Droughts only expected to worsen with time, U.N. agencies warn

As American farms and African villages suffer the ravages of drought, international experts are warning that countries across the globe are sorely in need of plans to cope with the problem. The dire effects, they say, are only expected to get worse.

Climate change is expected to make droughts more common, more intense and more enduring, affecting food, water and energy across the globe, a gaggle of United Nations agencies said Tuesday.

Their warnings come in a punishing summer: July marked some of the hottest temperatures on record and was the 329th consecutive month in which global temperatures were above the 20th century average, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Roughly two-thirds of the continental United States has suffered from drought this summer, harming crops, driving up corn prices and worsening wildfires.

In India, a weaker-than-usual monsoon season has hurt farmers and been tagged as one possible factor in the vast blackouts that struck the country weeks ago. Food prices worldwide surged 6% in July after dropping for several months, according to a Food and Agriculture Organization index.

The suffering inflicted by drought has been especially stark in the Sahel region of western Africa, where millions are estimated to be at risk of not having enough food.  Some families in Niger resorted to eating wild leaves, the World Food Organization said this spring.

Yet only Australia has a national policy to handle drought, U.N. climate prediction official Mannava Sivakumar told reporters Tuesday. The World Meteorological Organization, the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification and other groups are gearing up for an international summit on the problem in March, hoping to nudge countries toward better strategies for conserving water.

“Developing and developed countries alike are vulnerable,” Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UNCCD, said in their Tuesday statement, calling for “effective long-term solutions.”

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-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: A dead fish lies several feet from the water in Lake Corpus Christi near Mathis, Texas, on Monday as the lake continues to shrink due to this year's drought. Credit: Todd Yates / Associated Press / Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Activists warn of risk of disastrous oil spill in Russian Arctic

Environmentalists warned Tuesday that drilling for oil in the Arctic could put Russian protected land at risk of being polluted by an oil spill before federal emergency crews could reach the remote area.

Their warnings were backed up by an analysis from a Russian think tank, commissioned by Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, showing that an oil spill could reach nature reserves and protected areas in as little as 18 hours. Although some help could arrive within a few hours, Greenpeace Russia said it would take professional teams three or four days to arrive at the site.

A tanker accident could send 10,000 metric tons of oil spilling out into the Pechora Sea for five days, the Informatika Riska Center estimated. More than 50,000 square miles could be at risk of being severely affected in the event of a major spill, Greenpeace warned.

Such a spill would be quite rare, project manager Valentine Jouravel at Informatika Riska told reporters, though activists countered that past spills had also been seen as unlikely, the Moscow Times reported.

"It seems that in case of [an] extremely large spill ... the nearby nature preserves cannot be avoided with 100% guarantee," Jouravel wrote in an email to the Los Angeles Times.

The state-owned energy company that is behind the drilling plans, Gazprom, could not be immediately reached for comment. It disputed the report in an email to the Associated Press, saying its platform used the latest technology and exceeded environmental standards and that it teams with another oil company that could help it speed up emergency efforts.

Gazprom is poised to become the first company to produce Arctic oil, capitalizing on a region believed to contain more untapped oil than any other area on the globe.

Environmental groups have tried to halt such drilling, contending that cleaning up an oil spill in the unforgiving Arctic would be too daunting and the risks for fragile ecosystems too great.

U.S. to begin cleaning up Agent Orange at tainted Vietnamese site

More than half a century after the United States began dousing Vietnam with the defoliant Agent Orange in a bid to clear the jungle that provided cover for Viet Cong fighters, it is about to begin cleaning up one of the most contaminated spots left over from the war.

The cleanup is expected to take four years and cost more than $43 million. It is the first time that the U.S. has joined with Vietnam to completely cleanse a site tainted with Agent Orange, which has been linked to birth defects, cancer and other ailments.

"This is huge, considering that for many years the U.S. and Vietnam could not see eye to eye at all about this issue," said Susan Hammond, director of the War Legacies Project, a Vermont-based nonprofit group. "It was one of the last unresolved war legacies between the U.S. and Vietnam."

The problem of Agent Orange had long divided the two nations, which still disagree over the health effects caused by the toxin. The chemical spray contains dioxin, which clings to bits of soil and can be ingested by fish and birds, pulling it into the human food chain. The Red Cross estimates that 3 million Vietnamese have been affected, including at least 150,000 children born with birth defects.

