In response to the call of the great elephant defender, PIERRE PFEFFER, join us to say :

No to the culling of the elephants of the Kruger National Park !

By Pierre Pfeffer

Last February 25th, the South African Government announced its intention to start again the culling of the elephants in the Kruger National Park, usually presented as a model for the preservation and management of wildlife!

The pretext given for this culling – consisting in surrounding a family group of elephants and in slaughtering them, only sparing the babies so they can be captured and sold - is the necessity of limiting their population inside the enclosed park, in order to prevent the damages that could be done to the vegetation. On fact the Kruger Park covers more than 2 millions hectares and could welcome at least 15 000 elephants without problem. For the moment, according to unbiased experts, they would be less than 13 000 and no damage have been noted on the natural environment, (except around the artificial watering places which had been dug to attract the animals near the tourist lodges).

The only environmentalist and honest solution would be to put down the park bordering on Mozambique, so that a part of the elephants could go back to their territory of origin. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were actually no more elephants in this National Park, as there were no more in South Africa. They had been completely destroyed by the white colonists, except for about a dozen individuals remaining in the Knysna forest in the South.

In 1964, the authorities had this fence built as 6000 elephants had escaped to the Knysna Park during the Civil War in Mozambique. Consequently, they had permanently been trapped between fences! This conflict ended 50 years ago, so the fence is useless and negotiations between both countries intended to put it down. It would mean that 1.7 millions hectares could be added to the vital space of the wildlife, in particular for the elephants, considering the fact that before the Civil War, this border zone of the Mozambique was also classified as Natural Park! Unfortunately, after a very short and limited attempt of opening of this shameful fence, the South African authorities quickly ended the experience.

The truth is that South African authorities want to keep “their” elephants at all costs and exploit them as they used to do when they culled more than 16 000 of them, between 1966 and 1994, only for meanly venal purpose, selling the fruit of this slaughters – every items, bags made of elephant's leather, bracelets made of tail hair, caned or dried meat – in the National Park shops, while the baby elephants were sold to animal dealers and 66 % of the fresh meat contributed to the incomes of the guards and employees of the park!

This trade insured an annual income of about 3.1 million Rands (6.2 millions francs in 1992). Whereas the entrance, accommodation, and restaurant fees paid by the 650 000 visitors at the time, brought in at least 36 millions !

At the present time, when the number of visitors reaches one million a year, this morbid trade has even less reason grounds for existence. But the South Africans want to maintain it at any price. Because, besides this extra profits, it gives them a good justification to the maintenance of their elephants' population in the CITES appendix II. That means that they can sell it internationally, and not only their culling products, but above all much more important tonnages of ivory which has been poached in neighboring countries, such as Congo, Zambia and Angola, and is legalized when crossing the borders. That is why, before the unfortunately temporary ban on ivory trade, for the previous 3 years, South Africa has exported 36 336 tusks more than those used for the local handcrafts! And the CITES didn't ask any question about their origin!

Fortunately, from everywhere and especially in South Africa, voices can be heard against the return of these intolerable cullings in the Kruger National Park, and asking the removal of the fence preventing the elephants from going toward Mozambique.

The issue is the future of elephants, not only in the Kruger National Park, but above all, in all the other African countries, as they are threatened again by the re-opening of the international ivory trade.

Dr Pierre Pfeffer

JNE, doctor in zoology, research director emeritus at the National Center for Scientifical Research attached to the National Museum of Natural History, Honorary President of WWF-France

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International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ) annual conference 2006 in Stockholm , Sweden

Come visit Stockholm in August!
The IFEJ congress 2006 ”Urban life in a globalizing world” will happen in an especially hot week in Sweden .

The national election is approaching and environmental issues will for sure be in focus. Especially in Stockholm , since there is a referendum about the local traffic situation.

Furthermore the congress is ending when the World Water Week starts, where many international environmental issues are at the agenda.

You will also be invited to an early birthday party, since Sweden is preparing the 300 anniversary 2007of the very well known Swede, Carl Linneaus.

Look into our attached program to see how you will meet Linneaus. There you can also find out about all the other lectures, study visits and excursion you will get if you join us in Sweden a summer week between August 16 and August 21.

