Cybersociology is a non-profit multi-disciplinary webzine dedicated to the critical discussion of the internet, cyberspace, cyberculture and life online.

• THE CYBERSPACE "WAR OF INK AND INTERNET" IN CHIAPAS, MEXICO(*)

ABSTRACT. The Chiapas uprising Of 1994 rallied an international community of supporters, largely organized through activities on the Internet, that provided an example of the possibilities and limitations of the Net as a tool for social movements. This article models the Internet as a form of rhizome: an intermediate and contested social space composed of flows that transcend boundaries and forge new connections between events and places. The success of Internet organizing in southern Mexico is due to the constant and reciprocal connections between cyberspace and other social spaces, which avoided the restriction of events to a contained space and scale.

• ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN RUSSIA AND ESTONIA(*)

ABSTRACT. The use of e-mail by a grassroots activist group that straddles the Estonian-Russian border transcends political boundaries and provides ready connections to people in distant places. Activists create a perceived space of resistance in a supportive network that is stretched across space. This network of concern, defined by the physical space in which these activists work and by the strong communicative connections among them, was created to overcome continued environmental mismanagement and remove cultural barriers to cooperation. E-mail communication has enabled an ongoing influence on environmental policy in Estonia and Russia. This circumstance of a collaborative e-mail network created by grassroots activists to aid political work is a testament to how communication technology has expanded for the purpose of strengthening previously silenced voices in a regional and political context.

• FOREST MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION AS A TOOL FOR CONSERVATION

Certification of good forest management represents a new approach in the global effort to sustain our diverse forest ecosystems. Sustainability, a central tenet of certification, is a complex concept, best thought of as a goal to be strived for and redefined in the process. Elements of sustainability with which most would agree include: maintenance of ecological functions and biological diversity of the forest ecosystem; assurance that people who inhabit or work in the forest receive a fair share of the income from forest management; and financial returns from forest management and value-added activities that are profitable and competitive with conversion of forestland to alternative uses.

• THE ZAPATISTA EFFECT: THE INTERNET AND THE RISE OF AN ALTERNATIVE POLITICAL FABRIC

No catalyst for growth in electronic NGO networks has been more important than the 1994 indigenous Zapatista rebellion in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico. Computer networks supporting the rebellion have evolved from providing channels for the familiar, traditional work of solidarity--material aid and the defense of human rights against the policies of the Salinas and Zedillo administrations--into an electronic fabric of opposition to much wider policies. Whereas the anti-NAFTA coalition was merely North American in scope, the influence of the pro-Zapatista mobilization has reached across at least five continents. Moreover, it has inspired and stimulated a wide variety of grassroots political efforts in dozens of countries.

• Web Wars: NGOs, Companies and Governments in an Internet-Connected World

NGOs have been swift to make full use of the Internet. Increasingly, the mainstream press and broadcasting media are dominated by governments, conglomerates and `moguls' because of the large investments and operating costs involved. In contrast, anyone with a computer and a modern can set up a website at minimum cost: the medium lends itself to `network guerrillas' (Jonquieres 1998). These `guerrillas' have used the Internet first as a source of information but, secondly--and more importantly--as a means of co-ordinating their activities regionally, nationally and internationally.

• Wide open to the Web warriors

Activists are using the internet to fight large companies over ethical issues. Yet many major brand-owners lack a clear counter-strategy. Earlier this month a group of environmental activists staged a sit-in at Shell's London offices. Although Shell turned the power off and cut the phone lines, activist Roddy Mansfield broadcast the protest live to the internet and e-mailed the press, using a digital camera, laptop computer and mobile phone. This is just one example of a growing trend, whereby protesters and activists are turning to the internet as quick, cheap and effective way of reaching mill ions of people. Many of the web sites are primitive, but their message is clear and, for some brands, dangerous. 'Boycott' and 'ban' are the two most common phrases used by many of the anti-brand sites.

• E-vironmental Activism. (Industry Trend or Event) Sept 4, 2001 pi9

That's why last year Environmental Defense's online activism effort, Action Network (accessible via a link at the organization's main site, www.environmentaldefense.org), not only described the horrifying practice but also provided visitors the means to fax a prewritten letter of protest to officials. With the help of kahea, the Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, hundreds of messages were sent to Hawaiian authorities, which subsequently barred shark finning in state waters. Buoyed by that victory, Environmental Defense spearheaded a broader campaign for a nationwide ban. Nearly 10,000 faxes were sent to Congress, and in December 2000, a bill outlawing shark finning was signed into law by President Clinton. "It's hard to say definitively what tipped the balance, but [the site] had an impact," says Freedman. The Action Network also made a difference for the Texas sea turtles, which were perishing in shrimp nets.

After President Bush unveiled his energy policy in May, for example, more than 50,000 Action Network-inspired protest letters swamped congressional fax machines within a week. Why faxes, a technology that's so 1990? Freedman says studies show that the top three methods for making an impression on an elected official are in-person visits, handwritten letters, and faxes. With key votes often announced just a day or two ahead of time, visits and letters are useless. So when it designed its activism site, Environmental Defense built in the creative fax capabilities.

Now the group is looking to bankroll its own work. Adhering to the Internet maxim of "no good code should go unfunded," Environmental Defense took its software and spun off a for-profit company, GetActive Software, in June 2000. As part of its equity stake, Environmental Defense receives services from GetActive, including list management, targeted e-mail, and e-mail-to-fax capability at a reduced rate. For other nonprofit organizations, GetActive serves as an e-activism asp. So far, about 40 nonprofit organizations have signed up, including the American Lung Association and Zero Population Growth.