Near the Da Nang site, Vo Duoc fought tears as he told the Associated Press that he and other family members, who have suffered diabetes, breast cancer and miscarriages, had tested high for dioxin. Now he fears his grandchildren could be exposed as well.

"They had nothing to do with the war," Duoc told the AP. "But I live in fear that they'll test positive like me."

The U.S. has chipped in for programs to help Vietnamese youth with disabilities but has shied away from saying their problems are specifically linked to the chemical. Vietnam has bristled at that resistance, pointing out that the U.S. has paid billions of dollars in disability payments to American veterans suffering illnesses linked to Agent Orange.

It wasn't until 2006 that the two countries were able to start progressing toward concrete action, as economic and strategic ties grew firmer. President George W. Bush visited six years ago; growing U.S. engagement with Vietnam to offset the rise of China has bolstered the relationship since.

"Many people in Vietnam had given up hope that anything would ever be done about it," said Charles Bailey, director of the Agent Orange in Vietnam Program at the Aspen Institute. "Instead, we find that the U.S. is stepping up to the plate."

Plastic pellets blanket Hong Kong beaches after typhoon

Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets are washing up on Hong Kong beaches after a powerful typhoon sent “white plastic sacks of death” tumbling off a ship into the sea, environmental group Sea Shepherd Hong Kong said, warning that the spilled pellets could send chemicals up through the food chain.

Bits of plastic started deluging the shores in the wake of Typhoon Vicente, the worst such storm to hit Hong Kong in 13 years. The translucent pellets, known as nurdles, are used to make plastic products and were reportedly made by China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., also known as Sinopec. Sacks with its markings washed onshore as well, the Associated Press reported.

At Sam Pak Wan beach, local environmentalist Tracey Read was appalled to find that the beach was so covered with nurdles that it looked like it was blanketed in snow.

“The words from my son years ago echoed in my head, ‘Mum, will it ever snow in Hong Kong?’ ” Read wrote on her blog, saying the sight almost made her cry.  “Yes, Finn this week it has and the snow will last not just for a day but far beyond your life and that of your great-grandchildren!”

The accident spilled 165 tons of nurdles into the water, according to Hong Kong environmental officials, and the resulting mess at 10 beaches could take months to comb from the sand and sea. Volunteers and government crews worked with brooms, sieves and nets to try to pick out the plastic; the government said roughly half had been cleared as of Sunday.

Though Hong Kong officials say the plastic pellets are not themselves toxic, environmentalists warn that nurdles soak up other chemicals and toxins like sponges, growing more and more stained as they do. Birds, fish and sharks mistake nurdles for fish eggs and consume them, Sea Shepherd Hong Kong said, spreading the toxicity through the food chain to humans.

“The increased food safety risk is unlikely to be significant as wild fish locally caught only constitutes a very small part of our diet,” the Environmental Protection Department of Hong Kong said in a statement Sunday. No unusual fish activity or deaths had been reported.

Nonetheless, the official Center for Food Safety advised the public not to eat any fish “with abnormal appearance, smell and taste, as well as dead fish on the beach.”

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-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: A volunteer collects plastic pellets washed up on a bank of Lamma island during a cleanup operation in Hong Kong on Sunday. Credit: Kim Cheung / Associated Press

After second Mexican mining disaster, critics call for stronger regulation

 

MEXICO CITY -- In the wake of another fatal coal mining disaster in the Mexican state of Coahuila, critics are ramping up their call for stronger regulation of an industry that the local bishop claims is sending workers into “death trap” conditions.

Six men were killed Friday morning when 100 tons of rock and coal collapsed, trapping them in a mine near the town of Muzquiz. In late July, an explosion at another nearby mine killed seven workers. The national miners’ union claims that 200 miners have died in Coahuila since 2006.

The mine’s owner, Altos Hornos de Mexico, has claimed that the modern safety features at the site allowed them to evacuate 285 miners after the collapse.

“But the result is persistently the same,” the union said in a statement. “The mine workers are the evident victims of the lack of foresight, lack of sensitivity and criminal irresponsibility of the mining companies, big or small, that don’t establish adequate security measures for the protection of their workers.”

Raul Vera, the Roman Catholic bishop of Saltillo, said in a radio interview that many miners were “working in 19th century conditions.”