The Swedish Association for Environmental Journalists :
www.ifejstockholm2006.com

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Ship in troubled waters in India

New Delhi . On the controversy over the Clemenceau, the French Ambassador to Delhi, Dominique Girard, says: "We have very good contacts with the Indian government on that and we have been very keen to satisfy all the desires and requirements of the Supreme Court and the committee (appointed by the apex court to look into the allegations that the ship carried environment-harming contents)"

The French warship Clemenceau was decommissioned at Toulon in France way back in 1977, and lay there all these years as no country wanted it, even as scrap. With good reason - they decided it is a toxic ship with a huge amount of asbestos. The 27,000 tonnes aircraft carrier, however, made news on New Year's Day as it set sail heading to the shores of Alang, the largest ship-breaking yard in the world, in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. Just days before 2006 was rung in, a French court okayed the sending of the warship insulated with asbestos to India , after rejecting petitions by campaigners trying to block its transfer. Then, environmental activists of Greenpeace and other organizations managed to break the tight security and board the ship to shout slogans against it being sent to India , where impoverished workers would break down the toxic ship, with its 500+ tonnes of asbestos.

It would spread death and disease, the activists warned, quite apart from violating the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, which clearly prohibits one country transporting its toxic waste to another. The asbestos within could cause cancer and other health complications, warn activists, noting that this is precisely why other countries had refused to let the Clemenceau sail to their shores. Earlier attempts to send the ship to Turkey and Greece did not work as both countries refused the toxic ship for obvious reasons. (Click on: http://www.greenpeace.org/alang to read the Greenpeace report on shipbreaking: End of Life Ships - the Human Costs of Breaking Ships)

Nearly 300 ships are broken at Alang every year.

Ravi Aggarwal, director of New Delhi-based Toxics Link and member of the Basel Action Network says that the sending of the ship to India is a clear violation of international law. "The French are now trying to say that it is not a ship but material of war and so cannot be covered under the Basel convention. At the moment it is being towed by another ship to India and it is clearly a case of toxic waste being shipped. It is completely illegal and allowing it should not set a precedent." His fears are well founded, with over 2000 oil tankers that are going to come up for breaking in the next four years. These oil tankers are very old ships and carry a lot of asbestos material within. Aggarwal also points to special laws like the Management and Handling Rules 1989 (Amended in 2003) which says that asbestos is a hazardous waste and needs special provisions to handle it. Alang does not have the capacity to handle asbestos, he said.

Since the furore broke, a Monitoring Committee of the Supreme Court on Hazardous Wastes Management has declared that the Clemenceau should not enter India . Committee Chairman G. Thyagarajan said it was not desirable for the ship to enter Indian waters. And if it were allowed, it would have to furnish a bank guarantee of Rs. 80 crore - twice the value of the ship. Said Thyagarajan: "Why should India spend Rs. 40 crore in foreign exchange to buy trouble? Why should we sacrifice our precious soil to bury some other country's junk?"

The French government had claimed that the ship contained only a few tonnes of asbestos as it has been decontaminated. Low levels of contamination may be acceptable to the monitoring committee, whose members are to meet again to review the decision before the ship arrives. But Eric Baudon and Jean-Claude Giannino, representatives of Technopure, the French company contracted to decontaminate the ship, told the Committee that the ship had only been partially decontaminated and it still contained at least 500 tonnes of asbestos.

"Why should there be any further review when those who decontaminated the ship say that there are 500 tonnes left?", asks an indignant Ramapathy Kumar of Greenpeace , India . "The question is not of quantity of the toxic waste, the issue here is that India cannot permit the ship as it is a signatory to the Basel Convention which forbids one country from sending its toxic waste to another country," he said. In France , the Committee's decision has attracted huge media attention as the Clemenceau episode is being increasingly seen as an eloquent reminder on how developed nations treat poorer countries in Asia. India does not have strict rules at Alang. For over two decades now, the yard has been in the vortex of controversy, as it became an environmental bomb of sorts. Labour rules are flouted and India has done little to protect workers - who are mostly migrants from poverty struck districts in Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal . Alang is pockmarked with poor working conditions and a poor quality of life; the employment it has provided to thousands of labourers has been at a very heavy cost. Greenpeace says that workers die every month there because of its pathetic working conditions. Workers do not even have the mandatory protective gear while working in one of the dirtiest industries in the world. The laxity has attracted business; Greenpeace says that almost half of the world's ships that need to be scrapped now end up in India , and shipbreakers are laughing all the way to the bank, even as workers bear the brunt of regulatory failure.

