The Environment Show #393, 1997 July 12

This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty
and mystery of life in all its forms. The Environment Show's and National Production
made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation,
the JM Kaplan Fund and Hemings Motor News, the Bible of the Collector Car Hobby, 1-800-CAR-HRE.
Your host is Peter Burley.
Coming up on this week's Environment Show, Outboard Engines on Pleasure Boats and Jetskies
discharge over a billion gallons of hydrocarbons like oil and gas into American waters each
year. New regulations take effect this month, but environmentalists say they're not tough
enough. We talk green about animal damage control.
Is it a rogue federal agency which senselessly killed wild animals or is it needed to protect
livestock?
And the Earth calendar we bail hay, we're prickled by the dust and beat the thunderstorms.
These stories and more coming up on this week's Environment Show.
A new era has begun for the nation's pleasure-boating industry. New EPA regulations went into effect
this month which will make upboard engines significantly cleaner, but environmentalists
are outraged, saying the new regulations are woefully inadequate. They claim marine engines,
pollute the air and dump hundreds of millions of gallons of oil and gas into American waterways
each year. The Environment Show's Thomas Lalley has this report.
It probably comes as no surprise to boaters that their two-stroke outboard engines have
come under fire. It's impossible not to notice the copious amounts of smoke and oil they
send into the water every time they're cranked up.
Two-stroke engines, pollute 250 times as much, that's 250 times as much as a car engine.
Andrew Maley is the author of the book, Polluting for Pleasure. He's also with the Environmental
Group Clearwater. Here on the shores of the Hudson River in New York, power boats and
jet skis cruise by on a mild summers afternoon. Even with the annoying buzz of the jet skis,
the scene is calm and people look happy. But nearly all these crafts are powered by so
called two-stroke engines. Maley calls them the number one source of toxic water pollution
in the country.
The 8 million outboard motors in America are putting in a billion pounds, one billion
with a B pounds of hydrocarbons into our American waterways every year. That's equivalent
to like 15 Exxon Valdez oil spills every single year in terms of volume.
Even the makers of these engines admit that two-stroke engines are polluting. They've
watched as two-strokes have been eliminated or cut back altogether, most notably for motorcycles
and garden equipment. Tony Esposito is with Mercury Marine. They along with outboard marine
corporation control most of the two-stroke marine engine industry.
Well, there's no doubt that a traditional two-stroke engine is a dirty engine. Certainly,
it produces more emissions than a four-stroke and it produces more emissions than direct
injection two-stroke.
In an effort to cut back on this pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
sat down with engine manufacturers and worked out a deal to make two-strokes cleaner.
The result was the direct injected two-stroke and even four-stroke engines, the same machines
your car runs on. But Andrew Maley says this isn't enough.
The EPA referred to four-stroke technology as unproven and revolutionary. And in doing
so, they sort of arbitrarily and capriciously threw out the single strongest hook for this
rule, which was that it had to be, you know, the best and most reasonable available technology.
I mean, the Clean Air Act is a technology forcing rule. What the EPA produced for the
minute marine engine manufacturers is nothing more than a market protection device, mass
grading as an environmental protection device.
Maley wants a total ban on two-strokes in all American waterways. But Esposito from Mercury
Marine says that's unrealistic. He says Mercury estimates they'll spend about $500 million
to convert conventional two-stroke engines to cleaner, direct injected two-strokes.
Direct injected two-stroke technology is 80 to 85 percent cleaner than traditional two-stroke
technology, which is an incredibly significant cleanup, if you will. We recognize the need
to provide cleaner product. We're responding through new technologies as well as making
a shift to four-stroke technology.
Unlike Mercury Marine and OMC, Honda has been making four-stroke engines since the 70s. Four
strokes tend to be a bit heavier and have less power than two-strokes, but they are far
cleaner and much more efficient. Bob Young is with Honda Marine based in Duluth, Georgia.
He says Honda decided that two-strokes were outdated and decided to invest solely in
four-strokes.
