DESIP: Addendum #3/Sept 1997

[rbleier@xxxxxxx]

DEMOGRAPHIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SECURITY 
ISSUES PROJECT  (DESIP)

ADDENDUM #3 -- SEPTEMBER 1997

by Ronald Bleier (rbleier@xxxxxxxxxxx)

NOTE: The purpose of DESIP is to present information which
illuminates the connections between environmental scarcity
and peace and conflict issues. Addendum #3 is the sixth in
a series containing in formation about ongoing conflicts,
environmental and demographic issues.  The entire series
is available on the WWW at: http://www.igc.apc/desip

If you would like an email copy of any or all parts of the
DESIP series or if you would like to be placed on the
DESIP mailing list, write to Ronald Bleier
(rbleier@xxxxxxxxxxx).  Also please write with comments,
corrections, suggestions or for further information.
***
ALGERIA -- DEATH RATE CLIMBS

According to an August 30, 1997 report on National Public
Radio's Weekend Edition, the weekly death toll in the war
between Algerian rebels and the government has recently
risen from 1,000 a week to two or three times that number.
The New York Times reported that as many as 300 may have
been killed in a night time massacre at the village of Rais
in the Sidi Moussa district not far from the capital
Algiers ("98 Die in One of Algerian Civil War's Worst
Massacres," August 30, 1997).

According to the Times, "authorities blamed the Armed
Islamic Group, a militant organization spawned after the
army's cancellation of an election in early 1992 that the
now banned Islamic Salvation Front appeared certain to
win. The civil war that followed has killed an estimated
60,000 people."

BRAZIL - SUICIDE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

(from New York Times, "Indians in Brazil Wither in an
Epidemic of Suicide," by Diana Jean Schemo in Dourados,
Brazil, August 25, 1996)

An epidemic of about 200 suicides has broken out among the
Kaiowa who live in the southern region of Brazil near the
border with Paraguay. Last year, 56 of the 28,000 Kaiwa
died in presumable suicides. The Kaiowa are a subgroup of
Guarini Indians.  The suicides seem to be tied to
estrangement from the land on which their traditional life
of fishing, farming, and worship depended.

When Europeans arrived here, Brazil was home to an
estimated 5 million Indians. In 1900 there one million.
Now there are 230,000.

"Since 1945, the Kaiowa have watched their land shrink
from 25,000 sq. miles...to 172 miles, and their language
and their rituals disappear with the arrival of the white
colonists and the increase in the number of religious
missionaries."

Late last year, Justice Minister Nelson Jobim pledged to
return nearly 4,000 acres to the Kaiowa. But signalling
the explosiveness of the contest for land here, federal
and military police protected Mr. Jobin as he announced
the areas to be turned over.  The 40 colonists whose land
was earmarked have vowed not to leave; no land has been
returned."

A decree signed in January 1996 by President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso "allows non-Indians to challenge pending
and future allocations of land to Indians. Since it was
issued, there have been 6 chall enges to Kaiowa lands
here."

Missionary churches teach Portuguese instead of their
native Tupi-Guarani.  According to a Roman Catholic social
worker, 28 religious groups, most of them evangelical
Protestant have flocked to the area to convert the Kaiowa.

"In an effort to build up commercial farming, the
Brazilian authorities also imported the more assimilated
Terena Indians from the north, who have taken over some of
the most fertile land."

"Many here complained that corruption and the power of
people called captains were responsible for the loss of
lands and the failure of Government aid to reach them."

"There are also signs that some suicides may mask
murders...As many as 6 presumed suicides may have been
murders implicating local authorities in a drive to push
Indians off the land."

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE: RUNNING OUT OF MONEY?

A November 1996 report in the New York Times raises the 
possibility that we may be approaching a financial crisis 
because of the lack of international capital to finance investment.

The report by Times reporter Sheryl Wu Dunn ("The Japanese
Money Mill Sputters, November 27, 1966), contains a chart
which indicates the amount by which current accounts of
the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Japan fall short of
world capital needs.  According to estimates, 1996 is
setting a record deficit of approximately $70 billion when
as recently as 1991 and 1992, the chart shows a slight
bulge.

The reporter quotes a business professor at Keio
University, a former Japanese government official, Makoto
Utsumi, who said that the reliance of America and other
industrial countries on capital from Japan is a fundamental
weakness of the world economy.

In the past, Japan bought nearly 40% of U.S. bonds at
Treasury auctions and over the years Japan has poured a
trillion dollars into world markets.  But Japan's surplus
has declined from a high of $13 2 billion three years ago
to an expected $70 to $80 billion this year.  Some
analysts even see a deficit in coming years raising the
prospect of competition by Japan and the U.S. for world
capital.