It is possible to decontaminate large ships of their asbestos and other toxic materials by almost ninety percent, but most ship owners do not do this, as it is very cost intensive. It is easier for them to send it off to poor countries like Bangladesh and India where the laws are weak and whatever few regulations exist are not enforced. The French government claims it has removed around 115 tonnes of asbestos from the ship, but Greenpeace activists say that it is lying. Says Ramapathy: " India must reject the ship, sending a signal to the world that it is not a dumping ground. If we allow this ship, there are another 120 warships of the United States that will now come for shipbreaking. All these ships were rejected by India in 1997. Greenpeace is not against the shipbreaking industry. All that we want is clean shipbreaking that will not endanger health."

There is good reason to worry. Alang's 40,000+ workers work in subhuman conditions, are not securely clad with overalls and helmets and work with their bare hands as they cut into the steel to earn a meagre wage. More than half a dozen workers die every month at the yard due to accidents or explosions. Workers use cutters and blowtorches to cut the steel and pipes containing gas or oil. Often, the shipowner does not disclose the dangerous content in the ship, and this results in explosions. As scores of rusting ships are beached at Alang one beside the other, accidents are common. Employers, who are typically hard-nosed businessmen, only look at the money that comes in. For Alang, the Clemenceau is a great catch as it is estimated to yield nearly 22,000 tonnes of steel.

Most of the ships that come to Alang are from United States , Yugoslavia , Poland , Russia , China and Japan . Nearly 300 ships are broken at Alang every year. Shipbreakers fear that the numbers will now fall at Alang as there is stiff competition from Bangladesh and China , which are also violating laws to woo business.

Gujarat , say activists, is particularly lax at protecting workers in hazardous industries, and would rather have the ship. Even chemicals that are banned elsewhere in the world are in production here. Ramapathy Kumar says, "The Gujarat Pollution Board is lying when it says that it is in a position to handle the waste as it is such a huge ship that it cannot be beached and will stay away atleast 3000 feet away. If it is to be decontaminated in India , it has to be done on a platform as it would otherwise pollute the water. Even one mg of asbestos can damage the lungs."

While so much of dust has been kicked up on the issue of the toxic ship that contains 500 tonnes of asbestos, the fact that thousands of tonnes of asbestos is wrecking havoc in the Indian countryside, is being lost. Asbestos is widely used in India for roofing, water pipes and construction. As there is heavy punitive litigation in the developed world against asbestos manufacturers and users, its usage has today collapsed to two per cent of what it was two decades ago. But in India , consumption of asbestos is rising by an alarming 12 per cent. There is no reliable data on asbestos-related diseases among Indian workers. As many as 36 countries in the world have banned asbestos. The European Union banned it in 2005. Interestingly, France banned all forms of asbestos fibres and products in 1977*. Says Maneka Gandhi, former Union Environment Minister and MP: "Our entire policy on asbestos needs to be changed. We must stop being the junkyard of the world."

Clearly, an opportunity to stop being the junkyard of the world is at hand, but will India take it? Or will business as in the past prevail, putting workers' health and national interests aside?

*ndlr : l'importation, l'exportation et la production d'amiante n'a
en fait été interdite en France qu'en 1997.

Ramesh Menon in Indiatogether.org - editors@indiatogether.org

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New Orleans vs. Mumbai, a comparison...