That's the biggest problem with a two-stroke. Every gallon of 50 gallons of gasoline,
you throw a gallon of oil into the water. If I were to stand on your dock and dump a
gallon of water into the water, I think it would be very annoyed with me. In fact, I would
probably be subject to a fine of up to $10,000 by the United States Coast Guard. It's against
federal law to throw oil overboard, but of course, you can run it through your engine.
It's perfectly okay.
The polluting nature of two-strokes has led to legal action in California. The Blue
Water Network of the Earth Island Institute has sued the makers of two-stroke outboard marine
motors under the state's Proposition 65. This is a citizen's approved initiative that prohibits
anyone from discharging toxic chemicals into potential or actual drinking water. Russell
Long from the Blue Water Network explains how the engine manufacturers are liable.
What these companies are essentially doing when they sell their two-stroke motors is they're
allowing people to go and use them in drinking water bodies where they pollute. The suit
challenges them. It says, you guys should not be selling this product at all because even
though you're not actually responsible for the discharge of oil and gas from them directly,
it's the consumer who buys it, who really is, you're responsible because you've sold these
motors to people who you know are going to go and use it in those places.
But the manufacturers vehemently deny that water is being impacted at all by two-strokes.
In fact, the new EPA regulations work through the Clean Air Act and not the Clean Water Act.
That's because it's easier to measure the air pollution.
When the fuel escapes into the water, it lays on the surface and within four seconds the
majority of that is evaporated into the air. And that's where you get your hydrocarbon
emissions largely. And the amount of fuel that is retained in the water is dissipated
by the volume of water involved. And so it really boils down to an issue of air quality
and not water quality.
Environmentalists scoff at this, saying there is research strongly suggesting a wide range
of damage to aquatic ecosystems from oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons discharged from two-stroke
outboard motors. If you're worried about the environmental effects of your outboard motor,
first check to see what kind it is. If it's a two-stroke, you're out of luck. But cleaner
two-strokes and still cleaner four-strokes are on the market starting this month.
For the Environment Show, I'm Thomas Lalley.
We're talking green and I'm your host, Peter Burley. Today we're talking about government-sponsored
wildlife predator control operating within the U.S. government and within the Department
of Agriculture as a program known as Animal Damage Control or ADC. Its mission is to protect
agricultural, industrial, and natural resources and to promote public health and safety. And
one part of the ADC program involves a predator control to protect livestock. And for years,
this is included killing of coyotes and wolves. Is this a good idea? We want to hear from
you. Our number is 1-888-49-green. That's 1-888-49-green. And I have two experts with me
today. Nancy Zerrenberg is a leading member of the Arizona-based wildlife damage review.
It's a nonprofit organization. And it was formed to scrutinize the USDA's Animal Damage
Control Program because they were outraged by the widespread killing of wildlife on public
and private lands by the government. And Nancy Zerrenberg is in Tucson. Also with me is
Peter Oric and he is Executive Director of the American Sheep Industry Association. That
association represents 80,000 sheep producers in the United States, some of which benefit
from the ADC's Predator Control Program. And Peter Oric himself is from a sheep ranch
in South Dakota and previously served as that states director of conservation. And he's
joining us from Washington, DC. Unfortunately, the federal animal damage control program
itself did not respond to our invitation to participate in this discussion and we regret
that. So Peter and Nancy, welcome to the Environment Show. Thank you.
Nancy, let me start with you. How many US taxpayer dollars does the Animal Damage Control
Program spend each year? Well, at this point, it's up to over $38 million of federal tax
dollars. But then again, you have to consider all the state, county, city taxes, as well
as private organizational dollars that go into the program. And that probably brings the
price tag up to near 58 million. And I presume during the course of our session, you will
argue that that money might better be spent elsewhere. But let's wait for that for a moment.
Peter Oric speaking for the American Sheep Industry Association, what is the justification
for the program? Predators are our major factor in livestock production as producers of
wool and lamb. We deal with predators on a daily and a nightly basis. And in fact, even
with the programs in place, we lose over a half a million news in lands every year just
to predators primarily coyotes across the entire United States.
And therefore, in your judgment, this is a sound program to protect your industry.