Other analysts are less concerned. They suggest that
Japan's surplus may have hit bottom and may be slowly
rising and that Japan's influence may be exaggerated since
the market is "too big for anyone to influence or for there
to be a major change of behavior."

US foreign debt was quoted at $830 billion, a record high
in a report in September 1997, on the economic segment of
"Behind the News," a radio program on WBAI in New York
City produced by Doug Henwoo d, editor of Left Business
Observer. There was discussion that such a high debt could
prove destabilizing in times of economic upheaval.

JORDAN: PRESS RESTRICTIONS 

Middle East International reported that on May 17, 1997,
King Hussein issued a royal decree endorsing proposed
amendments to an already restrictive 1993 Press and
Publications Law ("Fettering the press, by Sana Kamal in
Amman, May 30, 1997). The new amendments would impose
heavy fines "if a newspaper publishes anything basically
critical of anyone anywhere. Any 'news, views, opinions,
analysis, information, reports, caricatures, photographs
or any sort of material that disparages ... the king, or
the royal family, the armed forces, the security forces,
[and] heads of friendly states.'"  Also included is a "ban
on publishing any government document deemed
confidential."

Violators would incur fines (as opposed to previous laws
which imposed prison sentences) of between 15,000 and
25,000 dinars ($21,150 - 35,250).  Moreover, "the new
measures insist that to publish, a paper must have capital
of 300,000 dinars (c.$425,000) instead of the present
15,000.

"The amendments came after King Hussein had lashed out at
the 'yellow press,' meaning the weekly tabloids, over the
past year."  The new restrictions "are believed to be
aimed primarily at stifling, or even closing down, around
20 outspoken weekly newspapers, some of them opposition
party organs, which often run stories and commentaries the
mainstream daily papers don't dare to print."

A May 20, 1997 opposition protest against the new
restrictions on the press was subjected to a police crack
down. Several protesters and journalists were beaten and
nine were briefly arrested.

***

NORTH KOREAN FAMINE -- 

A larger and larger percentage of North Korea's 24 million
people may be at risk of starvation due to a drought of
more than 60 days duration which has compounded previous
agricultural losses due to two years of floods and decades
of economic mismanagement, the New York Times reported in
early August 1997 ("Relief Teams Say North Korea Faces
Vast Drought Emergency," by Barbara Crossette at the U N,
August 5, 1997).

According to the Times, the U.S. "has given North Korea
$60.4 million in food aid since September 1995 and is
prepared to give more if necessary" but U.S. officials are
"pressing Pyongyang to allow A mericans to monitor future
shipments and to assess the situation."

The Times reported that a World Food Program official in
Pyongyang said that "reservoirs were drying up everywhere,
and that residents of the capital were experiencing
breaks in the urban water supply."

According to a previous Times report, the food ration in
North Korea "is now 450 grams a day, a survival level. In
the countryside, the food ration -- where food is still
available -- is down to 100 grams a day, not enough to
live a normal life and go to work" (June 11, 1997).

According to the Times, "children are being abandoned by
their parents because they cannot be fed" and there are
anecdotal reports of cannibalism. In one story, a Chinese
driver near the border with North Korea reported
impossible to verify horror stories and said: "Terrible
things happen when people get hungry" ("Grim Tales of Want
>From the North Korean Border, by Seth Faison, April 27,
1997).

***

SOUTHEAST ASIA: PIRACY ON THE INCREASE

According to a story in the Washington Post section of the
Manchester Guardian Weekly ("Water Rats Bring Menace to
the Waves," by John Grissom, July 13, 1997), in 1996 there
were 224 reported attacks compared to 106 reported attacks
in 1992 when statistics began to be compiled. Most
incidents go unreported for a variety of reasons. Most of
the attacks take place in South East Asian waters.

US -- DIOXINS IN THE ENVIRONMENT

(from an article entitled "Medical Waste, Incineration and 
Dioxin," by Annie Leonard in BankCheck Quarterly, 
December/January 1997)

"In 1994, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
identified medical-waste incinerators as the largest known
source of dioxin released directly into the environment.
Medical waste incinerators emit 5,100 grams out of a total
9,300 grams of dioxin toxic equivalents released each
year. A June 1996 study issued by the Center for the
Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College in New York
identifi ed medical-waste incineration as providing 48
percent of total dioxin deposited in the Great Lakes
region of the United States and Canada; municipal waste
incineration, the next largest source, accounted for
another 22 percent."