This appeared in the Times Of India on Tuesday, September 06, 2005

18 Inches of rain in New Orleans due to hurricane Katrina...
In Mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1 inches of rain

Population of New Orleans... 484,674
Population of Mumbai.... 12,622,500

Deaths in New Orleans within 48 hours of Katrina... 100
Deaths in Mumbai within 48 hours of rain .... 37

Number of people to be evacuated in New Orleans. entire city. wohh
Number of people evacuated in Mumbai... 10,000

Cases of shooting and Violence in New Orleans... Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in Mumbai. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach New Orleans... 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach Mumbai... 12hours

Status 48hours later: New Orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricity
Status 48hours later. Mumbai is back on its feet and is business is as usual

USA... world's most developed nation
India... third world country.

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International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ)
annual congress in New Delhi, November 21-24, 2005

The International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), which is 13 years old, is holding its annual congress in New Delhi, November 21-24, 2005 to coincide with the Vatavaran (Environment) annual film festival which is organised by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) there.

This year the film festival is for all Asia (not south Asia alone), though the competing films will be exclusively Indian. The theme is "Forests for Life" and the films will deal with Environment in general and Wildlife in particular. The IFEJ Congress theme will be "Human-Wildlife Conflicts & Sustainable Development". This is against the backdrop of vanishing tigers in India.

See the CMS www.cmsindia.org/vatavaran2003. The venue is the India Habitat Centre, which is a very well-appointed convention centre which also has very limited accommodation.

The IFEJ was formed in Dresden in 1993 and has several associations of environmental journalists from around the world as its members, along with individual journalists. It has since held its annual congress in Paris (twice), Boston, Budapest, Cebu (Philippines), Sri Lanka, Bogota, Cairo, Germany and St Petersburg.

Environmental journalists from other states in India may attend the Congress & festival, although none of the organisers have as yet funding for travel or accommodation for any participants.

The programme is as follows:

Nov 20 Sunday:
Arrive in Delhi. President of India (possibly) will inaugurate film festival on Sun evening or Monday evening.

Nov 21 Monday:
Morning: IFEJ sessions begin:

10 am: Keynote address by John Vidal, Environment Correspondent, The Guardian, London

12 pm: Human-Wildlife Conflicts, with reference to India's vanishing tigers: Sunita Narain, Editor of Down To Earth magazine , Director, Centre for Science & Environment, Delhi who is also head of Government of India's Task Force on the Tiger

Afternoon:
2.30 pm: Do Tigers or People Prevail? Panel discussion between Valmik Thapar, Director of "Land of the Tiger" TV series (BBC and elsewhere), Bittu Sehgal, Editor of Sanctuary Magazine, Pradip Prabhu, Tribal Rights Activist and others

4.30 pm: Are environmental journalists a vanishing species? Panel discussion between John Vidal, Jim Detjen & others, chaired by Darryl D'Monte Evening: film festival opens. IFEJ Administrative Council meeting (closed session)

Nov 22 Tuesday:
10 am: Does TV do a better job on reporting on the environment? Panel discussion between Damandeep Singh, National Geographic Delhi editor, New Delhi Television representative and others. (If facilities permit, the Indian government's Environment Secretary or another official can be interviewed on film by a senior TV journalist and the tape reviewed in the next session.)

12 pm: What Wildlife Film-makers Face: Panel discussion between Haroldo Castro, Communications Director of Conservation International, Washington, Mike Pandey, New Delhi, Valmik Thapar, and others.

2.30pm: Hands-on training for environmental journalists: (any suggestions?)

4.30 pm: E-journalism: workshop by Jim Detjen, Michigan University.

Evening: film festival continues . IFEJ open session

Nov 23 Wednesday:
Morning interaction/discussion with Asian and Indian film-makers Evening: film festival continues

Nov 24 Thursday:
Morning interaction/discussion with Asian and Indian film-makers Evening: film festival concludes

Late night: Post-congress tour; participants (around 20, half from abroad) leave for Ranthambhore National Park (tiger sanctuary), by overnight train (to Sawai Madhopur station, Rajasthan) from Delhi. Highly controversial because tigers are missing: an international scandal.

Nov 25 Friday:
Check into Ranthambhorebagh Resort around 6 am. Tour sanctuary early morning & evening

Nov 26 Saturday:
tour sanctuary early morning and visit heritage palace

Nov 27 Sunday:
tour sanctuary early morning and return to Delhi to catch flights by evening.

