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Vol.10 Number 1		February/March 2000
Environmental News from Georgia Strait in British Columbia, Canada and from the World

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Vol.10 Number 1 - February/March 2000

EDITORIAL -Upgrade to Renewable Energy

POEM - The Fifth Day

ANANYSIS - State of the World 2000

GENETIC ENGINEERING UPDATE
Altered Foods Taken Off the Table
Canada fast-tracks altered spuds
Bt Corn Bt Soil
Rat Research

WARMING
Salmon Stocks Feel the Heat
Nuu-Chah-Nulth Act for Threatened Herring
What to do: The David Suzuki Foundation suggests the following measures to lessen use of fossil fuels
Climates of Change Congress
A Future for the Fishery

NEWS
Forestry Certification Forum
Can Whales Be Saved?
US Plutonium Flown to Chalk River by Helicopter
When is a Nature Centre a Mall Door?

ANALYSIS - Oil, Heat, and Our Agriculture

FEATURE
Salmon, Bears, and the Web of Life
Bear Management A "Disaster"
Coastal Grizzlies Under the Gun

WATER TALKS
There is No Such Thing As Surplus Water
The Half Empty Cup
Wash Water

FRIENDS OF CORTES ISLAND
Forestry Mapping Makes Progress

SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Sewage Systems: Smaller is Better
Going Green on the Ocean Blue

FEATURE
How We Really Shut Down the WTO
History Made in Seattle

About Us

Were all the fears about Y2K a multi-billion dollar hoax? Its tempting to think so, given that our lives and industrial systems were so little affected by the millennial transition. But the glitches reported and the number of stand downs (from the Israeli nuclear power plant to oil tankers which spent New Years tied to the dock) are evidence that the problem was, and maybe still is, real.

That means industry, with government leadership, completed a massive patch/repair/replace job in good order. Given a clear deadline, with serious consequences, an almost overwhelming technical problem was solved through the orderly mobilization of resources.

Now lets do the same with conversion to renewable energy. The technology exists, as an inspiring book such as the Canadian Renewable Energy Guide, Second Edition (General, 1999) clearly demonstrates. The consequences of burning fossil fuel, changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, are alarming. Only government leadership and the deadline for action are missing.

Instead of leading, the Canadian government is retreating from its commitment to greenhouse gas reductions by 2008 under the Kyoto Accord. Why? Because the scientists on the International Panel on Climate Change have said that Canada cannot claim a carbon credit for our tree plantations but should be debited for cutting the forest in the first place. We are going to have to pay the price for our forest industry. We are going to have to convert to renewable energy.

Economic apocalypse is forecast.

Sound familiar? Why don't the technologically-obsolete corporate welfare bums of this country just get with the program, and stop wasting all that hot air?

* Delores Broten, January 2000

* Marie Harris from Weasel in the Turkey Pen, Hanging Loose Press

Environmental trends will ultimately shape the new century, says the Worldwatch Institute in State of the World 2000.

"When we launched this series of annual assessments in 1984, we hoped that we could begin the next century with an upbeat report, one that would show the Earth's health improving," said senior author Lester Brown. "But unfortunately the list of trends we were concerned with then--shrinking forests, eroding soils, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, and disappearing species--has since lengthened to include rising temperatures, more destructive storms, dying coral reefs, and melting glaciers. As the Dow Jones goes up, the Earth's health goes down."

The projected growth of world population from 6 billion at present to nearly 9 billion by 2050 will exacerbate nearly all environmental problems.

Another trend affecting the entire world is rising temperature. Record-setting temperatures in the 1990s are part of a twentieth-century warming trend. Just over the last three decades (between 1969-71 and 1996-98), global average temperature has risen by 0.44 degrees Celsius (0.8 degrees Fahrenheit). In the 21st century, temperature is projected to rise even faster.

One of the less visible trends shaping our future is falling water tables. In the last half-century, powerful diesel and electric pumps made it possible to extract underground water far faster than the natural recharge from rain and snow. Report co-author Sandra Postel estimates that worldwide over pumping of aquifers exceeds 160 billion tons of water per year.

"The two big challenges in this new century are to stabilize climate and population," said Brown. "If we cannot stabilize both, there is not an ecosystem on Earth that we can save. Everything will change."

Stabilizing population quickly depends on couples holding the line at two surviving children. Some 34 industrial countries have already reached population stability, several are approaching it, including Barbados, China, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. We know the keys to stabilizing population--providing universal access to family planning services and educating girls and women.

Stabilizing climate means replacing fossil fuels with wind, solar cells, and other renewables. Three US states-- North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas--have enough harnessable wind energy to supply national electricity needs. China could double its current generation of electricity using only wind.

"The scale and urgency of the challenges facing us in this century are unprecedented," said Brown. "We cannot overestimate the urgency of stabilizing the relationship between ourselves, now 6 billion in number, and the natural systems on which we depend. If we continue the destruction of these systems, our grandchildren will never forgive us. As the report notes, "Nature has no reset button."

Caterers for biotechnology company Monsanto have removed foods containing genetically engineered (GE) soya and corn from their products. Caterers for the British parliament, the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, and the European Parliament have also removed GE products.

Friends of the Earth in England say that all the UK's leading supermarkets and many restaurant chains have removed GE ingredients from their own labels.

* BBC, December 1999

Federal food regulators and the PEI government participated in back room meetings with Monsanto and the potato industry which resulted in two varieties of genetically engineered potatoes being fast-tracked through the regulatory approval system. Information about the private deal between Monsanto and the federal government was obtained under the Access to In formation Act by Ottawa-based researcher Ken Rubin and publicized on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen on November 30, 1999.

"Confidence in Canada's food safety system is at an all time low," says Sharon Labchuk, of PEI's Earth Action.

"First Health Canada scientists blew the whistle on corporate pressure tactics to approve inadequately tested products like BGH. Then Canada's Commissioner of the Environment revealed our pesticide regulatory system is seriously deficient. In October, 200 Health Canada scientists signed a petition warning that there are not enough scientists on staff to properly evaluate genetically modified foods. And now this."

According to information obtained by Rubin, approval for the two new GE potatoes, New Leaf Y and New Leaf Plus, which are resistant to two potato viruses and the Colorado Potato Beetle, was delayed because Monsanto refused to provide key scientific information on vitamins, minerals and amino acid profiles to regulators.

But potato growers wanted the GE potatoes approved quickly so that they could plant them in the coming season. After various high level meetings, the GE potatoes were fast-tracked through the safety approval system and on the market in less than two months.

Ironically, in November New Brunswick-based McCain Foods, the largest potato and frozen french fry processor in the world, said it would stop buying genetically altered potatoes from Canadian farmers in response to consumer fears.

* Ottawa Citizen, October 1999, Earth Action, November 1999, BioDemocracy News #23, December 1999. With thanks to the Canadian Health Coalition for providing a copy of the memo.

* BioDemocracy Campaign/Organic Consumers Association, 6114 Hwy 61, Little Marais, Minnesota 55614, USA; ph: (218)226-4164; fax: (218)226-4157; email: alliance@mr.net; www.purefood.org

* To subscribe to the free electronic newsletter, BioDemocracy News (formerly called Campaign for Food Safety News) send an email to: majordomo@mr.net with the simple message in the body of the text: "subscribe pure-food-action"

Toxin from genetic-ally engineered corn is released into the soil through the roots and in experiments have damaged or killed beneficial insects which protect crops.

Further, the Bt released by the GE corn is the active toxin, whereas in nature the Bt bacterium produces the insecticidal toxin in a precursor form. The Bt released by the corn persisted in the soil for 243 days, which was the duration of the test. The researchers note that 20% of corn planted in the US in 1998, 15 million acres, was Bt corn, and that the Bt exuded from the roots would be added to that in the pollen.

* Nature, Vol. 402, Dec. 2, 1999

In October the British medical journal The Lancet published controversial research by Arpad Puzstai which claims that rats fed genetically modified potatoes developed changes in their intestines. The rats were fed three strains of GM potatoes and one normal strain, raw and boiled.