Individual subscriptions to BankCheck Quarterly may be 
obtained for $25 by writing to BankCheck, 1847 Berkeley 
Way, Berkeley CA, 94703.

US FOREST POLICY

According to an op-ed entitled "Logging and Landslides
(NYT, February 19, 1996) by David Bayles, the conservation
director of the Pacific Rivers Council in the winters of
1996 and 1997, after a perio d of dry years, there were
thousands of landslides caused by intense winter storms in
Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California. These storms and
landslides "killed at least five people, destroyed spa
wning streams for endangered salmon, contaminated water
supplies and caused other havoc."

According to Bayles, "many of these landslides have
occurred on national forest land that have been heavily
logged in recent years. This logging was vastly increased
by a Congressional clear-cut ride r [signed by President
Clinton in the spring of 1995]. The rider, which expired
at the end of last year, overrode all environmental laws
and was worded so that timber companies could cut huge
stands of perfectly healthy trees. 

According to Bayles, Federal and state agencies which have
approved these clear-cuts in the past, "continue to
approve dangerous [forest] practices that benefit only the
timber companies; and some in Congress -- led by Senator
Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho -- are trying to weaken
environmental statutes governing national forests by
making them guidelines rather than strict standards.

According to Bayles, more than 50 conservation groups have
recently "asked President Clinton and the Western
governors to direct the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land
Management and the appropriate state agencies to impose an
immediate moratorium on clear-cutting and road
construction on steep slopes.

Bayles believes that "Congress has gone too far to benefit
the timber companies while imposing the costs of this
largess on taxpayers and those who live in the affected
areas.  According to the Wilderness Society, the net cost
to the Treasury of subsidized logging in the national
forests is about $200 million annually."

***
US HUMAN RIGHTS: ACCESS TO ABORTIONS LIMITED

An editorial in the New York Times (September 3, 1996)
complained that in "state legislatures around the country,
abortion's opponents are winning a stealth war to limit
women's right to choose.  In many states, access to
abortion is now prohibitively daunting for all but a small
percentage of women. Today 84 percent of American counties
have no abortion providers."  The editorial cites the
expense of abortions and protester's harassment as the
chief obstacles. 

The editorial details some of the restrictions states
place on abortions and restrictions they are considering.
"Eleven states require women to get counseling by a doctor
and then either stay overnight or make another trip to
have the abortion later...The lag time has also allowed
protesters to trace patients' license plate numbers...One
protester takes pride in calling young women's parents to
announce that their grandchild is about to be murdered."

"Last year, legislators in 22 new states introduced bills
for mandatory waiting periods.  Twenty-eight states
require women under 18 to notify or get the consent of one
or both parents."  The editorial concludes by noting that
the restrictive trend "has gotten little attention in part
because it leaves urban middle-class women's  access to
abortions largely untouched. Its impact falls on young,
poor, rural or small-town women who lack the money and
organization to track down an absent father and get his
permission, get two days off from work, find an overnight
baby sitter, drive four hours to a big-city clinic and pay
for a hotel room."

U.S. IMMIGRATION AND POPULATION ISSUES

(from Negative Population Growth's NPG Letter, Summer 1997, 
Volume 25, Number 1)

"In 1996, legal immigration to the United States increased
27% to 916,000 according to the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. ... 

"Admissions of relatives of American citizens, those who
fall under the family-preference categories and are the
driving force behind chain migration, rose 30% and
accounted for two-thirds of the total last year."

* Five million illegal aliens reside in the U.S. according
to recently released INS figures.  These statistics do not
include migrant workers who could number in the tens of
thousands. Many experts feel that INS figures for the
illegal alien population are conservative.

* U.S. population grew by 2.3 million people in 1996 and
is expected to grow by 2.4 million in 1997. About half the
growth can be attributed to legal and illegal immigration.
By July 1, 1997, U.S. population surpassed 267.58 million.

* Suburban sprawl threatens farmland

"Over a ten year span, from 1982 to 1992, the U.S. lost 
over 4.3 million acres of prime farmland to suburban sprawl."

A recent study by American Farmland Trust found that
American Farmers will have to feed 130 million additional
Americans by 2050, but with 13 percent fewer high-quality
acres of farmland. "In the worst case scenario ... the
U.S. could become a net food importer instead of a net
food exporter."

***

Negative Population Growth is based in Washington, D.C. and 
can be contacted at: npg@xxxxxxxx


U.S. -- PESTICIDE USE INCREASING

(from Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly, #525, 
December 19, 1996)

According to a new book, Our Children's Toxic Legacy by 
Yale University Professor John Wargo:

* Between 1964 and 1982, total pesticide use in this 
country doubled.

