This year has seen environmental and peace issues take centre stage on the world's agenda. Greenpeace's work has contributed to a number of important international successes including:
NUCLEAR
France, the US, the UK, Russia and China commit to signing a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and to pursue other nuclear disarmament measures as the price for extending the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May.
France, the US, the UK and recently Russia commit to a zero- yield CTBT in July and August which is expected to be signed in 1996.
OIL
The OSPAR Commission, 14 member states regulating marine
pollution in the North East Atlantic, bans the dumping of
obsolete offshore installations in June despite reservations
from the UK and Norway.
Shell agreed not to dispose of its obsolete oil platform,
the Brent Spar
LAND-BASED SOURCES OF MARINE POLLUTION (LBS)
The North Sea Ministerial Conference agrees that the
discharge, emission and losses of hazardous substances in the
North Sea must cease within one generation--25 years--in June.
Over 100 countries meeting in Washington, DC under the
auspices of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)
agree to adopt a legally binding instrument to ban the
discharge, emission, manufacture, use and illegal trade of
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) that may harm the
environment and human health. This treaty could be completed
and up for ratification by the end of 1997.
WASTE TRADE
After years of campaigning by Greenpeace to stop hazardous
waste exports from industrialized to developing countries, the
contracting parties to the Basel Convention decided in
September to ban this practice.
The Bamako Convention, an African waste trade treaty banning
the import of hazardous waste to the continent, enters into
force. A similar treaty for the Pacific, the Waigani Treaty,
is adopted.
TOXIC CHEMICALS
The German-based company Hoechst voluntarily agrees to phase
out toxic chloroparaffins in Germany in Brazil.
CLIMATE
At a meeting in Berlin in April, more than 150 countries
agree to negotiate a legally binding green house gas emissions
reduction target for the period after 2000.
OZONE
After a four day Greenpeace blockade at a Greek CFC plant,
the Greek Ministry of the Environment announces that the
company must reduce its production by 50% in 1995, eliminate
all CFC production in 1996 and that Greece will phase out
ozone-depleting HCFCs no later than the most progressive
European countries.
WHALING
The so-called science behind the Norwegian whaling programme
was exposed as a sham at this year's International Whaling
Commission (IWC) meeting when the country's whaling scientists
made grave mistakes in their whale population estimates
forcing Norway's whaling quota to be reduced and the IWC to
ask the country to recall its whalers.
OVER-FISHING
In August, the United Nations agreed to a precedent-setting
global Fisheries Treaty. The legally binding treaty will set
new standards for fisheries conservation and, while more
reforms are needed to solve the global fisheries crisis, is a
significant step forward.
Canada and the European Union reached a deal limiting the
catch of falling Turbot wars in March/April off the
Newfoundland coast after a violent clash between the Canadian
navy and fishing vessel. The North Atlantic Fisheries
Organization (NAFO) deal was an improvement on the fishing
free-for-all that ignited the fish war and could have meant
disaster for the turbot stock as it did for cod stocks before
it.
Despite intense lobbying efforts to prevent it, the US law
governing fisheries management, the Magnuson Act, was
reauthorized while plans to establish a fishing quota system
that would have helped corporations gain control of US fishery
licenses was abandoned ensuring improved national fishery
conservation.
FORESTS
The government of British Columbia agrees to implement
significant changes to clearcut logging in the region in July
after a science panel study confirms Greenpeace charges that
such logging is destroying regional biodiversity.
Following pressure from Greenpeace, the New York Times
agrees in November to cancel all contracts with logging
company MacMillian Bloedel, the largest logging company
operating in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia, because
company continues to clearcut log in defiance of the science
panel study mentioned above.
In August, two regions, Vienna City forests and Germany's
Luebeck Public Forest agree to log only in compliance with
Greenpeace's sustainable forestry principals and guidelines.
BIODIVERSITY
The highest body of the European Patent Office (EPO), the
Enlarged Board of Appeal, decided in December that genetically
engineered plants, seeds and their progeny cannot be patented
under the European Patent Convention (EPC). This act is
expected to help to prevent the large-scale commercialization
of genetically engineered life forms, prevent industry from
claiming ownership over nature and protect natural
biodiversity.
You can mail jim@comms.greenpeace.org here with any technical issues.