Murdering the Planet

Birds fell out of the sky as a whole town was poisoned by lead dust
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
A strange silence was the first clue that something was wrong. The dawn chorus that usually woke residents of the picturesque coastal town of Esperance, in Western Australia, had stopped. Then birds began falling out of the sky.
Local people were alarmed when they came across dead lorikeets, wattlebirds, honeyeaters and silvereyes in their parks and back yards. Health officials told them not to worry. But they tested their rainwater tanks, the main source of drinking water, and found dangerously high levels of lead or nickel in more than a third.
The authorities still insisted there was no cause for concern. Then they tested the seabed at the Esperance port, through which nickel and lead carbonate mined inland are shipped to Asia. Some samples contained 130 times the recommended health levels of the two metals. It was also established that 4,000 birds had died of lead poisoning.
There was lead in the air, lead in the drinking water, and lead in the sea. And when health officials finally admitted that there might cause for concern and began testing the population, they found lead in their blood.
Out of 900 people tested, 12 - including two young children - had higher levels than those deemed acceptable by the World Health Organisation. Lead is a particular hazard for small children and pregnant women.
The West Australian government has now ordered an inquiry. The port authority has halted exports of lead carbonate, and the mine, Magellan Metals, has suspended operations. Residents have been warned not to drink water from their tanks and to avoid eating fish, shellfish or crustaceans caught locally.
But residents fear that their long-term health has been damaged and they are furious with local authorities for playing down the risks. It was December when the birds began to die. Only in the past fortnight has the situation been treated with due seriousness.
Meanwhile, it has emerg-ed that the port authority did not report two "spikes" in lead dust emission levels, recorded in February and May last year.
Graham Jacobs, a GP and local politician, said: "I think it is appalling. Lead is a serious heavy metal pollutant, and it has enormous implications for the vulnerable people, particularly, in our community."
Dr Jacobs said earlier official advice that the lead levels that killed the birds did not pose a threat to humans had been premature.
"It's a bit like me saying my patient is not having a heart attack, without looking at the blood test or the ECG (electrocardiogram)," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
More than 100,000 tons of lead carbonate - by far the most toxic form of lead, if inhaled or ingested - have been shipped through the port over the past 18 months. The birds were poisoned by lead dust from the carbonate
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Destruction of forests in developing world 'out of control'
By Jerome Taylor
Progress in forest management in the industrial world is being overwhelmed by accelerating deforestation in the developing world, a global report from the United Nations has revealed.
Many countries in Europe and North America have been able to reverse centuries of deforestation and even, in some cases, increase their forest cover, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). But the global picture is blighted by uncontrolled felling in poorer countries - home to the majority of the world's forests.
"Many countries have shown the political will to improve forest management by revising policies and legislation and strengthening forestry institutions," said David Harcharik, FAO's assistant director-general. "Increasing attention is being paid to the conservation of soil, water, biological diversity and other environmental values."
But researchers from the FAO, which releases an annual survey of the world's forests, found that enormous tracts are still disappearing from the developing world. "Countries that are facing the most serious challenges in achieving sustainable forest management are those with the highest rates of poverty and civil conflict," said Mr Harcharik.
Europe currently has the best track record in preserving its forests with some countries showing an increase in their forest cover. In the United States and Canada, meanwhile, forest cover is considered stable. The report's authors found that improved legislation and conservation practices within the industrial world had led to the net loss of forests decreasing over the last decade from 22 million acres to 17 million acres.
Forests in the developing world still suffer from widespread deforestation primarily caused by unregulated slash and burn farming practices and uncontrolled forest fires.
"Deforestation continues at an unacceptable rate," said Wulf Killmann, a forestry expert at the FAO who helped compile the report, adding that the world currently loses approximately 32 million acres of forest cover a year.
Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are currently the regions with the highest losses.
Africa, which accounts for about 16 per cent of the world's forests, lost more than 9 per cent of its trees between 1990 and 2005, the FAO said. In Latin America and the Caribbean, home to nearly half of the world's forests, 0.5 per cent of the forests were lost every year between 2000 and 2005 - up from an annual net rate of 0.46 per cent in the 1990s.
Forest area increased in Asia between 2000 and 2005, although the increase was limited to east Asia, where investment in forest plantations in China offset high rates of deforestation in other areas, the FAO said.
Disappearing forest cover
* Global forest cover amounts to just under four billion hectares, covering about 30 per cent of the world's land area. From 1990 to 2005, the world lost three per cent of its total forest area - 0.2 per cent a year.
* From 2000 to 2005, 57 countries reported a rise in forest area, and 83 reported a drop. Net loss at 7.3 million hectares a year.
* Ten countries account for 80 per cent of the world's primary forests, of which Indonesia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and Brazil saw the highest losses in primary forest in the five years to 2005.