Monday, 08 Jan 2001

Norton's No Honeymooner

A list of the Interior Department advisory group assembled by President-elect Bush reads like a who's who of representatives from the logging, mining, and oil drilling industries. Which isn't surprising, given the background of Bush's nominee to head the department, Gale Norton. Norton in 1998 founded what is now called the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, whose kick-off gathering was sponsored by the National Coal Council, Chemical Manufacturers Association, National Mining Association, and Chlorine Chemical Council. Enviros are hoping to derail Norton's nomination, and they are also up in arms over Bush's choice to head the Energy Department, defeated Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.).

A Wild Horn Section

The Cameroon government, World Wildlife Fund, and World Conservation Union (IUCN) are planning a rescue mission to save the last 10 Western black rhinos in Africa. Western black rhinos are a subspecies of the African black rhino, one of the last four rhino species on the continent; three other rhino species have already gone extinct. As recently as the early 1980s, Western black rhinos numbered 3,000, but since then poaching has caused the population to plummet. The rhinos' horns are prized in Asia for their medicinal properties. Conservationists hope to bring the population up to 50 by mid-century. In other endangered species news, scientists in Worcester, Mass., are eagerly awaiting the birth of the first cloned endangered species -- a wild ox native to Southeast Asia called a gaur. Bessie the cow would be the proud surrogate mother.

I Dunno, Alaska

Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles (D) said on Friday his state would sue to try to prevent President Clinton's road-building ban from applying to the Tongass and Chugach national forests. Knowles contends that the Alaskan forests should be exempted from the ban because management plans recently approved for the forests after an exhaustive fight between the timber industry and enviros didn't include a halt to road-building. Knowles, in a statement, said that Alaskans "are tired of being double-crossed by the federal government." Idaho's governor has also pledged to sue over the road-building ban. In the meantime, more than 1,000 opponents of the ban gathered in protest in Medford, Ore., on Saturday, waving such creative, on-message banners as "Don't Lewinsky Our Land" and "Don't Monica Our Mountains."

Vole: De Mort

Despite some improvements in recent years, the U.K.'s environment is still in jeopardy, according to a report by the country's Environment Agency. John Murlis, the agency's chief scientist, said, "The current state of our environment makes it clear we must take greater responsibility for our consumerist, throwaway society." The report says that urban air quality has dramatically improved since the smoggy 1950s, but that it still falls below health standards in rural and suburban areas. New development and roads, as well as intensive farming, are destroying wildlife habitat and generally making times tough for some critters. Water voles and farmland birds, for example, are on the decline.