“The mines are a death trap,” he said.

Vera and other church leaders have accused the government of being reluctant to impose tougher regulations on the industry for fear of upsetting foreign mining companies operating in the state.

The governor of Coahuila, Ruben Moreira, and others have called on the federal government to reduce the taxes on the methane gas that is often found in coal mines -- and is often a source of the explosions that make the work there so dangerous. Moreira and others hope that with lower taxes, companies will have greater incentive to safely capture the gas and sell it, instead of letting it escape, as it often does now, into the atmosphere.

The newspaper Vanguardia, in Saltillo, the state capital, reported Monday that a measure to reduce the taxes on coalbed methane gas was introduced in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies in October, but has not been acted upon.

“What is needed are not speeches delivered a thousand times, or promises that have proven to be in vain again and again,” read an editorial published in the paper Monday. “What is required are real actions for creating a different reality -- a reality in which human life is worth more than the earnings generated by coal.”

-- Richard Fausset

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Photo: A handout picture provided by La Voz de Sabinas shows rescuers at an earlier collapse July 25 at the Deborquez mine in Muzquiz, Coahuila state. Seven miners were killed. Mauricio Garcia / European Pressphoto Agency

Indian court's ruling clears way for Exxon Valdez's final demise

NEW DELHI -- A ruling by India's Supreme Court has cleared the way for the former Exxon Valdez tanker to be dismantled, the final chapter of its notorious career.

The ship that dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989 should land on the beaches of Alang in western Gujarat state later this month, its owners said. The vessel, now named the Oriental Nicety, will be hacked apart by hundreds of low-paid laborers in the world's largest ship graveyard.

Local environmentalists asked the high court in April to block the vessel's entry, arguing that it was laden with toxic chemicals, including mercury, arsenic and asbestos. The court ruled against them this week.

Though the court allowed the ship to die in India, it ruled that future inbound "end-of-life" vessels heading for Alang would have to prove they are in compliance with the U.N. Basel Convention governing the international movement of hazardous waste, a step activists termed a victory of sorts.

Legal ivory? Idea floated as elephant poaching hits new highs

As elephant poaching and ivory smuggling have increased across Africa, a new proposal to allow the sale of ivory from elephants that die naturally or are killed for other reasons has infuriated environmentalists.

The idea comes out of a report commissioned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which is meeting this week in Geneva. It envisions selling ivory through a central organization such as the De Beers diamond conglomerate, funded through a tax on ivory sales.

“It would not be the aim of the [organization] to promote the killing of elephants for trade in ivory,” the report says. “Elephant populations will inevitably produce ivory through natural mortality” as well as through culling for ecological reasons or because they pose a threat.

Though shooting elephants for ivory has been banned for decades, record hauls of ivory -– more than 53,000 pounds -- were seized last year. Poaching is at the highest level since it was first tracked,  according to a separate report to the international convention.

Much of the ivory is believed to end up in China, where it appears to be funneled into the country's legal trade in ivory. China is experiencing a booming demand from newly affluent citizens. Existing regulations are spottily enforced.

The surge in elephant poaching shows something needs to change, according to the report on ivory sales. “It is clear that current measures are not containing the present upsurge in the illegal trade in ivory,” it says.

Though the report says the proposed sale of ivory is merely a starting point for discussions, it has caused a firestorm. Environmentalists argue ivory sales would simply open the door to more illegal poaching. In the past, legal sales of stockpiled ivory have done nothing to satisfy the demand or stabilize ivory prices, the Environmental Investigation Agency in London said.

South Korea said to be scrapping whaling plan after outcry

After an international outcry, South Korea is dropping a hotly debated plan to hunt whales for research, a senior government official told Yonhap News and the Associated Press on Tuesday.

"Discussions between government ministries have been concluded in a way that effectively scraps the plan to allow whaling in coastal waters," the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "Even if it is for scientific research, we have to take into consideration that this has emerged as a sensitive issue at home and abroad."

Although the South Korean decision hasn't been officially announced, the news was cheered by environmentalists and Australian government officials, who were outraged earlier this month when South Korea said it would use a loophole in global whaling rules to hunt minke whales off its shores.

