Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001

Dah-ling I Love You, Don't Give My Parks Avenues

The U.S. National Park Service should stop worrying so much about pleasing visitors and instead focus on protecting natural resources, says an advisory panel. In its report, which is slated to be made public tomorrow, the National Park System Advisory Board says that the agency should "[a]dopt the conservation of biodiversity as a core principle" and reduce the environmental impact of its operations. The panel's recommendations clash with the Bush administration's parks plan, which emphasizes improving the experience of visitors by fixing crumbling roads and faulty sewer systems, and constructing new visitor facilities.

Tanks a Lot

Think of Dan Sharps as a mechanic with 237,000 acres to repair. The shaggy red-bearded range conservationist has a tough job -- to fix the damage done by the hundreds of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and trucks that play war games on a fragile site in southern Colorado several times a year. Sharps, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has been the backbone of land restoration at the site since shortly after the U.S. Army opened it in 1985. Read more on the Grist Magazine website.

Fool Efficiency

Casting aside arguments made by the auto industry for years, a panel appointed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said yesterday that the industry could significantly increase fuel-efficiency in SUVs and light trucks over the next decade. But a majority of the panel's 13 members, most of whom have strong ties to the industry, said the improvements in efficiency could lead to more traffic deaths, if manufacturers choose to accomplish the boost in efficiency by making vehicles lighter and smaller. President Bush had said he would develop a recommendation about fuel efficiency after reading the panel's report, but White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said yesterday that a bill passed by Congress last year prohibited the administration from doing more than simply reviewing the report. Fleischer also highlighted the safety issue discussed in the report.

I've Been Working against the Railroad

Environmentalists in Hong Kong won an unprecedented victory this week when an appeals board rejected a plan by a government-owned railway to build a new line through Hong Kong's largest freshwater wetland. The case was the first heard by the Environmental Impact Assessment Appeal Board since an environmental impact law was enacted in 1998. The board sided with environmental officials who last fall refused to permit the new rail line through the wetland, which is a haven for more than 200 migratory bird species. Not everyone was happy with the decision. "What's more important," said a local village leader, "tens of thousands of people or a few birds?"

Getting the Munchies

Over the next few months, a Mobile Muncher bus will visit every large town in Spain to help the country reach its goal of recycling 100 tons of mobile phones within a year. The country developed the Mobile Muncher mascot as a way to increase public support for the campaign and inform people of the danger of throwing out their old phones; the mascot is a giant cell phone that consumes smaller ones. About 17 million people in the country use cell phones, and some 3 million phones are now obsolete. Currently, most old cell phones are tossed into the trash and taken to landfills, where their batteries leak toxic substances into the environment.