Like many of the wildlife programs, this particular one is as Nancy mentioned, a cooperative
program of state, county, private, as well as federal responsibilities where many of sheep
producers provide the land and the grass for millions of wildlife every year. We also
have to deal with the damages that they cause to private property. And in our case, it's
to use and lambs that the predators kill.
And Nancy, I gather from your perspective, this is a program which would best be eliminated.
Absolutely. I mean, the losses he's talking about really amount to one of the due to
predation, one of the smallest percentage of losses in the industry. There are such
things to consider as birthing problems, climatic factors, sudden climate change disease,
sheepie toxic plants. And all in all, predation is probably one of the smallest things that
sheep ranchers have to deal with. They're just an easy target.
Well, let's go to the phones now and joining us is Ted Williams, contributing editor of
Autobahn Magazine. Ted, welcome to the environment show.
Hi, Pierre. How are you? Good.
You have written extensively on the ADC program. Do you have a comment or question for our
panel?
I have a comment. I think that the environmental community is so passionate about animal damage
control that they're mostly incapable of looking into it and coming up with a rational plan
to fix what's wrong with it.
Yeah, there's a lot of predator control on public lands, but animal damage control does
a lot more than predator control. There are airports controlling seagulls, which are real
hazard. The public demands control of woodpecker in certain areas that destroy stuckle housing.
They do that. I went out to visit the Denver Wildlife Research Center where they're working
on some of this stuff. I was quite amazed to see some really good science going on for
nonlethal means.
You would not join Nancy's Erin Berg, who would just assume she'll shut down the agency.
Yeah, I think I know I wouldn't. The ADC is an easy target and it's a lot harder to demand
from Congress proper funding so that they can hire decent people and to the kind of work
that we all want, which is not apocalypse. Now, style of coyote control.
Nancy, how do you respond to Ted's point?
I have a few things. The Cain report, which was done in 1971, did a really thorough job
of analyzing the animal damage control program and came up with a number of reforms that
they recommended to Congress. In the end, none of those reforms were acted upon.
The program remains as it was when it started in 1931, officially. It has been our experience.
There are six years of looking at this program that they are not reformable, which is why
we have decided that the only method then is to abolish the program. There's no reason
to have a welfare program subsidy, another subsidy, for livestock growers when they should
be paying to guard their own investment. This is a business investment. There's no reason
the public should be funding this.
One thing I'm unclear about and perhaps either Nancy or Ted could respond, what proportion
of the ADC budget goes into dealing with livestock predators and what proportion deals
with other things that Ted has just mentioned, like birds at airports and so on.
Yeah, I think I've seen figures 55% up to 75% that goes directly to the Western livestock
protection.
Ted, is that match you're understanding?
Yeah, but again, there's a lot of ways to control predators without killing them. Some
of this control, for example, is aimed at preserving endangered species. The ADC has a
pretty innovative approach to control of ravens, which are killing the endangered California
least term. They take quail eggs and inject method carbon to them and that makes the ravens
throw up and after a while they think that they don't like turnings. They do a lot of
this kind of stuff and I don't think that they fail to reform, but we fail to get Congress
to properly fund them and to demand proper control of the population.
Well, Ted, thanks for your call and let's go now and hear from Bob. Bob, I understand
you're involved with the defenders of wildlife.
Yeah, I'm the director of the species conservation division.
And where do you come out on ADC?
Well, we have talked with ADC about major reform, a lot of their programs. Some of what Ted
says we agree with, that there are elements of their program that are worth keeping in
some form. And that's what I mean, that the ADC folks do those. They may be transferred
to other agencies, but they do do some things that are important for endangered species.
But when we look on the whole of their activities, the large majority of them are focused on killing
predators and most of that is focused on killing coyotes. The research center in Denver
is doing some great work, but the problem is that that is not work that seems to be translated
into stewardship practices, practiced by the livestock industry and that's unfortunate.
There seems to be a big disconnect between the Denver Research Center and operations on
the ground.