South Korea had argued at the International Whaling Commission that after the country faithfully obeyed the whaling ban, minke whales had flourished, thinning fish stocks. Hunting the whales would address the complaints of local fishermen and help scientists "analyze and accumulate biological and ecological data," South Korean delegation leader Joon-Suk Kang said at this month's meeting in Panama.

Although hunting whales for research is allowed under global rules, critics argue that the practice is simply a cover for commercial whaling, because the carcasses can be later used for human consumption. Japan has long used the same loophole to continue whaling, to the outrage of environmental groups that say the kills are unnecessary because scientific studies can be done without hunting whales.

There were already hints that South Korea was reconsidering its controversial plan: Last week, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said a South Korean official had assured him at a summit in Cambodia that research whaling would not move forward, drawing applause from Australian officials and activists.

"Clearly the Korean foreign minister saw this as an issue simply not worth the hassle," International Fund for Animal Welfare campaigner Matt Collins wrote Friday after the Australian news broke. "Let us hope that last week’s dipping of the toe in the water isn’t heralding a process whereby Korea continuously floats the idea in the hope that when it actually transpires the world will just accept it."

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-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: South Korean animal rights activists hold dolphin- and whale-shaped balloons during a rally in Seoul on Tuesday to oppose the government's recent plan to resume whaling. Credit: Lee Jin-man / Associated Press

Activists demand investigation as sea turtles crushed in Trinidad

Infuriated environmentalists are demanding an investigation into how work crews in Trinidad ended up crushing turtle hatchlings and eggs while trying to reroute a river to protect turtle nests and a nearby hotel.

The Grande Riviere Beach is known as one of the most important nesting spots for the leatherback, the largest turtle in the world, woefully endangered by egg harvesters, pollution and accidental catches at sea. Tourists flock to the small town on the northern coast of Trinidad to see the turtles come ashore.

Turtle protection groups say they had long pushed for local officials to divert the nearby river to avoid washing away precious nesting grounds, but that the job was done so late and so sloppily that bulldozers ended up destroying hatchlings they were supposed to protect.

Conservationists told the Trinidad Express newspaper and the Associated Press that thousands of turtles had been killed by the botched job.

Those running the bulldozers “are not to blame, they are not trained to deal with turtles,” the Papa Bois Conservation group wrote on Facebook. Instead, the environmentalists slammed “those ‘higher up,’ not one of whom was on site to make sure the works were done with as little damage as possible.”

Trinidad environmental management officials countered that only a few hundred hatchlings were lost and argued that diverting the Grande Riviere River would still “have some positive impact” on the leatherback turtles by preventing more shore erosion.

In a statement, the Environmental Management Authority of Trinidad and Tobago complained that the situation had been sensationalized in the media.

But its chief executive, Joth Singh, later told the Express that "things were not done in the best way.” Bulldozer operators did not follow instructions during the weekend work, Singh told the newspaper.

One environmental activist painted a disturbing picture of vultures and stray dogs rushing onto the beach to eat the unearthed and injured hatchlings. “They had a very good meal. I was near tears,” Sherwin Reyz, a member of the Grande Riviere Environmental Organization, told the Associated Press.

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Photo: A bulldozer operates next to destroyed leatherback turtle eggs and hatchlings on the banks of the Grande Riviere Beach in Trinidad. Credit: Associated Press / Papa Bois Conservation / Marc de Verteuil

Chinese police, protesters clash over proposed copper alloy plant

BEIJING -- Authorities in western China ordered organizers of a violent protest against a planned copper alloy plant to surrender or face severe punishment a day after thousands of residents clashed with police in the latest example of Chinese environmental activism.

The Shifang government in Sichuan province warned on its micro-blog Tuesday that anyone who had “enticed, planned and organized the illegal gathering and protest or participated in the vandalism ... would be severely published.”

Protesters began gathering outside a local government building Sunday, a day after a signing ceremony took place to build the $1.6-billion metal factory, according to news reports.

The demonstrations remained peaceful until Monday when police fired tear gas and stun grenades into the crowd, estimated by some to be in the tens of thousands, including children and the elderly.
Protesters responded by lobbing bricks, potted plants and water bottles at the government building.

Authorities said 13 protesters were injured in the melee, though micro-bloggers and Boxun, an overseas Chinese news site, reported there may have been fatalities.

Calls seeking comment from Sichuan Hongda, the plant owner, went unanswered Tuesday.