Green incentives

looking for a remedy for economic recession, unemployment, climate change and resource depletion? Try ecotax. That's what the new German coalition government is planning to do. Come April 1, the entire manufacturing sector might have to pay ecotax.

CHINA

At a recent session of the Provincial People's Congress at Guangdong province, China, a group of representatives submitted a bill proposing a ban on eating wild animals. Meat of wild animals is a traditional cuisine in China. Guangdong province has a reputation as a gourmet heaven for those who have a palate for such "delicacies" as golden monkeys (Pygathrix roxellana), pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) and cranes (Gruidae grus) -- all endangered species.

Bokaro, steel

The Bokaro Steel Plant (BSP), a subsidiary of the Steel Authority of India (SAIL), claims to have overpowered the threat of pollution.But patients keep flocking to the Bokaro General Hospital with rare illnesses.

Strong opposition

THE Japanese government is planning a new large-scale dam on Japan's third- largest river, the Yoshino. A grassroots citizens' group, the Yoshino River Symposium of Tokushima City, has appealed for one million letters to be sent to the ministry of construction, asking it to halt its plans to build the dam. The symposium warns that the newly-approved dam will be an ecological disaster. It argues that the new dam will replace a nearly 250-year-old stone weir that has stood the test of time. The weir attests to the farsightedness and ingenuity of riverside residents in

A subtle invasion

THE Worldwatch Institute of Washington, DC,has come out with some findings on the spread of exotic species from one place to another. Calling it "bioinvasion", the institute says this spread threatens biological diversity and has the potential for global disaster. The environmental watchdog group says that the increasingly global economy could bring worldwide ecological disruption.

THAILAND

The Responsible Ecological Social Tour (REST) programme, which was launched a year ago, is coming under heavy criticism from environmentalists. The programme was launched in a cluster of villages near the Pra Chang mountain in northern Thailand's Phayao province for the purpose of ecotourism. Officials at non-government organisations running the project admit that it has fallen well short of ecological aims.

Awaiting disaster

HAPHAZARD quarrying and mining on the bed of the Beas river and its tributaries is threatening the ecology of the Kullu valley. The river has been changing its course since 1995, causing damage to life and property. The public works department has made the river bed barren as big stones and boulders, which used to be natural protectors,

A Pest Of A Problem

INTERNATIONAL trade in unwanted hazardous chemicals and pesticides is now a serious global concern, especially in developing countries that lack resources to monitor their safe application, storage facilities, and adequate training for their applications. To deal with this, 61 countries have signed a new convention to prevent trade in hazardous chemicals.

Counting sheep

Island sheep may help resolve a fierce debate in ecology about population crashes. British researchers are using sheep populations on St Kilda, a remote archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to check the relative importance of climate and local factors such as the availability of food. Ecologists usually do this by comparing populations living near each other. But animals migrating from one population to the other can confound results.

ARGENTINA

General Juan Domix Peron's idea of introducing beavers in Tierra del Fuego, the snowy archipelago on the tip of South America, half a century ago seems to have gone seriously awry. In 1946, someone in the late president's navy came up with the idea of colonising Tierra del Fuego with 25 beavers to promote the fur industry has now taken gigantic proportions.