For information, contact:

Darryl D'Monte
Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI)
Administrative Council Member, International Federation of Environmental
Journalists (IFEJ)
Mumbai, India
: 91 22 2642 7088 & 2645 9286 Fax c/o 91 22 2645 8870 -

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France-Guiana-gold-environment,feature-sched
By Marie-Pierre Ferey from AFP (Agence France Presse)

REGINA, Oct 26, 2004 (AFP) - In the past two years, police have launched some 60 "Anaconda operations" -- named after the giant boa constrictors that inhabit this tropical French overseas department -- but they have not succeeded in squeezing the life out of the illegal gold trade that threatens the environment here. Instead, an estimated 12,000 workers, for the most part illegal workers from across the border in Brazil, roam the rivers in search of the precious metal, poisoning the rivers with the quicksilver they use to extract the gold.
Their method could not be more simple, or more brutal. From barges moored in the water, they pulverize the river banks with high-pressure hoses, pump out the resulting slurry and amalgamate the tiny specks of gold with quicksilver, or mercury. Once the gold is extracted from the mercury, the highly toxic metal is dumped directly into the river along with the slurry.
"It is an ecological disaster," said Didier Kurtz, a gendarmerie official, who described the deforestation and environmental devastation left in the wake of the gold-washers. This includes poisoning of the fish stocks, and consequently of the indigenous Indian population that depends on the fish as a dietary staple. The gold trade has brought with it some other curses of development, including malaria, AIDS and various kinds of illegal trafficking. Headless bodies turn up frequently in the forest. With an estimated 174,000 inhabitants, this department has the highest murder rate in France, with 51 killings in the first nine months of this year alone, most of them related to settlings of account between rival gangs.

Even though the police have kept up steady pressure on the illegal trade, entire villages -- complete with casinos, brothels and dentists -- have sprung up in the forest to serve the growing community of panhandlers. "It's the Wild West," said gendarme captain Daniel Didnee, who commands a detachment of gendarmes checking traffic on the river in an attempt to halt supplies needed by the gold-extracting business, including large supplies of mercury. With the primitive methods in use, it can take 1.3 kilos (2.9 pounds) of quicksilver to process every kilo of gold, and it is estimated that at least 10 tonnes of mercury are released into the environment every year. The impoverished Brasilian panhandlers, many living in conditions of virtual slavery, are the first victims of mercury vapor, which causes serious neurological defects. And according to a study carried out as long ago as 1997, more than half the Indians living along the river have excessive amounts of mercury in their organisms. The use of quicksilver in gold prospecting adds to the 280 tonnes of mercury that the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) estimates to be locked in the soil, and which is being released into the air as the result of the intense traffic and movement caused by the gold rush. Gold fever returned to French Guiana about 15 years ago, as pandhandlers began revisiting remote deposits along the Approague river that had been abandoned a century ago.

An earlier epoch produced gold exports officially totaling 207 tonnes, and the BRGM estimates that the department still has some 500 tonnes of reserves in minable depositions or in the alluvial soil deposited along the river banks.
Officially only 149 gold prospecting permits are in force, and last year exports totaling 3.2 million tonnes were declared officially. But that was undoubtedly only part if the whole. The customs service estimates that at least six tonnes left the country, and the regional industry directorate says that the gold smuggled out of the department may be two or three times more than the gold declared officially.
The authorities have sought to strangle the prospecting trade by making lightning raids on prospecting operations that are only accessible by pirogues, and by establishing blockades to halt supplies.
The primary task of the force of gendarmes here is to protect the space launching center at Kourou, and it was only two years ago that the police began mounting a serious challenge to the illegal prospectors.
Two specialized Anaconda squadrons with 75-men each were formed. But in total, the authorities have only 700 gendarmes and one helicopter to patrol 730 kilometers (450 miles) of frontier with Brazil and 520 kilometers (320 miles) with Surinam. In total, 95 percent of a territory the size of Portugal is covered by almost impenetrable forest.
They face a determined opponent equipped with helicopters, earth-moving equipment and communications radios. Some 250 police investigations are under way, in an attempt to discover the movers and shakers behind the prospecting activity.