His research was dismissed by government and scientists in 1998 because it did not appear in a peer-reviewed journal, and the methodology is still under attack. The Lancet's peer reviewers split on whether or not to publish the work, but the spirit of access to information prevailed.

* Independent, October 1999 and The Lancet, October 1999

When a man of the stature of John Fraser uses the words "Orwellian inversion of reality" to describe the political debate about climate change, you sit up and listen.

Fraser was Environment Minister under Brian Mulroney and then Canadian Ambassador for the Environment to the United Nations and now is the Chair of the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (PFRCC). He was speaking in October at the Council's first workshop, Climate Change and Salmon Stocks. The federal and provincial governments established the Council in September 1998 as an independent body with no vested interest to act as a public watchdog agency over the health of fish and their habitat.

In a strong opening address, Fraser described the views of those opposed to reductions of greenhouse gas emissions as "junk science."

"There is evidence we cannot disregard," he said, describing the present situation as "a global experiment second only to nuclear war." He told the workshop that "tropical forests are dying back and the Amazon Basin could be a desert by 2050," if steps to cutting emissions are not begun now. The boreal forest and Arctic tundra have switched from being a sink for carbon dioxide and become a source. "It took 3.8 billion years of evolution to make this planet livable," he reminded us and lamented that humans have taken only 150 years to bring us to this situation. Tragically, Canada's rate of greenhouse gas emissions is increasing by 1.5% annually.

Henry Hengeveld, senior advisor on climate change from Environment Canada, emphasized there is basic science behind the concept of climate change. Analysis of Antarctic ice cores shows that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are 30% higher now than in the last millions of years, and this build-up is linked to temperature changes. There is also a huge increase in methane gases. Globally, 1998 was the warmest year since record keeping began, and the 1990s, the warmest decade. Changes in the last 30 years are unprecedented in the last 1,000 years. In the ocean, there have been changes in deep and surface circulation, and natural variability cannot explain all the changes.

Dr. Richard (Dick) Beamish, senior scientist from Fisheries and Oceans Canada's (FOC) Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, spoke on "Why a Strategy for Managing Salmon in a Changing Climate is Urgently Needed." He said it is difficult to forecast what "ecosystem reorganizations" will take place but they will be extensive. "Global warming is a serious threat," he said and noted that "catches are at historic high levels in the North Pacific but in Canada are at historic lows." Coho marine survival in the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound and off the coast of Washington and Oregon has declined. This started in the late 1980s and synchronizes with climate change as he showed with a graph. He emphasized we must do two things without fail if we expect salmon to survive: protect forest habitat and respect marine habitat.

Arnie Narcisse, Interior Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Fisheries Commission and manager of the Nicola Watershed Stewardship and Fisheries Authority, mentioned a song that kept running through his head as he was driving down to the Workshop: it's called Song on the Road to Hell by Chris Reid. "Impacts of global warming are already happening," he said. "The Aleutian low means salmon must travel seven to nine days more and get back late. This means they meet the high flows at Hell's Gate that are caused by cutting down too many trees. This happened in 1997."

"We need to increase Fisheries Renewal BC dollar," Narcisse said. "We need a tax on greenhouse gas emissions."

Frank Whitney, Institute of Ocean Sciences, FOC, studies climate-induced variability in nutrient supply to the upper ocean. He warned the Workshop that a distinct warming trend is affecting zoo- and phytoplankton and there is less nutrient to support the biomass. "We have a research station, P26, out in the ocean and we have 40 years of data collected from there. Since 1950, there has been a temperature rise of .02%Celsius per year on the coast. It is less in the open ocean but all data show warming." He explained that there are fewer nutrients because the warm water caps the nutrients and they do not come to the surface.

Dr. David Welch, head of FOC's High Seas Salmon Program, was blunt: "If temperature increases continue, by 2050 the entire species of Pacific salmon will move out of the Pacific Ocean and up to the Chukchi Sea. "He said salmon now are coming back smaller with fewer eggs and less energy and noted that the eastern North Pacific stock was never limited by lack of nitrate and now is.

All harvesting of salmon should cease, said Dr. Carl Walters, Professor of Graduate Studies at UBC's Fisheries Centre. He said that the coastal environmental survival rate for small salmon is the big problem. The low survival rates are due to:

• Diseases passing from hatcheries and fish farms
• New predators
• Reduced food supply and productivity
• Correlation studies cannot be relied on and there is no concerted field program
• It is unlikely salmon can move if water is too warm

Dr. Walters suggested three steps: pray for adaptation and allow every surviving fish to spawn, make massive research investments to follow fish and find out what is killing them, and have patience and not fish again too soon like in Newfoundland. He added that it is clear hatcheries are not the answer.

Fred Fortier, a Senior Councilor for the North Thompson Indian Band and Chair of the BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission, also emphasized the need for action. He called for incentives for energy production from renewable sources and disincentives for corporations who produce fossil fuels. He reminded the audience not to forget their spiritual connection to Mother Earth.

Other strategies were outlined by Gerry Scott, Director of the Climate Change Campaign for the David Suzuki Foundation. Scott told the Workshop that Canada "uses as much fossil fuel as the whole continent of Africa" while the government studies, delays, and makes commitments it does not honour. Instead, we spend $15 billion on new highways and manufacture new cars that consume 13% more fuel than a few years ago. We need to figure out how to achieve the same results using less fossil fuel. We need to look at countries like Denmark, where 13,000 people work on wind-energy projects and similar numbers in Germany work on solar power. We need a carbon tax.

In a strong ending to the panel on strategy, Lydia Dotto, author of Storm Warning: Gambling with the Climate of Our Planet and Thinking the Unthinkable: The Social Consequences of Rapid Climate Change, eloquently and passionately described the effects of climate change that she said is upon us already. She said we must immediately start cutting back greenhouse gas emissions by reducing our use of fossil fuels. "It takes the atmosphere and oceans a long time to respond to variations in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and the resulting temperature changes and any cutbacks we make now won't greatly slow the warming trend for the better part of a century." She called the idea that the burden of proof is on scientists "a trap" which diverts us from taking measures to avoid a probable series of catastrophes. We routinely protect ourselves with insurance from risks with a low probability to avoid loss of life and property but when it comes to the life system that sustains everything, the planet, we have been persuaded to demand proof.

Individual Canadians account for about one quarter of domestic greenhouse gas emissions through burning fossil fuels to heat and air-condition their homes, power their vehicles and other gas-driven machines, such as lawn mowers and snow blowers, and to provide electricity for domestic use. Industrial processes, electricity production and land use practices like deforestation and suburban development produce most of the other three quarters.

* Contact: Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, 590 -800 Burrard St, Vancouver V6Z 2G7; Tel: (604)775-5621; fax: (604)775-5622; email: info@fish.bc.ca; www.fish.bc.ca

We are extremely alarmed that there has been virtually no intertidal spawning in Barkley Sound in the past two years, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council has told Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

"Something is terribly wrong that a fish species that has evolved to spawn intertidally has suddenly abandoned this behaviour."

Pacific herring usually spawn on eel grass and other underwater plants, but in Barkley Sound in 1998 and 1999, instead spawned in water about seven to 43 metres deep. FOC attributed this change in spawning to warm waters in 1998 and gale-force storms in March, 1999.

For countless generations, Nuu-Chah-Nulth people have gathered the herring eggs on weighted cedar or hemlock branches in places where eel grass grows, or three-to-four-metre trees anchored vertically in the water or suspended from vertical frames. They are no longer able to do this.

For the West Coast of Vancouver Island, the forecast is 23,700 tonnes of herring returning to spawn in the three major spawning areas: Barkley Sound, Clayoquot Sound, and Esperanza Inlet/Nuchatlaht. In the 1950s and 1970s, there were spawning populations of 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, whose traditional territory includes the southeast shores of Barkley Sound, is suing FOC for mismanagement of the herring resource and "a breach of Canada's and the Minister's fiduciary duty to give priority within the fishery to aboriginal food fishing rights over commercial fish."

In 1998, the Huu-ay-aht were unable to obtain any herring spawn, while the commercial fishery harvested over 7,000 tonnes.

