* To
the Habitat Acquisition Trust, for its new "Conservation Connection"
initiative which provides a website, email and listing for every conservation
groups in the CRD. Finally, we can all find out what’s happening! Explore
the new site at www.conservationconnection.bc.ca
ACTION
OF THE MONTH
THE
GEORGIA STRAIT CROSSING GAS PIPELINE
To
recap. Act 1: Several years ago, Glen Clark tells BC Hydro that Vancouver
Island needs a big new megaproject: a pipeline under the Georgia Strait
and across the Cowichan Valley that will carry natural gas to two new gas-fired
electricity-generating plants, one at Port Alberni, and one (probably) at
Duncan. To justify this, BC Hydro uses faulty load-forecasting data to make
it seem that the lights will go out if they don’t get their way, and they
choose not to do the obvious – renew the existing electricity cable under
the Strait. By burning natural gas, we will produce a huge increase in greenhouse
gas emissions, while subjecting local people to air pollution and the risk
of pipeline explosions.
Act
2: Local people find out about the scheme, and start telling others.
They create a website (www.sqwalk.com),
and write letters to David Anderson demanding a full Environmental Assessment.
This is granted.
Act
3: The National Energy Board (NEB) publishes the Terms of Reference
for the Environmental Assessment, which in theory, allow for a full and
proper assessment. The tendency of the NEB, however, has been to take a
narrow interpretation of the Terms of Reference, with the result that opponents
of projects have had to go to court to obtain a proper assessment, which
is costly, and poor public policy. The NEB also set a very short deadline
for comments – June 16th.
Act
4: Act 4 has not been written yet – this is where you and I come in.
If the Terms of Reference are interpreted narrowly, the project will sail
through the Assessment, the Panel will approve it, and the play will be
over: we’ll have to live with electricity produced by natural gas for the
next 40 years, greenhouse gases and all. Unless, of course, we all write
to the CEAA, asking for reassurance that the assessment includes a full
study of whether and why the project is needed, and of the local and global
impact of the greenhouse gas emissions, quoting the Sunpine decision which
states that all ancillary or subsidiary undertakings that are likely
to be carried out in the project must be included in the assessment.
Action:
Write to Jean Crépault, CEAA, 200 Sacré-Coeur Blvd, 13th
flr, Hull, Que K1A 0H3. jean.crepault@ceaa.gc.ca,
requesting reassurane that the study include a full and proper assessment.
For details, go to www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca,
then "What’s New", then May 15th.
800kb)
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