*  Today, nearly 325 active pesticide ingredients are
permitted for use on 675 different basic forms of food,
and residues of these compounds are allowed by law to
persist at the dinner table.

* Nearly one-third of the pesticides now in use are 
suspected of causing cancer in laboratory animals;

* Another third of the pesticides in use are thought 
capable of disrupting the human nervous system;

* Many others are suspected of disrupting the endocrine 
(hormone) system that regulates growth, development and 
healthy functioning in fetuses, children, and adults.

* Some foods, such as apples, and milk, are permitted to 
contain nearly 100 different pesticide residues.

Yearly subscriptions to Rachel's Environment & Health 
Weekly may be obtained for $25 by writing to Rachel's, P.O. 
Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036

WORLDWIDE ENVIRONMENT: THREAT TO CORAL REEFS

According to an article in Time Magazine, ("Wrecking the
Reefs," by J. Madeline Nash, September 30, 1996) human
insults to coral reefs all over the world is threatening
their survival beyond the next century. Among the insults
cited are "cyanide fishing, harbor dredging, coral mining,
deforestation, coastal development, agricultural runoff,
shipwrecks and careless divers...Already, some experts
estimate, 10% of the earth's reefs have been mortally
wounded.  Thirty percent are in critical shape and may die
within the next 10 to 20 years.  And an additional 30% are
coming under such sustained attack that they may perish by
the year 2050."

It is estimated that the earth contains 400,000 sq. miles
of reef.  "Their stony ramparts serve as storm barriers
that protect shorelines and provide ships with safe
harbor.  Their nooks and crannies accommodate fish and
shellfish that are important sources of food for millions
of people. And ... they are repositories of vast
biological wealth..."

Coral reefs are suffering particular damage in the
Philippines.  "According to environmentalists...90% of the
archipelago's 13,000 sq. mi. of reef is dead or
deteriorating.  Among other things, Philippine reefs are
being buried by tons of soil that washes from deforested
tracts of land. They are also being damaged by pollution
that seeps from factories, farm fields and sewers.  But
above all they are being destroyed by too much fishing."
Among the destructive methods local fisherman use to supply
the Chinese market for groupers and other large fish are
blasting the reefs with dynamite and then retrieving the
dead fish; and, even more destructively, hunting down the
fish, stunning them with cyanide and hauling them to the
surface alive so they can be fresh for overseas markets.
"Meanwhile the 330,000 lbs. of cyanide the divers dump
onto living coral reefs each year is poisoning the reefs."

The article also emphasizes the key role fish play in
maintaining the health of reefs by eating the seaweed
which is always threatening to engulf the reefs. In 1983
Jamaica's reefs crashed when the seaweed eating fish were
gone and the sea urchins which temporarily filled in for
the missing fish succumbed to a mysterious disease.

Global warming with the accompanying temperature swings is
another looming threat -- especially to weakened reef
systems. The article concludes with the concern that
"exploding population and the economic desperation that
accompanies it" may, over time, prove insuperable
pressures on reefs that will be too enormous to overcome.

***

WORLDWIDE RESOURCES: GLOBAL FISH WARS
HEATING UP?

An article in U.S News & World Report entitled "If World
War III comes, blame fish" (October 21, 1996) details nine
international incidents from March 1995 to October 1996
where navy and coast guard vessels arrested or shot at
(and in two cases killed) fishermen or where governments
authorized the use of force to exclude foreign fishermen.
The article warns that we are now in an era where
"Russians are shooting at Japanese, Tunisians are shooting
at Italians, and a lot of people are shooting at Spanish."

"At its simplest, the fish wars are about too many boats
and too few fish. Fisheries are a classic example of the
economic dilemma of a commonly held resource. Nations have
no incentive to conserve on their own, because their
competitors will simply swoop in and plunder the excess. 
The 1982 Law of the Sea treaty tried to address this
problem by giving coastal nations jurisdiction over
exclusive economic zones (EEZs) that extend up to 200 miles
offshore. But some gaps between EEZs coincide precisely
with some of the world's most productive fishing grounds.
The multinational fishing derbies that result from these
anomalies -- known by such whimsical names as the Sea of
Okhotsk "Peanut Hole," the Bering Sea "Doughnut Hole" and
the Barents Sea "Loophole" -- have led to heated clashes
between fishing fleets and local navies determined to
prevent overfishing. The zones around disputed
territories, such as the Senkakus Islands in the East
China Sea, also are a magnet for conflict."