The lawyers for the Government of Canada deny the Huu-ay-aht have any aboriginal right to fish for roe herring or herring spawn on boughs. They further deny that their management practices have had any impact on the number of herring available to spawn within the traditional territory of the Huu-ay-aht.

• Improve fuel economy of new vehicles and provide expanded transit alternatives
• Encourage more efficient use of fuels by phasing-in increased fuel taxes; use the increased revenue to reduce other taxes and promote alternative fuels
• Switch from coal to natural gas for electric power
• Invest in renewable sources of electrical energy
• Emissions trading system for industry to limit emissions
• Incentives, regulations and support to improve energy conservation in homes and commercial buildings

Reducing fossil fuel consumption will reduce air pollution, improve the health of Canadians and save major health dollars spent on respiratory illnesses.

"Our event is designed to present the eviïïï dence of the grave danger to humanity and as well the great opportunities of responding positively to climate change." So say the organizers of the Climates of Change Congress, to be held March 19 to 22 at the Victoria Conference Centre, Victoria BC. The three days of speakers and workshops will cover Climate Science, New and Alternative Energies, and Solutions. Speakers range from Mary Altomare the Natural Step, Canada, and Peter Bunyard, Science editor of The Ecologist, to the Hon. Paul Hellyer. Youth forums and alternative energy displays round out the agenda.

* For more information: Skies Above Foundation, (250)391-9223; or visit www.climatesofchange.com

The first forecasts are in for commercial salmon fishing for 2000, and, not surprisingly, they're not good. Harvest opportunities for Fraser sockeye might range "from limited to none," says the DFO, and the northern troll fleet will probably be shut down for the season due to the concern for coho and chinook.

1) End open net cage rearing of Atlantic salmon
The rearing of Atlantic salmon, an "exotic" species when used in open net cages, continues. This is contrary to the DFO's mandate to conserve wild salmon. The DFO has established the position of Aquaculture Commissioner, who is actively lobbying for increased corporate investment. Meanwhile the Atlantic Salmon Watch Program (carried on in concert with the province) is trying to assess the damage done.

2) Herring Fishery Closure
A four-year moratorium on all herring fishing is now urgently needed in the Strait of Georgia. The issue of the low abundance of the resident populations of coho and chinook salmon, ling cod, and rockfish, and several key mammal and bird species in the Strait of Georgia and off the west coast of Vancouver Island is well known and is of great concern to the public. Yet the DFO has again set large herring quotas for the Strait of Georgia in the year 2000.

3) Catch Insurance
The need to develop a "catch insurance" scheme in the commercial salmon, herring, ground fish, and invertebrate fisheries, as recommended by Dr. Peter Pearse in 1982, is urgent. Without such a development, strong economic pressures (in part due to fishers facing bankruptcy), will make it increasingly difficult for the DFO to carry through with the coho salmon rebuilding measures.

4) Close mixed species fisheries
At the mouth of the Skeena River (where the migration timing of coho, sockeye and steelhead coincide) no amount of "wishful thinking" will ever make gill netting, trolling, or seining "selective," and this area must be permanently closed, by DFO regulation, to these three old methods of fishing. Similar regulatory closures for gillnetting, trolling, and seining, are needed in "nursery ground" areas.

5) Enforce habitat protection laws
The high temperatures being encountered in the Fraser River canyon following massive clearcutting in the upper watershed, and the total collapse of the Rivers Inlet sockeye following massive clearcut logging, are examples of issues that must be addressed.

6) Sockeye salmon rehabilitation
The major fish ways in the Fraser Canyon need to be redesigned and rebuilt, and throughout BC, hundreds of small sockeye stocks that remain at remnant levels now need to be rehabilitated. DFO technical staff can rehabilitate these stocks with a variety of short-term methods already used successfully in Alaska.

7) Protection Areas and Sanctuaries
These resources protect all marine life for future restocking of depleted areas and scientific study; protection is urgent. Similarly, the need is also urgent to establish no-logging Watershed Salmon Sanctuaries in the central coast and other areas where massive-scale logging continues to threaten wild salmon populations. Co-management planning at the community level, and especially pre-treaty negotiations with First Nations, must be at the top of the list, before coastal habitats are damaged by over-harvesting or logging.

8) Close salmon nurseries to "catch and release"
The issue of catch and release in the saltwater sport fisheries, the hatchery mark-only sport fishery program, sport fishing on chinook and coho "nursery grounds," and the policy of subsidizing the expansion of saltwater sport fishing, need to be re-assessed.

9) Close the big hatcheries
There is an urgent need to permanently close all large-scale coho, chinook, and chum hatcheries. Scientific evidence continues to mount that large-scale chinook and coho hatcheries have seriously contributed to the decline of these wild salmon.

10) Phase out bottom trawling
Research from around the world increasingly points to the need to move trawl gear away from all contact with the benthos or sea-bed. However, the use of destructive "roller gear" on hard bottom (often on sensitive "coral" ground) is increasing in BC.

* David W. Ellis, Executive Director, The Fish For Life Foundation, 3872 Point Grey Rd, Vancouver, BC V6R 1B4; ph (604)221-7577; fax: (604)221-7544

The Ecoforestry Institute Society of Canada will host a provincial forum on forestry certification in Victoria on March 30-April 1, 2000. The forum will bring speakers and delegates together from across the province (and beyond) to discuss the implications of forestry certification for sustainable forest management in British Columbia.

One of the hottest topics in forestry today, forestry certification offers great potential to support the transition to sustainable forest management. Forestry certification is a voluntary, market-driven, conservation strategy to ensure that purchasers of timber products can identify wood produced by certified, sustainable forest practices. Certification was given a big boost last year when Home Depot and other buyers of forest products announced their intention to not buy forest products from endangered areas and to seek out wood from certified forests and producers.

The BC Forestry Certification Forum will be structured to allow for participation from a range of perspectives and will examine a variety of certification models. For more detailed information about the forum, check out the Ecoforestry Institute website (www.ecoforestry.ca) or contact:

Brian Egan, Coordinator, BC Forestry Certification Forum Project, PO Box 5070, Station B, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V8R 6N3; ph/fax: (250)655-9574; email: began@islandnet.com

In a bitter twist of fate, the Japanese may indeed have been contributing to scientific research as they devoured illegal whale meat. For over 20 years, despite the International Whaling Commission, Japan has claimed to be doing scientific research as it harvested minke whales for food.

Since December Greenpeace has mounted a vigorous non-violent action against the Japanese fleet illegally whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary near Antarctica. The vessel MV Arctic Sunrise has documented the deaths of many of the 440 whales the Japanese plan to kill, and activists have faced great personal danger in their struggle to get world governments to condemn Japan's actions.

To date Brazil, New Zealand, Argentina, Britain, the US and Australia have registered diplomatic protests against the Japanese whaling. Meanwhile, Norway and Japan continue to try to overturn the ban on international trade in whale products through CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species).

Now Japanese scientists have advised people not to eat whale meat, because of contamination with heavy metals and chemicals which can cause serious human health problems including immune system damage, sterility, and hormone disruption. Sales of whale meat have slumped, and some supermarkets have pulled the meat off the shelves. The scientists also found a quarter of the samples contained meat from other species such as dolphins and porpoises and, in one case in 20, from fully protected species such as humpback and sperm whales.

Toxic chemicals can build up in whales and dolphins to 70,000 times the levels found in the waters in which they swim and feed. Over half of 100 samples tested in one study were above recommended consumption levels for mercury, lead, PCBs, DDT, or dioxin. The results were confirmed by the Japanese Environment Agency. One scientist said eating just three ounces of the meat could result in health problems.

Further raising public concern, a seven-year study of children in the Faroe Islands has found that those whose mothers had eaten contaminated whale meat during pregnancy were much more likely to suffer brain and heart damage.

* London Independent, Greenpeace, January 2000

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) circumvented over a year of citizen protests about the scheme to burn US weapons plutonium in CANDU reactors by flying 119 grams of the waste to Chalk River Ontario by helicopter in mid-January.