Okay, well Bob, thanks for your call and I'm going to see if we can go clear out to Santa
Feinam, Mexico. Sam, you're talking green in the environment, shall.
Yes, hello.
Hi there.
This is Sam Hitwood, Forest Guardian, Santa Fe, to Mexico.
And what is your take on animal damage control?
Well, you know, I think we have to look at the broader scale of things. I mean, why are
grazing cows and sheep in the desert?
You know, we have a thousand permitties, over eight million acres here in the Southwest,
other PN average of $1.61 per animal unit, months to graze in this desert landscape.
It's just absolutely insane.
We think that there should be a bioprogram that those subsidies should be redirected
in a voluntary bioprogram go forward that will help get the bad ranchers off the land
to protect the land.
We, it's just this ADC is just one part of a whole system of a few welfare.
So your problem is putting the sheep on the public lands or at least some of them to start
with as I take it.
You know, we have Peter O'Rwick, how do you respond to that?
Coyotes don't know when they cross the line between private property and public lands.
And that's part of wildlife management.
Same as coyotes don't know the private property when they jump into someone's backyard
and take off with their family pet and jump back over the fence.
But I take it that what Sam is saying is that maybe the sheep shouldn't be there to start
with at least on some of these public lands.
They're baked.
Yeah.
The fact remains is you've got operations throughout the country that are all private land
and support wildlife throughout the year.
You've got other operations that are part private and part public and all of the wildlife
enjoy all of those lands during the year.
And the predators exist on the private as well as the public lands.
And when you deal with wildlife damage control, you know, those borders between land ownership
don't really apply to a coyote or a fox.
Okay.
Well, we've heard from New Mexico and let's go clear across the country to Pennsylvania.
Janet.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
You're talking green in the environment, shall?
Yes.
Here in Pennsylvania, we have a problem with coyotes that's ever increasing.
We have a one animal damage control officer in the state of Pennsylvania and he spends
75% of his time on problems that are not livestock-related but more suburban area type problems.
So we would really be suffering here in Pennsylvania if the funding were cut.
I hate to cut you off, but our time is up.
So I want to thank you all.
My guests have been Nancy Zerrenberg, who is a leading member of the Arizona-based wildlife
damage review and Peter Orwick, who is the executive director of the American sheep
industry association.
We've been talking about animal damage control and the federal activities with respect to
that.
And we'd like to hear from you.
Our number is 1-888-49-Green and I'm your host, Peter Burley.
It's time for the Earth Calendar.
We continue our series on the Great American Harvest.
Haying season.
In the northern half of the country is well along and farmers have been scrambling to get
their hay in.
It will feed cows and sheep and horses this coming winter.
There's something special about hay season.
Because to put up superior hay, good grass in the field is only the beginning.
A host of machines need to be kept running.
The farmer needs to guess the weather right.
And no matter how skilled or experienced, good luck is an important element.
If the hay is cut too late, it dries out on a stalk and loses nutrition and palatability.
If it's cut and rained on before it's bailed, it can rot or lose its value as feed.
If it's picked up before it's cured, it will heat when stored and spontaneously combust.
When that happens, the farmer loses both the crop and the barn.
If left in the field too long, even in good weather, it dries out too much, gets dusty,
and the leaves of legumes like clover and alfalfa shatter in her lost.
In addition to the challenges from the machines and the weather, hanging is an unforgettable physical
experience.
There's sun on your back.
The prickly hay dust sticking on your body as you sweat.
Tired muscles and the exhilaration of jumping in the swimming hole when you emerge from the
hay mow at the end of a long afternoon.
On our farm, the hay season has been intense.
It's the Great American Harvest, and this is Peter Burley.
I'm in one of our hay fields.
Getting ready to start raking hay.
It's a beautiful day.
The sky is white and blue, big, puffy clouds, a fresh wind.
There's a red-tailed hawk sitting on a branch on a pine tree above a field.
About 14 acres of slate green hay ready to get raked.
And in the adjoining field, my wife Lila is on a baler.
Huge red tractor.
Her white hair comes below the baseball cap.
Behind the tractor is a baler.