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The XIth Congress of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ) was held in St. Petersburg October 6 through 10. Participants included 70 journalists from France, India, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the USA, Canada and Russia. Over the five days, they were addressing issues associated with environmental control, the Kyoto Protocol, nuclear power engineering etc.

The Congress also discussed a range of local issues, including the construction of the flood defense dam in St. Petersburg, the extension of operation periods of reactors at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, oil spill response in the Gulf of Finland etc. Visits to these projects provided the journalists with opportunities to shape their views of the current environmental situation in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast. In addition, a number of roundtables were held to discuss issues of access to environmental information in various countries, and the enhancement of professional levels in environmental journalism.

The participants conveyed their thanks to the Congress's preparatory committee, Media Union, the Baltiysky Bank who was acting as the general sponsor, and Vodokanal and the Interparliamentary Assembly of CIS States that rendered support to this important event.

According to the final resolution, the ?IIth Congress of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists next year will be arranged in Mumbai, India. It will address issues of conflict between man and wildlife.

XIth Congress of IFEJ, preparatory committee (Northwest office of Media Union)
Contact telephones : +7 (812) 112-09-49, 340-21-38

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From the Young reporters for the environment
YRE International
YRE Newsletter
JUNE 2003
www.youngreporters.org

The end of the year is also the time of the YRE AWARDS. This year, 12 countries participated to the competition in the Articles or Photo category.
The super award for articles is won by Greece and the article "Water, are we conscious of its value"! In the photo category, a Moroccan school won the 1 st prize. Discover all results below.

Comments of the jury
The jury was really surprised by the quality of the articles. It makes no doubt that the YRE network is always improving in terms of production. The jury really appreciated articles showing that an international cooperation took place between two schools. The jury appreciated too any effort to illustrate the articles with graphs or photos. last but not least, the jury observed that sometimes very long articles have been submitted (up to 12 pages). Its recommendation is that next year, articles shall be shorter.

ARTICLES

Agriculture
Gene modified organism, Denmark
An article about the advantages and disadvantages of GM food. An investigation about one of the most controversial environmental issue today.
by Grinsted Gymnasium

Cities
Cement versus Green, Greece
An investigation about the policy of Katerini, a Greek city, to promote green spaces. The young reporters interviewed about 100 citizens to analyse the ecologic and social role of green spaces.
by 5 th Gymnasium of Katerini

Coastline
The golden Horn clean once again, Turkey
The golden horn, this estuary connected to the Marmara sea, has been polluted for many years. Large investments have been done to restore the quality of the water. Economic, ecologic and health issue were at stake !
by Robert College

Energy
Geothermic Energy in Tuscany,
Italy Depletion of fossils fuels, and pollution resulting from gaseous emissions raises the question of alternative energy. In Tuscany, geothermic energy is a clean resource used with applications in many fields : health, leisure, habitat, agriculture, industry…
by Liceo Linguistico di Montalcino

Waste
Casablanca household Solid Waste, Morocco
Casablanca is the second city of Morocco, but the waste management reveals many failures : the collection system is not efficient, and whenever collected, wastes go to a large uncontrolled dumping ground outside the city. The YRE show that a better management would turn a health and social problem into an economic benefit. by Jaafar Fassi Fihri High School Water Water : are we conscious of its value, Greece The Moudania region suffers from water shortage. But can we really blame the decrease of rainfall? Many sectors (agriculture, tourism, etc.) affect the quantity and the quality of the resource. An investigation carried out in cooperation with a Spanish school (IES Poeta Garcia Gutierrez).
by Lyceum of Moudania

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Moreover, the jury decided to give a special jury award to Green Travel Planning (UK) and an award for the originality to Obituary for the river Suir (Ireland)

PHOTOS

1 st prize :
Garden on the Road, Morocco The garden which blocks the passage of an active pupil at the school, in the Kouilma district in Tétouan Photo by : Tanger- Tétouan