Touted by the Prime Minister and AECL as a contribution to nuclear disarmament, the Parallex test is to bring samples of Russian and American plutonium (in the form of MOX nuclear reactor fuel) to AECL's Chalk River facility in order to test the suitability of the fuel for CANDU reactors. [See "Starting Fires in Hell: Why CANDU Can't Do Plutonium Burn Up," Watershed Sentinel, Aug/Sept. 1997.] The transport was made despite the fact that the US environmental assessment for the shipment says that such transports would be prohibited in the US under the law and that they rejected air transport due to its greater risk.

Greenpeace campaign director Steve Shallhorn said the AECL made the transport using a transport container (type B) which has been found to be inadequate for air transport. In 1996 Canada supported an international decision to require that plutonium be shipped in a new and more robust type of container, the type C container, which was to replace the less robust and inadequate type B transport containers. "Flying plutonium is just irresponsible and reckless," said Shallhorn.

"The Parallex test is about selling CANDU reactors and propping up the dying, heavily subsidized nuclear industry in Canada. Not one bomb will be destroyed by this program and Canada will be stuck with an even worse nuclear waste problem," said Shallhorn.

* Greenpeace, January 1999

In December, Parks Canada announced that plans for a hotel on crown land adjoining the national park at Greenwich PEI have been scrapped due to public pressure, although the interpretive centre will go ahead. [See "Death Sentence for Greenwich Park," Watershed Sentinel, June/July 1999] But PEI's Earth Action says the real threat to Greenwich is the recreational beach Parks Canada has developed on PEI's last wild shores. It's the magnet for all other planned and potential development next to the Park.

APM, a PEI retail development company, will build, own, and lease to Parks Canada the interpretive centre, built on crown land within walking distance of the beach development. In October, a leaked document disclosed APM's plan for the Greenwich Settlement, a community "similar to communities in Florida," with up-scale residences and all the amenities.

To would-be resort developers the park is just an outdoor shopping mall to attract additional clients. Although plans for the hotel on Crown land have been dropped, the company says it will simply build on private land. The overall threat to ecological integrity has not diminished at all.

We mustn't settle for compromises in a world of disappearing wild lands. We have the right to expect and demand that Greenwich be protected as a natural area and that it not be a play ground for sun-seeking tourists, or an engine for local economic development.

The National Parks Act (1988) says: "5(1.2) Maintenance of ecological integrity through the protection of natural resources shall be the first priority when considering park zoning and visitor use in a management plan."

Don't give up on Greenwich
Hold those accountable, both in governments and in the environmental community, who are supposed to speak for the animals and plants.

Pressure the PEI government to immediately implement strict zoning regulations to control development outside the Park.

* Contact Earth Action, 81 Prince Street, Charlottetown, PEI C1A 4R3; ph: (902)621-0719 email: slabchuk@isn.net

In the last issue of this journal, David Fleming analysed the double speak of the International Energy Agency, and found it is putting out a coded message to the effect that world oil supplies are running out.

Colin Campbell, an oil consultant to the English parliament, agrees. He has found that for every four barrels of oil the world is using up today, only one new barrel is being found. Around 2001, Campbell believes, supplies will start declining and the mid-east OPEC countries will be sitting on the last remaining pools. Their whip-hand position will allow them, any time they choose, to hike prices and send shock waves through the global economy. By about 2040 the oil will all be gone.

While these analysts were publishing their conclusions, scientists in Britain and New York were announcing that the planet is heating up faster than anyone thought likely five years ago. At that time, it was believed that a 3% rise over the next hundred years was the maximum possible. Now NASA's James Hanson (who has been right so often as to wear the mantle of a prophet) sees a rise of 5%F coming as early as 2075.

Backing him up were statements from the British government's climate centre at Hadley that the latest computer simulations show the planet heating up "faster than at any time in the world's history. It will be far too fast for natural systems to adapt."

So how will all this affect British Columbia, a heavy importer of food?

The answer is, "severely, but far from devastatingly, if we play our cards right."

Two years ago, the BC and federal governments jointly published a study by 110 scientists of the probable impact on our provincial agriculture of a scenario under which global atmospheric CO2 doubled over pre-industrial levels.

Their conclusions were that on the whole, and with certain provisos, such a scenario could prove good for our farmers.

Winters, though wetter, would have fewer damaging outflows of Arctic air. The number of frost-free days would grow, and there would be opportunities for double-cropping. More carbon dioxide in the air would enhance the growth of some plant species. In the province's interior, fruit growing now limited to the Osoyoos- Oliver region would advance north to the Kamloops- Shuswap area. The winter period of feeding dried crops to livestock would be shortened by four-to-six weeks.

In the north of the province, large tracts of land could be opened to farming, provided new roads were connected to markets. And Peace River farmers would be growing a wider range of crops.

But as warming increased, there would be inevitable drawbacks. Pests hitherto killed by cold winters could survive into spring. New pests would arrive from the south. Water vapour sent into the upper atmosphere by climate warming tends not to precipitate evenly as rain, but as cloudbursts. Thus winter floods could increase.

In some areas, water for summer crops could be scarce. Farmers now counting on the runoff from summer snow melt might be in trouble, since most southern glaciers and snow caps would disappear.

But when it comes to the much greater warming promised by Hanson and the Hadley group, we are obviously in uncharted territory.

If the biologists at a 1997 conference at Villach, Austria were right, many of our ecosystems will be in trouble. Their conclusion was that the most many ecosystems can stand is a one-degree rise per century.

Nevertheless, as long as the water problems are solvable, farmers should be alright. Unlike fixed ecosystems, which cannot migrate quickly to a cooler, northern regime or to higher montane levels, farmers can plant whatever conforms to the parameters of their changing climate.

Still another issue to be faced is the rise in ocean levels. Seas expand as they get warmer. Hanson figures that in a very few decades, the US east coast and Gulf coasts will be at least partly inundated. Here on the west coast, the area most at risk will be the Fraser River delta. Sooner or later the provincial government will be forced to decide when to build protective dykes, and to what height, hoping it will never have to deal with the collapse of the unstable west Antarctic ice sheet, whose plunge into the sea would raise global levels five metres.

A final issue our agriculture will have to resolve is the change from vanishing oil to such renewable energy sources as wind, hydro, fuel cells, photovoltaics, and biomass.

For a while, fortunately, there will be Peace River natural gas and the Alberta tar sands to cushion the change.

But once they are gone, we shall find out whether industrial-scale agriculture will be viable without oil. It has evolved on the assumption that cheap oil would always be there to run its big machines, provide a chemical base for many of its herbicides and pesticides, and also for transport to markets.

It is usually argued that organic farming, being labour intensive, is too expensive for the average family. But what is apt to be forgotten is that organic farming is still largely unsubsidized, whereas industrial farming, according to the calculations of Edward Goldsmith of The Ecologist magazine, is today being subsidized globally by the astonishing sum of $300 billion a year. Transfer even half that sum to the organic field, and you get affordable food.

The current global system of food distribution is as bizarre as it is wasteful. The average morsel of food destined for the North American dinner table, for example, has travelled 4,000 kilometres to get there. It is difficult to imagine such extravagance continuing once oil has gone. Air transport will likely be prohibitive in cost, and rail transport will be favoured over shipment by truck. The signs, in other words, point to a new emphasis on local production for local use.

That being so, British Columbians, in a country where only 3% of the land area will grow food , have a lot of work ahead of them if the Saanich peninsula's situation is typical. In spite of having a good deal of unused agricultural soil, Saanich imports almost 90% of its food. And it is chilling to realize how fragile are the sources from which it draws most of those imports.

If, for instance, the hurricane rains which last autumn drenched North Carolina, fall instead on central and southern Florida, it could be goodbye to that state's fruit for a while. After consulting with climate scientists, the International Red Cross is getting ready for a stormy future. To quote its director, "countries that have not had a major disaster within living memory will start having them. Those that had one or two a year will have more."

In 1988, the American Midwest, sometimes called the world's breadbasket because of its huge grain exports, had a drought and failed to produce enough grain even to feed its own people. Luckily, it had some carry over stocks from the previous year. So what if the Red Cross is right and droughts come frequently? And suppose climate extremes begin hitting California's Central Valley, from which come so many fruits and vegetables. It is worth remembering, too, that in 50 years Americans will have another 80 million of their own citizens to feed.