Behind the baler is a wagon.
The whole operation is probably 70 feet long.
They're turning round and round, following the windows, which are laced like a single
braid, perfectly spaced, round and round the field toward the middle.
So here we are in the head field.
Our baler is start feeling hay, but what happened before we got to this point?
Well, we had to cut it, then we had to cut it right away, and then we cut it again
this morning.
And this afternoon is being raked and failed, but we did an ideal weather conditions.
So how dry do you have to get it in order to bail it?
It's better if it's not too dry.
It's a little bit of moisture left.
It picks up better.
You don't lose your flower heads, like flow my heads.
So if you want it, right now we've got it exactly right.
Tomorrow it's going to be a little dry, but we've got so much down, we probably won't
get it all.
Yeah, hold it in, hey, you're going to wet this here?
Nope, not a bit.
Not one drop.
But we've got it in as the rain is coming down.
You know, if you pull the rag in and there was a sprinkle of scurrying coming, you really
know you'll beat the system.
So next time you think about eating a bowl of shredded breakfast cereal, try some good
hay and step.
The texture is the same, the aroma is better, and lifting a 50 pound bail in and out of
the kitchen cupboard will do more for you than eating the stuff in cardboard boxes, no
matter what the advertisers say.
Thanks for listening.
This is the Environment Show and I'm your host, Peter Burlitt.
Still ahead.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, created a new organization to protect
the environment in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Is it working?
Listeners, comment on indoor air and railroads.
We trek over 16,000 foot passes in Bhutan, where biodiversity still flourishes.
Our ear to the ground plants the seeds of change in Pittsburgh's inner city.
And Kim and Reggie Harris invite us to wait in the water.
These stories still ahead on the Environment Show.
Four years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was entered into between
the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The agreement put in motion a process to reduce and eliminate tariffs between the three nations.
But increased trade can also mean increased pollution and the prospect of industry fleeing
to the country with the weakest environmental standards.
So along with the NAFTA, the three countries signed an environmental side agreement.
It's intended to foster conservation and protection of the environment in North America.
The agreement created the Council on Environmental Cooperation, which includes the environment
ministers of the three countries, a secretary at a professional staff, and a 15 person advisory
group of five members from each country.
The agreement is unique in that enable citizens or organizations who believe that environmental
laws are not being forced to file a complaint.
This leads to an investigation and the possibilities of penalties being assessed against the country
found not to be enforcing its environmental law.
To date, no complaint has yet proceeded to a determination.
The Council also works on specific problems, such as the elimination of certain toxic chemicals
from the North American environment.
Now, four years later, judgment is mixed as to whether the effort to link environment
with free trade has been effective.
I spoke with Mark Spalding, guest lecturer at the Graduate School of International Relations
and Pacific Studies at the University of California in San Diego.
Mark, you've been with the CEC process since it began.
Is the CEC getting anything done?
I think so.
I think that we can look to the four persistent pollutants that the CEC is working to ban
throughout North America as a clear example of cooperation among all three nations to do
something that couldn't be done on a unilateral basis, or even if it was done on an unilateral
basis, wouldn't necessarily have solved the problem for North America.
I also think the data collection and distribution regarding law and enforcement of law is very
impressive.
It's not a perfect institution.
Not everything has worked as I had hoped, but overall I'm very pleased.
Had hoped, but overall I'm very pleased.
The CEC I guess is unique in the world since previous trade agreements have not also been
linked to some institution that was supposed to deal with environmental issues.
What have we learned from the process so far, particularly as it relates to where we're
going on future trade agreements?
That's a very good question and something that we are obviously having to deal with as
we proceed with discussions about whether to have trade negotiations with Chile or perhaps
some sort of a hemispheric free trade zone.
I always believed that this would be the first step in a process where we would ratchet
upward the linkage between trade and the environment.
Chris McGinn, who is Deputy Director of Global Trade Watch, a project of the nonprofit public
citizen organization is critical, because the NAFTA and the CIT agreement did not give sufficient
powers to the council to investigate and enforce environmental law.