"According to the United Nations' Food And Agriculture
Organization (FAO), almost 70 percent of the world's marine
fish stocks are fully fished, overfished, depleted or
recovering. Since an explosion from 3 million tons at the
turn of the century, the annual marine catch appears to
have stagnated at around 80 million tons in recent years.

"That leaves too many boats competing for the same
fish....Most analysts agree with the FAO that half the
number of boats [three million in 1990 -- almost double
the amount in 1970] would be sufficient to catch the same
number of fish."

"Agreements to limit harvests have repeatedly been
circumvented or delayed." In addition, evading existing
limits is widespread since no patrols adequately cover the
vast areas involved.  "Some fishing boat owners run up
false flags -- or flags of convenience -- to dodge fishing
patrols altogether.  By registering their vessels with
nations such as Panama and Honduras that are not party to
inter national fishing conventions, the owners can legally
evade agreed limits. The FAO estimates that in 1994 about
1,600 large fishing vessels were playing this shell game
on the high seas, almost double the number for 1985."

Moreover world governments continue to subsidize fishing 
fleets to the tune of $54 billion in 1989, the latest data 
available. Between 1970 and 1990 the size of the world's 
industrial fishing fleet grew at twice the rate the fish catch grew.

***

WORLDWIDE ENVIRONMENT: THE DEMANDS OF A 
GROWING WORLD POPULATION

An editorial in the British environmental periodical Real
WORLD (Number 17, Autumn 1996) entitled "Crisis, What
Crisis," outlined some of the difficulties inherent in
growing our world population at more or less current
rates.  According to some, our world population may double
in the next fifty years: it is now about 5.82 billion. 
The chief point of the editorial is that if we wish to
maintain our current standard of living, "production must
keep up. Even if we accept a modest population increase of
33% to 8 billion, ways would have to be found to make
overall savings of 25% in energy, pollution and resource
use, just to avoid matters getting worse.  In addition,
more people means more land for housing, roads and
infrastructure, and that means less for agriculture,
forestry and dare we say, wilderness. Already in Britain a
housing crisis looms as demand outstrips available space
without encroaching on precious rural land.

"The ratio of cars to people would have to be reduced by
25% to avoid an increase in vehicle numbers. But, on the
contrary, the car manufacturers are in an expansionist
mood, with the encouragement of the likes of the British
government through subsidies and grants."

The editorial concludes with the sober observation that
the outlook is made less hopeful by the "abiding sense of
unreality" in places where these matters should be
addressed. The editors of Real Wor ld quote from an article
in the UNEP magazine Our Planet which sees our next 25
years "Securely sustainable...the world can both feed
itself and protect the environment...if investments such
as in agricultural research, infrastructure, irrigation,
markets and extension and training are maintained at 1980s
levels, and if supplies of such inputs as fertilizers
rise."

***

A subscription to Real World may be obtained for L7.00 
(about $12) by writing to Real WORLD, 18 Sunnygill Terrace, 
Greenside, Tyne and Wear, NE40 4LE, UK. Checks in British 
currency only. Email: a-ponton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

***

WORLDWIDE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE: OZONE HOLE
MATCHES RECORD

WorldWatch Magazine reported (March/April 1997) that the
"seasonal rift in the ozone layer over the Antarctic last
year [1996] fell just short of the record 24 million
square kilometers set in 1995, but persisted longer over
an area larger than Antarctica itself ... according to the
World Metrological Organization." The 1996 figure reached
21 or 22 million square kilometers. The five or ten
percent difference was termed "not significant" by Rumen
Bojkov, an ozone expert at the UN agency.

***

WORLD POPULATION TRENDS: WORLD POPULATION 
GROWING MORE SLOWLY

(from a forthcoming article by Ronald Bleier)

The world's population growth has been slowing, according
to the latest estimates by two of the leading authorities
on population, the U.S. Census Bureau and the United
Nations. In May 1997, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that
the annual growth of the world's population had fallen to
just over 79 million. As recently as November 1995, the
Census Bureau had estimated that the world's population was
growing at 86.8 million yearly. 

A year later, in November 1996, the U.N. Population
Division, Department for Economic and Social Information
and Policy Analysis, announced that world population was
growing at an average of 81 million persons a year between
1990 and 1995. The U.N. reported that the lower figure was
down from a high of 87 million persons added every year
between 1985 and 1990 -- which today stands as the peak
period in the history of world population growth.  

Causes of Lower Growth 

The major factors for the slowdown in world population
growth according to the U.S. Census Bureau include: the
impact of AIDS in 7 more countries; increased mortality
and reduced fertility in the for mer Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe; reduced fertility in Western Europe and
faster than predicted reductions in Southern Asia. 

THE END