So, anyone who believes we will always have access to copious imports is not in full possession of the facts.

Back in autumn 1999, newspapers and at least one national magazine carried an article by Tom Reimchen of the University of Victoria Biology Department on the links between bears, salmon, and forests in the coastal ecosystems of British Columbia.

These were exciting articles for people interested in the workings of ecosystems. While some of us were aware the nutrients of salmon carcasses enriched the narrow confines of what the Forest Service deems to be riparian zones just because of their proximity to rivers and streams, Reimchen's research shows that the influence of the mighty salmon reaches much farther into the forest than previously thought, and brings with it basic nutrients from the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean. And the principal conduit for this expanded influence is none other than that oft-misunderstood omnivore: the bear.

"I proposed to determine who were the major foragers on salmon during the autumn migration and to determine how important salmon were to these foragers. If salmon were only an incidental food for these species, then yearly fluctuations or reductions in numbers of salmon returning to rivers would have little impact on local biodiversity.

"In contrast, if salmon were a major food, then the decline of salmon from habitat loss or over-harvest in the commercial fisheries would have a large impact," said Reimchen.

Reimchen's initial interest was in the foraging behaviour of bears, but, as frequently happens when scientists get into the field, their research can take fascinating and serendipitous turns. While bears are truly interesting creatures, their importance within ecosystems is at best poorly understood. When I was writing the background document for the BC Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy, I asked numerous people, both in and out of government agencies, about the roles of bears in natural systems. The general consensus was that bears, while important intrinsically, were "probably" not really critical to the functioning of any given ecosystem. Sure, they may rip open a few logs and tear up some alpine slopes, even be major predators in a few systems, such as the Spatsizi, but if they weren't there, those functions would "probably" be taken up by other organisms.

Tracing the nitrogen

The means for tracing this interconnectedness is N15, the heavy isotope of nitrogen. Scientists know that N15 occurs at higher concentrations in the ocean than in the atmosphere, so N15 is a marker for nitrogen from the ocean. N15 increases with each higher trophic level and salmon, on the fourth trophic level, have elevated levels of N15.

Reimchen says, "One of our most interesting findings over the last eight years of this research program suggests that the annual return of salmon into BC's coastal rivers provides the largest single pulse of nitrogen-rich fertiliser for the forests around salmon rivers. This relationship is established by identifying trace signatures of the nitrogen isotope N15 in the growth rings of ancient trees ... Based on isotope ratios, approximately 13% of the nitrogen found in fresh plant tissues comes from salmon nutrients. Salmon-derived nitrogen is also incorporated into the wood of trees and, in some of the ancient giant trees, up to 50 percent of the nitrogen--this essential nutrient--has come from salmon."

Most gardeners know about the importance of nitrogen; it's one of the principal components of all kinds of fertilisers and is an essential building block for all living things.

Atmospheric nitrogen is converted to inorganic nitrogen in soils for use by plants by a process called nitrogen fixation. This process is carried out by soil bacteria, blue-green algae, and certain symbiotic micro-organisms in association with legumes. Plants take up nitrogen and convert it into organic compounds, chiefly amino acids and proteins, which are assimilated into the bodies of plants and animals, which then excrete the nitrogen (or offer it through their decaying bodies) back to the soil. And so the cycle continues. The fact that inland plants and animals contain nitrogen from the ocean is more than an interesting factoid.

Reimchen's research is important in our efforts to learn more about how forest ecosystems function. Coastal forest diversity and biomass are extremely high. In watersheds where there are salmon, there is a much higher diversity of species; insects, amphibians, birds, mammals, plants-everything-than in watersheds with no salmon. Reimchen believes the presence of salmon can be a major predictor of the other species in a given ecosystem. Who can say how much of this increased biodiversity is dependent on the N15 isotope or on how it gets to be distributed within the ecosystem?

The research certainly shows that the salmon is a keystone species.

A keystone species is one that affects the survival and abundance of many other species in the community in which it lives. Its removal or addition results in a relatively significant shift in the composition of the community and sometimes even in the physical structure of the environment.

In one location, Reimchen estimated that 2,500 kg of nutrients from salmon carcasses were converted to dipteran (fly) larvae. Songbirds consume huge amounts of these insects. If salmon disappear from a watershed, will the riparian songbird community be compromised because of the lower numbers of insects available as food for them?

His research also points to the fact that there are keystone elements to the ecology of bears, a hitherto unappreciated factor about ursus species throughout BC. So far, Reimchen believes that as salmon are depleted, so too will be the biodiversity throughout forest ecosystems in BC.

What happens to the bears when the salmon are gone? What happens to forest biodiversity when the bears are gone?

What Tom Reimchen has done is expose yet another thread in the marvellous complexity of interactions within living systems. Unfortunately, we seem to be bent on unravelling the web of life, even though our knowledge and understanding of how such a marvel is woven is still far beyond our skein of knowledge.

"Polar bears range throughout the arctic wherever there is pack ice ... The most comprehensive studies of polar bears have taken place near Churchill, Manitoba, in the newly created Wapusk National Park ... With the return of ice in the fall, hungry bears immediately move out onto Hudson's Bay to begin the season of hunting. Any decrease in the abundance of seal prey, or in the length of time the ocean is covered with ice, can be expected to have devastating effects on this ... population. Again, although causation remains to be established, expectations and observations are matching up. As predicted under scenarios of the effects of global warming, birthrates have declined and the average physical condition of adult bears appears to be worsening. Wapusk is outstanding [also] because of the diversity and abundance of its ... bird communities. An estimated 15% of all of the world's species breed in the arctic ... by altering the planet's atmosphere, we are creating a huge experiment that appears likely to play out at the expense of these arctic organisms."

* Climate Change: Parks at Risk: Report: North America: AK/Arctic: Wapusk National Park and Central Arctic Bird Sanctuaries, World Wildlife Fund; www.panda.org/climate/parks/dr_na_park5.htm

"The boreal forest of North America is the largest block of more or less intact forest remaining in the world and is rivalled in area only by the boreal forest of Russia and the tropical rainforest of the Amazon ... Within this immense area, diverse ecological conditions are represented ... the vast and pristine nature of parts of the boreal forest does little to protect it from the invisible reach of atmospheric pollution. Climate models consistently predict widespread ecosystem change under greenhouse warming, with damaging results. Already, these impacts appear to be under way. A pattern of consistent warming in the last 140 years has seen melting of the sparsely distributed and discontinuous permafrost characteristic of the boreal and taiga forests ... Models suggest that the warming will lead to lowering of local water tables and...reductions in ... wet lands. Equally seriously, large-scale disturbances such as fire and insect outbreaks ... are predicted to increase in frequency ... Perhaps most seriously, studies predict a decrease in forest productivity in the region ... The predicted increase in forest fires and eventual transition to a landscape of young regenerating forest, is of particular concern for wildlife species that make extensive use of mature and old-growth forests, such as marten, fisher, and caribou ... The possibility of large-scale forest die backs is made more alarming by the possibility that they may occur very rapidly."

* Climate Change: Parks at Risk: Report: North America: AK/Arctic: Wapusk National Park and Central Arctic Bird Sanctuaries, World Wildlife Fund; www.panda.org/climate/parks/dr_na_park5.htm

First the ecosystem, then the economy

The availability of research evidence of ecosystem damage, if not outright collapse, is vast. Once the ecosystems start to go, can the world's economy be far behind? What critical mass does awareness have to reach before the paradigm shift occurs?

What are the links between economy, ecology, ecosystems?

The word economy comes from Greek oikos (house), and nomos (manage); so "economy" means, managing the house. Since Earth is our house, economy means an activity to manage Earth, and not specifically money, as practically everyone, it would seem, thinks it means. Political economy is "the theory of production and distribution of wealth." The word ecology also comes from oikos (house), and logy (branch of knowledge); or knowledge about our house-Earth. Most of us are by now familiar with the word, but it has only been in use for about 100 years.