In theory, the CEC was supposed to improve enforcement of environmental laws in each
of the three NAFTA countries.
In reality, the CEC is too weak of a body to actually do that.
They have been able to investigate some problems that have come up relating to the environment,
but unfortunately, they do not have the power or authority to make a difference.
McGinn says to be effective, the CEC needs a far larger budget, as well as subpoena powers
in the ability to take strong action against governments and polluters.
The CERA club has opposed to NAFTA in the beginning and has been a persistent critic during
its implementation.
This is Dan Seligman, who directs the CERA club responsible trade campaign.
The NAFTA Environmental Commission really hasn't delivered on the commitments made for
the Clinton administration when NAFTA was first put into effect.
The NAFTA was built as the greenest trade agreement in history because of the environmental
side agreement, but there really hasn't been much follow-through in terms of strengthening
environmental protection to avoid any negative impacts from NAFTA.
John D. Wirtth, Professor of History at Stanford University and a U.S. member of the
Advisory Committee known as JPEC, takes a positive view of the Commission.
He says its critics don't really understand that for the first time, three nations acting
as equals are attempting to look at shared environmental problems.
The CEC, is it working?
I think it's working.
It's a new institution.
It's incremental.
It's fledgling, I should say.
It's maybe ready to take flight, but it is working.
It's unique.
It's new, and we don't want to go too fast, but at the same time we want to show output
and add value and be able to tell people that.
That's why it's important that we're having an evaluation after three years of operation.
And for FUQ who haven't thought about it before, what is it getting done?
What it's getting done is for the first time looking at a series of environmental issues
beyond the local or the by-national or cross-border framework into truly continental perspectives.
So for the first time, we're able to look at things in a systemic way.
For example, the new study we've just done on continental pollutant pathways with an emphasis
on airborne pollution.
And since the environment carries no passport to be able to look at North America's environmental
system is really unique, which couldn't be done before this Commission was created.
Some American NGOs, the Sierra Club in particular, have been opposed from the beginning to NAFTA
and to things like the CEC.
Why are they wrong?
Well, I think what they haven't picked up is that we've developed something that's really unique
in this fledgling institution, and that is a genuine, tri-national point of view
where you think beyond your own national boundaries and your own national constituencies.
And basically what I find uncomfortable about the Sierra Club position is that A, it emphasizes the negative
and doesn't pick up the institution building and the forward momentum, which we've generated.
But especially, and this is B, it is essentially an old-fashioned nationalist position
where you don't take into effect the transactions that are going on through the model we've developed with Canada and Mexico.
And then often talks as if Canada didn't exist in this discussion, whereas the Canadians are full players
and are built right into the NAFTA agreement.
It is the three and it's the three acting together in a new way which is not picked up by the positions that they take.
That was John D. Worth, Professor of History at Stanford University and Director of the North American Institute.
In the future, trade environmental linkages will be receiving increased attention.
The U.S. Congress will debate whether to give the President authority to negotiate expansion of NAFTA to include chili and other nations.
It will also decide whether new NAFTA members should be required to sign the environmental side agreement.
Joining us now with an update on our listener comments is Stephanie Gorshman. Stephanie, what do we have this week?
Hi, Peter. A couple of weeks ago, we aired a segment on indoor air pollution and found out that bad air may be making us sick.
So the discussion proceeded to focus largely on what we can do to remedy that problem.
Here's a comment from a thankful listener in New York.
Being a person with asthma, I thought that was a great subject for those of us who have been listening to all these debates about whether asthma is a phony disease or that the environmentalists are making it into something that it isn't.
Anyway, it was a nice, clean approach which is a joke.
A little pond there on how to attract the construction industry in a nice way and how to keep friends with the deconstructed the construction industry in combating the environment.
And last week, we featured a segment on a transportation bill being debated in Washington which could funnel money into highways or public transportation.
Highway industry lobbyists say people want highways instead of railroads. That sparked this response from a listener in Texas.
The rail system is quite extensive. A good portion of it is being shut down and services are being cut back, etc. because they don't have enough ridership.