2 nd prize :
the Cow and the Dustbin, Morocco
If the cow had reversed the dustbin to nourish itself, this would may appear normal, though the presence of cows in the arteries of a city is not normal. But if a Man reversed the dustbin so that the cow can nourish itself from the waste poured on the ground, then which would be our judgement ? We need a sense of responsibility towards our environment… Photo by Gharb chrarda - Beni Hssen School

3 rd prize :
This is not a war zone, Cyprus Smoking debris, waste and dust laying about, this is not a picture of a war zone but of the so called landfill just outside the municipal area of Paphos. Actually it is more a dumping place than a proper area of garbage disposal. During our visit we spotted several points where fires broke out due to the excessive heat conditions. Besides the risk of fire there is risk of infection and also to the contamination of the aquifer. The authorities will move the landfill to a different location and we hope that this beautiful landscape will regain its past natural looks. by A Lyceum of Paphos

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WWF, the conservation organization, has a vacancy in the Communications Department for a :

The main responsibilities of this position are to manage the Press Office at WWF International and ensure the timely output of international press materials through the planning, coordination and direct implementation of media strategies and activities which raise support and awareness for WWF policy positions and conservation goals among key target audiences. The Head of the Press Office will manage the staff of the Press Office and be responsible for their skills development and timely evaluation.

The main qualifications are :

- a university degree in journalism, communications or a related field;
- at least eight years professional experience, a majority of which must have been spent in journalism;
- experience in an environmental organization, commitment to conservation and excellent understanding of environmental issues;
- the ability to perform under heavy deadline pressure and, when necessary, to work long and irregular hours and travel extensively;
- excellent interpersonal and management skills;
- an open participatory management style that encourages teamwork, creativity, cooperation and the delegation of responsibility;
- fluent English, with other languages an asset.

Interested candidates should send a covering letter with their CV to Philippa Sekkiou, Human Resources Department at WWF International, 1196 Gland, Switzerland. Email: recruitments@wwfint.org.
Closing date for applications is Friday 4 April 2003.

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Note on the new draft
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL REGULATIONS
for Detergents

Proposed amendments

1) Introduction :

All our comments are based on observations carried out by many scientists since the adoption of the legislation in the mid 1970s. We recognize that protests against pollution due to detergent foam have led to legislation that has merely tended to favour the development of more readily biodegradable or less obviously persistent detergents. However, while there is no longer any appreciable build up of foam in the environment, studies carried out over the past 20 years indicate that there are still three problems, particularly concerning anionic detergents, which are the most widely sold.

One is due to the fact that the conditions used for the laboratory biodegradability tests differ greatly from those found in nature, which explains why more or less intact aromatic residues accumulate in sediment once the alkyl chain has been partially degraded. (*)

The second has to do with the ecotoxicity of metabolites produced by incomplete breakdown of the detergent molecules.

And the third concerns the effect of adjuvant on the environment, about which our knowledge is still fragmentary.

We thus need to know more about the effects of non-ionic and cationic detergents, especially as cationic detergents are clearly most toxic to the environment.

This revision of the regulations has therefore prompted us to undertake a thorough review of the legislation in the light of studies carried out since petrochemical based detergents came onto the market.

(*) The same applies to polyoxyethylene alkylphenols.

Clearly, this is not the goal of those writing the draft Regulations, who simply take the basic methods of the present legislation and add a few extra ideas. Some, such as those about final biodegradation, are interesting, but their application leaves a lot to be desired.

Were the draft revised Regulations to be adopted as they stand, it will simply prolong the status quo. It will ignore important documentation that has been available for some years on the harmful effects of these detergents on their immediate environment, like the water systems, or terrestrial environments, with its implications for health, due to their being carried in spray. To this must be added the economic damage due to disruption of coastal plants and infrastructures, not to mention the fact that most detergents generally pass straight through water treatment plants, while those that are trapped hamper the normal operation of these plants.

What we would really like to see is legislation that is designed to get right to the root of the problem, and encourages the use of rapidly biodegradable detergents whose breakdown products pose no toxic threat to the environment. Above all, based on existing documentation, the regulations should restrict or even prohibit substances that have sever negative effects.

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