One of the most basic primers on ecology explains it as:

"The organized body of knowledge that deals with the interrelationships between living organisms and their environment ..."

* Basic Ecology, Buchsbaum, Ralph and Mildred, 1957; The Boxwood Press, Pacific Grove, CA.

Knowledge becomes natural history

The authors acknowledge that "the observation of plants and animals in their natural 'homes' has been going on during all the million or more years that humans have sought them as food, for clothing, or avoided as enemies." The steady accumulation of all this observation and knowledge developed into a systematic collection of facts we now call "natural history." Unlike other sciences, which became highly systematised early in western culture, ecology, "as a body of principles, lagged behind ... necessarily so because of its complexity and comprehensiveness. Including within its theoretical scope all physical and all biological phenomena, ecology has had to await the development of many other sciences before it could advance much beyond the descriptive stage." The more we learn about ecology, the more aware we become of just how difficult it is to manage this house called Earth. In fact, so far, there is very little evidence that we can manage it. Certainly research like Tom Reimchen's helps in our quest for understanding our home.

The Canadian Oxford defines ecosystem as, "a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment." This definition gives no real hint of the complexities of interactions not only between the living organisms, but between the biotic and abiotic factors; nor does it inform us of the entire range of complexity from the micro- to the macro-ecosystem scales.

And how does the concept of "ecosystem" relate to ecology and economics? The popular understanding of the word ecosystem generally focuses on living organisms. One person says, for him, it means "the great web of life." Society is slowly accepting the realisation that the state of our global and local economy is dependent upon biodiversity and the health of ecosystems.

Economies are tied to ecosystems

Here are some additional quotes from my research:

"The management of biodiversity is an issue that affects the quality of life of all Canadians. Human societies and regional economies are tied to resources produced by ecosystems. The impacts of change in ecosystems are expressed through shifts in biodiversity. Shifts in biodiversity alter the resource base of regional economies, often to the detriment of human populations ... one of the most revealing indicators of sustainable management of biodiversity resources in Canada is the number of species listed at risk: 256 in 1996."

* EMAN'S Contribution to the Implementation of the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy; Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN); Environment Canada, 1997.

Consequences become more clear

"The trends of environmental deterioration of the last few decades cannot continue indefinitely without eventually affecting the world economy. Until now, most of the economic effects of environmental damage have been local: the collapse of a fishery here or there from over fishing ... or the abandonment of crop land because of soil erosion. But as the scale of environmental damage expands, it threatens to affect the global economy as well."

"The consequences of environmental degradation are becoming more clear. We cannot continue to deforest the earth without experiencing more rainfall runoff, accelerated soil erosion, and more destructive flooding. If we continue to discharge excessive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, we will eventually face economically disruptive climate change. If we continue to over pump the earth's aquifers, we will one day face acute water scarcity. If we continue to over fish, still more fisheries will collapse. If over grazing continues, so, too, will the conversion of range land into desert."

* The Agricultural Link: How Environmental Deterioration Could Disrupt Economic Progress; Brown, Lester R.; Worldwatch Paper 13, 1997; Worldwatch Institute, Washington, DC.

Moving on down the food chain

A recent study in the journal Science by Daniel Pauly and Johanne Dalsgaard reports that humans are systematically reducing fish catches by removing the commercially valuable fish species first and then moving down to the next valuable species and then the next and the next. "The product of this type of fishing is a reduction in ecosystem value ... Given our current fishing practices we could end up eating plankton and seaweed in 30 to 40 years."

To which I can only add: Amen. The prospect of dining on plankton and seaweed ought to be sufficient impetus for shifting the current paradigm of unsustainable resource use.

By 2025 the earth's population will have increased by an additional two billion people. What we do in the next twenty-five years will determine whether we are moving toward civilization or chaos. The first three decades of the 21st century will bring change difficult to imagine by many from to-day's perspective. Already global population support systems are showing signs of strain. Of chief importance among those systems is the planet's usable fresh water supply.

The Yellow River in China often runs dry before reaching the sea. China's industrial revolution of the past 50 years, coupled with artificial irrigation as the country strives toward self-sufficiency in food production, has placed a heavy burden on the country's rivers. The population's new-found relative prosperity has resulted in a shift away from grains to more meat in the diet. The heavily water-reliant meat industry places even greater strain on water resources. In 1997 the Yellow River stopped flowing for 226 days.

From its beginning in Colorado almost 13000 feet above sea level the Colorado River begins its journey to the Gulf of California in north-west Mexico. Despite its 13,000 ft. head, the river seldom reaches its destination. It has been, over and over again, dammed, directed through tunnels, reservoirs, aqueducts, siphons and canals to irrigate thousands of hectares of market gardens. It has created temporary paradise and profits in the deserts of California and Arizona. It waters thousands of lush golf courses and lawns, fills swimming pools beside a warm ocean, and lights neon jungles in cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. The river reaches the ocean as a mere trickle, but only in the wettest seasons.

In California there is no regulation to control ground water pumping. By the 1930s farmers of the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Central valleys had pumped dry the aquifer. Faced with the threat of collapse of the state's biggest industry and the wrath of the powerful farmer groups, the state and federal governments sacrificed the Colorado River to the world's largest irrigation project.

But there would not, in the long run, be enough water to quench the greed of the farmers. Their lust to become the market garden to the world drove them to press into production more crop land than they could water. Today, after drilling tens of thousands of wells in recent years, to supplement the water of the Colorado River, they are again drawing down the groundwater. Now they would turn their dream to a nightmare by redirecting the Eel, Klamath and Columbia rivers to their garden paradise. Bringing the Yukon River through Canada's Rocky Mountain Trench to join the Columbia has not escaped their dream catchers.

Beginning now, we must realistically face the issue of the planet's usable fresh water supply. Canada and other countries must be ready to share water on an emergency temporary basis with those unfortunate populations living where getting enough water to sustain life is a daily struggle. Water sharing should be complemented with assistance in enhancing or improving water resources or, if necessary, relocation of populations.

Obviously the world cannot rescue China or the United States from their particular situations. Certainly, diverting rivers to artificially irrigate a market system that destroys itself through expansion and success is a dead end. Perhaps it's time to question the wisdom of trying to satisfy a world market with heavily water-dependent food crops grown in a desert. Emphasis should, instead, be placed on growing food crops suitable to a particular geoclimatic zone.

In the years just ahead we are going to hear more than we really want to know about the coming world water crisis. The North American Water And Power Alliance (NAWAPA) has begun to stir from its nearly four decade nap. Giant corporations want to divert Canada's north flowing rivers south to irrigate a few more years of profits, and similarly meddle with all the rivers worldwide. Corporations, under the new global trade laws, have no national or geographic loyalty. They are "monopoles sans frontieres." We must fight them. We must civilize them, or tear them down.

Hundreds of water specialists, politicians, leading experts and top officials from around the globe will meet in The Hague from 17-22 March, 2000. The event will mark the conclusion to a long series of sessions during which "thousands of concerned citizens" addressed the water crisis that threatens us all. In The Hague a Vision will be unveiled projecting a scenario of how the world could look twenty-five years from now--if we take action today --a world with enough clean water for everyone. To implement the vision, a Framework for Action will be announced.

We are left to wonder if the concerns of "thousands of concerned citizens" centred around environmental risks in any meaningful way. Information available on the Internet does mention non-government organizations (NGO) participation but who they were or on what level they participated is not clear. It's difficult to imagine the Council of Canadians (CoC), given their well-known concerns around water, not being invited to participate at a WCW forum held in Montreal last May. Jamie Dunn, water campaigner for CoC said that, though unwelcome they went anyway, but their concerns were not reflected in the vision statement.

The chair of the WCW is Ismail Serageldin who is also a vice president of the World Bank, an extreme right corporate centred institution.

The WCW website, www.worldwaterforum.org/main.html, is awash with non-confrontational phrases and modern buzz-words.

Most cynics would probably see the WCW as a slick, thinly disguised attempt to convince politicians that the world is thirsting for privatization and global corporate control of water. Watch this one. See where it goes.