One of the major reasons that they don't have enough ridership is that there's no enough comfort aboard the rail system.
The sweeping car, for example, has disappeared. The compartment situation, you have to, you know, hock the family jewels in order to be able to afford one of these cars and one of these compartments.
And they're being reduced every day.
Well, that's all for this week, Peter.
Thanks, Stephanie. We hope you'll share your comments with us.
Tell us what you think. Our number is 1-888-49-Green.
At a time when many third world countries are losing their resources and biodiversity, Lee Talbot, professor of environmental affairs and public policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia,
thinks Bhutan is ecologically still healthy. He's helping the Bhutanese formulate a plan to protect the resources of their country. Several months ago, he shared his experiences with the Environment Show.
We talked to him again as he is just returned from another trip. Lee, a lot of people who listen to the Environment Show probably are not familiar with Bhutan. Where is it?
Bhutan is a little country. It's about 18,000 square miles squashed between Tibet and India.
It's within India. It's surrounded on one side by a Sam. It's pretty close to Nepal, but not quite.
It ranges in elevation from about 200 meters up to 24,000 feet or better at the edge of Tibet. In other words, it's a tiny Himalayan kingdom.
In your most recent trip, you walked over a good deal of that, I understand. Where did you go and what were you doing while walking other than simply surviving and a very high altitude?
Basically, the idea was to get a firsthand idea of what are the conditions up there, how truly wild is the country, what's the status of the biodiversity? You can read about these things, but unless you've actually seen it, it seems fairly academic and your ideas may or may not be accurate.
And what did you find?
Well, I found that the country is remarkably pristine state from a standpoint of environment and biodiversity.
I was able to spend, for example, eight days trekking with my wife on foot. Up above 12,000 feet, we went over two passes, over 16,000.
And we were able to see a remarkable amount of country, both that that we walked through and because you're so high, you can see that distances.
And so again, for someone who's not there, as you're at that 16,000 foot peak looking out over the Himalayas, what do they look like?
They look just trying to think from a standpoint of an American. They look like the very highest part of the Rocky Mountains or a little bit of the Sierra's, but up very high there's much less in the way of vegetation.
So you're basically above it. Scree slopes, big granite and metamorphic rock faces, the peaks, even though you're up above 16,000 feet, the peaks go another 8,000 feet above you, which are largely simply rock and snow.
And I've described what's on as a relatively pristine environment. How will your biodiversity plan help protect that?
The country is extraordinarily, the biodiversity and the environment is extraordinarily intact.
About 42 years ago, I did biodiversity-carried biodiversity surveys in Nepal and all around Bhutan in India, as well as in much of South and Southeast Asia.
And at that time, there were parts of the areas that were something like Bhutan as it present. Over the intervening period, those have all been lost, or virtually all.
It's rare to find much of any intact forest left in places like St. Apollo, and the wildlife is greatly depleted.
Now, in Bhutan, it's not for two real reasons. The first is that the people are Buddhist, tantric Buddhist, which is related to Tibetan Buddhism, and they believe in not in mining the resources, but in putting back what they take away,
and in respecting nature and recognizing that they rely very heavily on nature. And so, while you rarely find any part of Bhutan where there aren't people or have not been people, they have not destroyed it.
So that the combination of the linked religion and culture and way of life have protected what is there in an extraordinary degree.
The other is, they have, in my view, amazingly wise leadership. The country is the kingdom. And as I believe I mentioned, when we were talking about this the last time, the king has said that it is their intention since they have come into the 20th century with their biodiversity largely intact.
It is their intention to pass this on to future generations. And as a result, their policies, as they stand, put the first priority on sustainability.
And only a second priority on economic gain. Therefore, they have stopped most lumbering. They have established the principle of policy that they are not going to undertake lumbering and other use of their resources until they are in a position to do so on a sustainable way, not the way that they have seen in their neighboring nations.
That was Professor Lee Talbot of George Mason University, just back from Bhutan, where he tracked over 6,000 foot mountain passes and is working with the Bhutanese to protect their biodiversity.
