GreenWatch

B. McPherson Greenpeace International is accusing the EU of subsidizing the plunder of West African fish stocks. Loans to fishing companies have enabled consortia to modernize their fleets of trawlers and factory ships allowing them to take ever more fish from the waters off Morocco and Mauritania. This has had the effect of depleting the fish populations in the area, forcing the African fishermen to venture ever further out in their small, low tech vessels in search of diminishing catches. In effect, the taxpayers of the European Union have been paying corporations to plunder the fishing grounds off West Africa. Ten years ago alarm bells were ringing about the unsustainability of the fishing activity in the Mauritanian waters. Permits to foreign trawlers amounted to about 25% of the Mauritian economy. The native fishermen are badly outclassed when it comes to harvesting fish. They have open boats often powered by the wind. What used to take them less than a day to ca...

By B. McPherson The decision to delay the building of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline until after the US presidential elections next year may doom the project. Opposition to the building of the oil pipeline which would connect the oil fields of Alberta to refineries in Texas has been loud and growing. The proposed route of the Keystone pipeline would take it across the Nebraska Sandhills, an environmentally sensitive treasure. Any breaches in the pipeline could easily contaminate the Ogllala aquifer. This aquifer is the supplier of water to much of the Midwest, both cities and aqriculture. Those that support the building of the $7 billion project point out the economic benefits of the pipeline. Many people would be employed in good paying jobs; oil from Canada is a stable source; there could be a reduction in oil tankers plying the Gulf of Mexico. At first glance, this looks like a victory for environmentalists. It is not. It puts the focus on a different environmental treasu...