An ever-increasing population ... shallow, rocky soil and a high water table ... elderly septic systems ... and no shortage of tourists. If these all sound familiar to you, you're probably living on one of BC's Gulf Islands, and are trying to cope with your sewage.

Ground water contamination results in both intestinal parasites and high fecal coliform counts, with consequences detrimental to health and the economy. In 1994, in Baynes Sound, near Hornby Island, coliform levels caused closures of the most productive shellfish area in the province and prompted Hornby Island residents to press for a solution.

The result was an experimental system that, at least partly, seems to solve the problem, and which may also be useful on islands with similar conditions. It's being called a "constructed wet land," and the project, at the Tribune Bay Outdoor Education Centre, consists of a 12-by-6 metre wooden structure that's filled with gravel and covered with plants. It cost $21,000.

According to project leader Richard Drake, the process involves sending waste from septic tanks into the wet land (which deals with the problems caused by older septic systems). The plants aid in decomposition by adding oxygen into the effluent.

Results will be monitored by the provincial Ministry of Health for two more years, but early tests indicate that fecal coliform counts have already been reduced to acceptable levels. It's hoped that the system will be adaptable to other rural areas, and that as its use increases, the cost of construction will become cheaper. And now that the first phase is completed, further experimentation will deal with grey water, the by product of washing and cooking.

A similar but more sophisticated system, the Solar Aquatic Greenhouse, serves a large trailer park located at Englishman River on Vancouver Island.

Hydroxyl Systems Inc.

Even the cautious and conservative BC Ferry Corp likes this waste water system, developed in Sidney, BC, and has installed it on some of its vessels.

Marine waste water has, traditionally, been treated biologically, using bacteria and micro-organisms, but salt water (used for toilet flushing) can reduce the efficiency of such a system by almost half, especially when bleaches and cleaning fluids enter the equation. To counter that weakness, Hydroxyl starts with a primary solids separation, removing oil and grease and reducing the need for biochemical oxygen. Then, there's an oxidation process to reduce fecal coliform, and a disinfection process that's chlorine-free.

The oxidation system produces clear, odourless effluent with a low oxygen demand, low level of suspended solids, and low coliform counts. Special solutions for ferry usage included enclosing the system in a vapour-controlled tank adapted for use in a rolling, pitching vessel.

Hydroxyl also serves other treatment needs, from treating industrial landfill leachate at Crofton Pulp Mill, to use in the septic system of a shopping centre south of Duncan, BC.

* Contact: Hydroxyl Systems Inc; ph: (250)655-3348; fax: (250)655-3349.

Phoenix Composting Toilet System

If sea-going vessels present specific problems, so does small domestic use, but it can have a pretty cool fringe benefit: compost. Good for the garden. Good for the soul.

The Phoenix system is waterless, chemical- and odour-free, needs no pumping, and will survive freeze-up. For bulk, wood shavings are added to the waste from toilets and food sources, to increase drainage and aeration, and add carbon to the mix. (Only a handful is needed after each use.)

Liquid filters through to be treated in a lower chamber; the composting material is reduced in volume as the odour is reduced, and a winter's production can be ready for use in the spring. (Cold weather will, however, slow the process, though it resumes when the temperature increases.) The system can handle two toilets, or one toilet plus food waste.

Phoenix Composting toilets are already in use in BC parks and at rest stops along the Vancouver Island highway.

* Contact: Sunergy Systems Ltd, Box 70, Cremona, AB T0M 0R0; ph: (403)637-3973.

Sun-Mar Composting Toilets

This is another spiffy biffy, with an expansive range of models and options. Again, it needs no chemicals or septic system, and produces no pollutants, and uses a mixing and aerating system to oxygenate aerobic bacteria and speed the composting process. The finished compost can be removed from a drawer once or twice a year. As with the Phoenix, the rate of composting will be affected by temperature.

A small Sun-Mar system weighs only 45 lb and will be just fine for the normal use of two people, or three-to-five peoples' occasional use. The smaller Sun-Mar models are popular choices for cottages. More-extravagant versions of composting toilets, such as the Carousel Composting System, are also available. This one is good for as many as 15 people (seasonal use), speeds the composting by separating the new waste, and features an inner chamber with four revolving chambers. That way, filling one chamber a year, a chamber has three years to process before it needs to be emptied.

Different models can use AC or 12V power for heating and fan options, or no power at all. An incinerating toilet is also available.

* For more information: National Conservation Guild, Box 3090, Crested Butte, CO 81224; ph: (800)442-1972; fax: (970)349-0551.

Bio-Sun Systems

This company has also directed the development of its composting toilets toward maximizing the air flow, to speed composting, remove odour, and produce a dryer and easier to handle product.

It uses a system of compressor and air injection tubes to achieve that end, and its compost chambers may be custom-designed and cast in place as part of a concrete basement--a definite advantage for those houses with avant-garde (i.e. weird) architecture and odd-sized basement spaces. This product can also be custom-sized to accommodate any number of toilets.

* Bio-Sun Systems Inc, RR2, Box 134A, Millerton, PA 16936, USA; ph: (717)537-2200; fax: (717)537-6200; email: bio-sun@ix.netcom.com

Black is black ... or is it?

There are places in which everything that goes down a drain is considered sewage--blackwater--even if it's only part of a glass of water someone didn't feel like drinking.

But it makes sense to consider grey water, such as bath, laundry, or dish washing water, as a separate issue. In some places on BC's Gulf Islands--veritable bastion of conservationism--the recommended ways (though not legally sanctioned) to deal with grey water include the following:

• Filter grey water to remove bits of food and grease (an oil drum filled with sand, gravel, and sawdust on top is recommended). That goes hand-in-hand, of course, with keeping the water as free from chemicals as possible.
• Dilute grey water by 50% with water, to speed decomposition and protect plants. Living plants are the best things for neutralizing grey water, but it should not be used directly to water plants that will later be eaten. It would be better for orchards or ornamentals.
• As much as possible, keep grey water underground or in pipes. If it's not used to water plants, an outflow hole (filled with sand, covered with wood-chips) can be built on a well-drained area away from streams and neighbours. One possible system for plant watering would be a pit lined with plastic and filled with dirt, with trees and vegetables planted in the pit.

* For more information, see: Greywater Use in the Landscape, from Robert Kourik Edible Productions, Box 1841, Santa Rosa, CA 95402;

Oasis grey water Information, from Oasis Biocompatible Products, 1020 Veronica Springs Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93105-4532.

The big picture

Of course, intelligent water usage is part of a bigger picture in two ways.

First, contrary to the poem, there ain't water, water everywhere, at least, not readily accessible drinking water. A sewage system that eliminates or reduces water usage will extend existing supplies (and the cost will be made up for, at least in part, by not having to replace aging septic tanks).

A low-flush toilet will reduce water usage by half; putting two two-litre bottles, filled with water or pebbles, into the tank will reduce water usage by 20%; don't flush for every minor usage; and fix all the leaks. But the composting toilet is the Rolls-Royce of water-reducing biffies.

Second, sewage can be the starting point for a completely self-reliant system. In 1991, the winner of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's competition for a self-sufficient house incorporated the following features:

• Using only rain and snow as water sources, consumption has been reduced to about a tenth that of a normal household: 720 litres a day, 600 of which are recycled.
• The dishwasher and washing machine use 50% less than standard appliances.
• Toilets use six litres of water per flush.

The house's septic and waste-water treatment system is chemical-free and operates in several stages, with separate streams for potable water and waste water; but the end result is complete freedom from Toronto's water and sewage systems.

And if they can do something like that in Toronto ...

* For more on CMHC's Healthy House, contact: Christopher Ives, CMHC,, 700 Montreal Rd, Ottawa, ON; ph: (613)748-2312; (613)748-2402; email: cives@cmhc-schl.com

It's been two weeks now since the morning when I awoke before dawn to join the blockade that shut down the opening meeting of the WTO. Since getting out of jail, I've been reading the media coverage and trying to make sense out of the divergence between what I know happened and what has been reported.