I'm Peter Burley and the environment show wants to hear from you. Our toll free reaction line is 1-888-49-Green. Call us. That's 1-888-49-Green.
Leave a message and one of our producers will get back to you. Our email address is green at wamc.org. That's green at wamc.org.
Tell us what's on your mind or send us questions you have. You can visit us anytime on the internet where you can hear the environment show.
It's at www.enn.com slash ENVSHOW
I'm Linda Anderson and this is Ear to the Ground with stories about people affecting change in the environment.
This week, sowing the seeds of change in Pittsburgh.
When you go out into herd neighborhood, Orally Carroll says you can stumble into something that can cost you your life.
Vacant lots, abandoned buildings, trash, drugs, crime. It's not what every environmentalist comes up against, but for Carroll, replacing the littered vacant lots in her neighborhood with flowers and vegetables is something of a mission.
We decided to come up with the environmental packets that will be very, very spiritual to turn the bullets in drugs, in crime, in police brutality, into flowers, in vegetables and re-cappin over houses and new development for cleaning our environment and hoping that this will make a difference in the city of Pittsburgh.
Carroll is founder and director of the East Liberty Concerned Citizens Corporation, located in the Larimer community of Pittsburgh.
Every summer for the past seven years, she has enlisted volunteers and local children, or the babies, as she calls them.
Of her neighborhood, to experience firsthand, a lesson she hopes will help grow not only plants, but self-esteem as well.
Clean things grow, touching things, and letting these babies know that if you nurture something, and you care about something, it will grow.
You can't excel, you can't achieve if you believe it, and these babies are excited.
With their baskets and watering cans, on their knees pulling weeds, these kids are rewarded with awe at what they have created.
And believe me, these babies, if you're real good about it, you can ride through the neighborhood they are nurturing, and they are doing everything that they can with these little hands.
With over 50 babies, as I speak to you now, in my summer program, with funnets for 30 babies, all of these hands have a major difference, because all of the babies' hands have touched the soil.
My program is paid for 9-17, but the youngest baby in my program is 4 years late.
So I turn no one away.
Carol says today there are six gardens in the Larimer neighborhood.
Some are leased to her from the city of Pittsburgh. Others have just been adopted by the group.
Operation Hammer, this program's name Carol says, is about cleaning the human environment.
So in addition to gardening, the group also sweeps the streets, collects garbage, and is involved with renovating three abandoned buildings.
Carol, who has received an award for her efforts, works with a variety of local agencies, and receives limited donations in the form of tools and seeds.
But most of the program is run out of her hands and pockets.
She says her program proves that, quote, little people can make a big difference.
By touching the soil she adds, we have made it cleaner, and sown the seeds that help clean up our lives, while tending the earth's needs.
With ear to the ground, I'm Linda Anderson.
Orally, Carol's work in Pittsburgh uses nature to transform and enrich the lives of urban dwellers.
Throughout human history, people have found nature to be a source of inspiration and renewal,
while Carol finds the miracle of life in the garden.
Kim and Reggie Harris find renewal and water.
In their rendition of the old spiritual, weighed in the water, from their CD in the heat of summer on folk-your records, they tell us to have faith, because renewal can be found in the other side.
Sharan Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheer
Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin Dheerin D
Pub brainstorming new ideas difficult emotions how do you know this is that you're getting visuals Mr. R惕 passion is good.
All the things you need are the best thing if you think you need to know what it is how do you know it.
It must be the one getting ready to fly
It must be the one getting ready to fly
It must be the one getting ready to fly
It must be the one getting ready to fly
It must be the one getting ready to fly
It must be the one getting ready to fly
It must be the one getting ready to fly
I'm Peter Burley. For cassette copy of the program called 1-888-49-Green and asked for show number 393.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national productions which is solely responsible for its content.
Dr. Alan Sharttog to the Executive Producer, Thomas Lalley as Producer, and Stephanie Goetheman as the Associate Producer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W. W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Packard Foundation, and Heming's Motor News.
The monthly Bible of the collector Carhoving, 1-800-CAR-HRE.
So long and join us next week for the Environment Show.