For once in a political protest, when we chanted "The whole world is watching!" we were telling the truth. I've never seen so much media attention on a political action. However, most of what has been written is so inaccurate that I can't decide if the reporters in question should be charged with conspiracy or simply incompetence. The reports have pontificated endlessly about a few broken windows, and mostly ignored the Direct Action Network (DAN), the group that successfully organized the nonviolent direct action that ultimately involved thousands of people. The true story of what made the action a success is not being told.

The police, in defending their brutal and stupid mishandling of the situation, have said they were "not prepared for the violence." In reality, they were unprepared for the nonviolence and the numbers and commitment of the nonviolent activists -- even though the blockade was organized in open, public meetings and there was nothing secret about our strategy.

My suspicion is that our model of organization and decision making was so foreign to their picture of what constitutes leadership that they literally could not see what was going on in front of them. When authoritarians think about leadership, the picture in their minds is of one person, usually a guy, or a small group standing up and telling other people what to do. Power is centralized and requires obedience.

In contrast, our model of power was decentralized, and leadership was invested in the group as a whole. People were empowered to make their own decisions, and the centralized structures were for co-ordination, not control. As a result, we had great flexibility and resilience, and many people were inspired to acts of courage they could never have been ordered to do.

Here are some of the key aspects of our model of organizing.

Training and Preparation

In the weeks and days before the blockade, thousands of people were given nonviolence training -- a three hour course that combined the history and philosophy of nonviolence with real life practice through role plays in staying calm in tense situations, using nonviolent tactics, responding to brutality, and making decisions together. Thousands also went through a second-level training in jail preparation, solidarity strategies and tactics and legal aspects. As well, there were first aid trainings, trainings in blockade tactics, street theatre, meeting facilitation, and other skills. While many more thousands of people took part in the blockade who had not attended any of these trainings, a nucleus of groups existed who were prepared to face police brutality and who could provide a core of resistance and strength ...

Common Agreements

Each participant in the action was asked to agree to the nonviolence guidelines: To refrain from violence, physical or verbal; not to carry weapons, not to bring or use illegal drugs or alcohol, and not to destroy property. We were asked to agree only for the purpose of the 11/30 action -- not to sign on to any of these as a life philosophy, and the group acknowledged that there is much diversity of opinion around some of these guidelines.

Affinity Groups, Clusters and Spokes councils

The participants in the action were organized into small groups called Affinity Groups. Each group was empowered to make its own decisions around how it would participate in the blockade. There were groups doing street theatre, others preparing to lock themselves to structures, groups with banners and giant puppets, others simply prepared to link arms and nonviolently block delegates. Within each group, there were generally some people prepared to risk arrest and others who would be their support people in jail, as well as a first aid person.

Affinity groups were organized into clusters. The area around the convention centre was broken down into thirteen sections, and affinity groups and clusters committed to hold particular sections. As well, some groups were 'flying group,' free to move to wherever they were most needed. All of this was co-ordinated at spokes council meetings, where affinity groups each sent a representative who was empowered to speak for the group.

In practice, this form of organization meant that groups could move and react with great flexibility during the blockade. If a call went out for more people at a certain location, an affinity group could assess the numbers holding the line where they were and choose whether or not to move. When faced with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and horses, groups and individuals could assess their own ability to withstand the brutality. As a result, blockade lines held in the face of incredible police violence ... No centralized leader could have co-ordinated the scene in the midst of the chaos, and none was needed -- our organic, autonomous organization proved far more powerful and effective. No authoritarian figure could have compelled people to hold a blockade line while being tear gassed, but empowered people free to make their own decisions did choose to do that.

Consensus decision making

The affinity groups, clusters, spokes councils and working groups involved with DAN made decisions by consensus, a process that allows every voice to be heard and that stresses respect for minority opinions. Consensus was part of the nonviolence and jail trainings and we made a small attempt to also offer some special training in meeting facilitation. We did not interpret consensus to mean unanimity. The only mandatory agreement was to act within the nonviolent guidelines. Beyond that, the DAN organizers set a tone that valued autonomy and freedom over conformity, and stressed co-ordination rather than pressure to conform.

Vision and Spirit

The action included art, dance, celebration, song, ritual and magic. It was more than a protest; it was an uprising of a vision of true abundance, a celebration of life and creativity and connection, that remained joyful in the face of brutality and brought alive the creative forces that can truly counter those of injustice and control. Many people brought the strength of their personal spiritual practice to the action ... For me, it was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life.

I'm writing this for two reasons. First, I want to give credit to the DAN organizers who did a brilliant and difficult job, who learned and applied the lessons of the last twenty years of nonviolent direct action, and who created a powerful, successful and life-changing action in the face of enormous odds, an action that has changed the global political landscape and radicalized a new generation.

Secondly, the true story of how this action was organized provides a powerful model that activists can learn from. Seattle was only a beginning. We have before us the task of building a global movement to overthrow corporate control and create a new economy based on fairness and justice, on a sound ecology and a healthy environment, one that protects human rights and serves freedom. We have many campaigns ahead of us, and we deserve to learn the true lessons of our successes.

* The complete article is available at Starhawk's website www.reclaiming.org/starhawk

Those who marched or stood or sat in the streets of Seattle at the end of November made history, and they knew it. And like the great marches against the Vietnam war, or the first sit-ins in the South in the late 50s, it was not always easy to see just what history was being made, especially for those closest to the events of the time.

Tear gas, rubber bullets and police sweeps, the object of incessant media coverage, are the outward signs of impending change -- that the guardians of the social order have grown afraid. And there's always a little history in that.

The Seattle protests put trade on the road map of public debate, making WTO a universally recognized set of initials in a matter of hours -- what it took a year of debate over NAFTA to accomplish.

But perhaps the greatest impact of Seattle will be on the people who were there. Just as anti-war demonstrations and civil rights sit-ins of decades ago were focal points, from which people fanned out across the country, spreading the gospel of their movement, Seattle is also a beginning of something greater yet to come. What will the people who filled its downtown streets take with them back into this city's rainy neighborhoods, or to similar communities in towns and cities across the country?

A certain understanding of the world was forged in the streets here -- a realization based, to begin with, on who was there. Environmentalists came protesting the impending destruction of laws protecting clean air and water. Animal rights activists came to protect sea turtles. Trade unionists came fighting for jobs, and protesting child labor. Fair trade campaigners arrived ready to debate corporate domination of the process by which trade rules are decided.

Even the generational culture of the protesters started to spill over, from one group into another. Environmental activists in their 20s came with the tactics from the battles in the forests of northern California and the Pacific northwest. They carried giant puppets, dressed themselves in costumes rather than carrying signs, and laid down in busy intersections at the height of morning rush hour.

Later the same day, tens of thousands of union members marched into downtown to join the protest. Having shut down all the ports along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to San Diego, union members chanted and waved picket signs as their ranks filled the streets as far as the eye could see. Each union's members marched together, each with its own colour jacket or T-shirt, each carrying banners and hundreds of signs printed for the occasion.

Many of the morning's young protesters were visibly impressed by the strength of the numbers and organization. For Annie Decker, "the power and size of it made me feel joyful. I was proud that we were together, bringing the WTO into the public eye."

In the midst of the tear gas, it was not hard to see that this culture of protest is starting to spread, whether through union jackets on protesters in the redwood forests, or giant puppets on union picket lines in Oakland. But under the culture is the germ of an idea - the linkage.

For unionists, the depredations of a global trading system have pitted workers in many countries against each other, in a race to the bottom in wages and workers' rights. Environmental activists see a system which values profit-making over laws protecting health and the environment. Rather than creating an atomized assembly-- each group pursing its own interests in isolation-- protesters came ready to see what they had in common.

Decker, an organizer and observer at an intersection filled with sitting bodies, called her own realization liberating. "We don't have to just express an opinion on one issue," she said. "Trade and the power of corporations are affecting us in so many areas that we can all make connections, and see the common element behind the problems we share."

President Clinton may regret planning a summit of the powerful which has become overshadowed by street protest. But in the long run, he will regret this realization more. It is an indictment, not of a particular company, or even a single country, but of a whole economic order which is uniting its enemies in opposition to it.

* David Bacon writes from Berkeley California

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