• How Green Is My Silicon Valley - Eco-radicals, labor agitators, anarchists: The '60s are definitely back. Blame it on the Internet.

"It's amazing that the most effective tools have been some of the lowest tech," says Evan Henshaw-Plath, founder of Protest.net. For example, before November 30, networking was done by e-mail only. At the same time, this younger generation of protesters-Henshaw-Plath is 22- also developed the technically sophisticated Indymedia.org, which launched November 28, to broadcast live streaming video and reports via wireless laptops from the streets of Seattle. Indymedia.org went from 0 to more than 1 million visitors in just two weeks.

By contrast, lesser-known Web sites such as Eactivism, funded entirely by its founder, Tristan Zajonc, are spawning terms like "viral marketing" for their success at raising money through e-mail campaigns. Zajonc, whose mission is to get people interested and involved in any cause, currently hosts a "Click for the Cure" button through which advertisers are donating about $300 per month for cancer research by the click. Zajonc got the idea from The Hunger Site (www.thehungersite.com), which boasts that it is gathering a million cups of grain per day to feed starving people all over the world through corporate advertisers' per-click donations.

• e-Activism. (Indians fight for their lands, Colombia)

Scorecard brings together data from over 300 scientific and government databases in a very user-friendly format. Local activists can start using it by either entering a zip code or clicking on a map. Its many uses include researching specific chemicals and polluters, gathering information on how to protect yourself and your community, connecting with other groups working on local issues, and expressing specific concerns to the relevant politicians.

The most contentious of ECD tactics is the client side distributed denial of service (DoS) action, not to be confused with server side distributed DoS attacks such as those launched in February of this year against well-known e-commerce sites. The difference lies in the number of computers needed to make it work.

The client side distributed DoS action involves thousands of individuals using their computers to run JavaScript-enabled Web browsers (such as the commonly used ones from Netscape and Microsloth) to repeatedly reload Web pages from the server under protest. (For technical details see the "occasional paper" available on the electrohippies' Web site). In contrast, a server side distributed DoS attack can be co-ordinated by one person who takes control of several network servers that he or she then uses to go after the target.

Around December 1, 1999, the electrohippies helped co-ordinate one of these client side distributed DoS actions against the WTO. Apparently, during a five-day period, over 450,000 individuals around the world participated in the WTO DoS action!

Finally, the Internet does not yet have the power to evoke large-scale image events (the memorable media spectacles of the kind Greenpeace is famous for), which are a staple rhetorical tool of radical environmental activists. Because it is a fragmented medium, narrowcasting to interest groups rather than broadcasting to a mass audience, the Internet is unlikely to allow environmentalists to reach a very broad public. They will be reaching and preaching to the choir, not bringing in new supporters.

Along with using email and mailing lists as communication and organizing tools, activists are turning to Internet sources for quick research, building Web sites to distribute information about their own causes and campaigns, and applying Web skills in innovative attacks on corporations and others judged to be enemies of ecology and democracy.

The World Wide Web is an incredibly powerful tool for finding and distributing all manners of information that would otherwise be difficult to get at and expensive to get out. A trove of useful and informative environmental material is available on the Web--from detailed scientific reports to legal and policy documents, from film footage to socially conscious music - it's all there.

Finding what you need is a different matter. While search engines are improving, the system is still far from being simple or reliable. Chance and serendipity are still too often how we find information on the net. Good research skills are a must.

A more fruitful path than the standard search engines are green portals -- well-known starting points that serve up both information and links to other sites. One of these is EnviroLink, which also acts as a clearinghouse and provider of Internet services for environmental activists.

More empowering initiatives provide activists with ammunition and information for local campaigns. The premiere example of this is the Environmental Defense Fund's "Scorecard" [less than]http://www.scorecard.org/[greater than], which lets users locate and learn about major sources of pollution and environmental hazards in their own communities (US only so far).

In tactical contrast, some groups are developing spoof Web sites. These imitate the original target site in appearance, but subvert it in content. For instance, in November 1999 the group ® &tm; spoofed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Web site [less than]http://www.wto.org/[greater than]. The spoof site [less than]http://www.gatt.org/[greater than] uses the WTO's former name, the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), and presents all sorts of information about the problems with the WTO and globalization. The trick is that the Web site looks like the official WTO site -- it's not until you get into it that you realize it's a spoof.

McDonald's, the junk-food giant, has become a particular magnet for playful activism. It's common for activists to refer to the new globalized order as "McWorld." So, it's not surprising that one of the first big e-activism stories was McSpotlight.

In 1995 this Web site grew out of the "McLibel" case in the UK where, in the longest trial of any kind in British history, McDonald's sued two Greenpeace activists for libel for distributing leaflets critical of the company's practices. McSpotlight, established to support the defendants, is now the centrepiece of anti-McDonald's action around the world.

Among many other things, the site offers a complete transcript of the trial. But in a lighter vein, it uses Web browser frames to provide a "guided tour" of the McDonald's Web site. On one side of your screen, the real McDonald's Web site appears. On the other, McSpotlight's critique. This culture jamming technique -- let's call it frame-jacking -- has apparently been widely imitated.

• Clinton/Gore Target of Public Plea to Protect National Forest Roadless Areas

The Heritage Forests Campaign has worked in recent months with U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) and the Technology Project, manager of the campaign's Web site (www.ourforests.org), and several other conservation groups to generate an estimated 200,000 public comments in support of permanently protecting national forest roadless areas. Roughly half of the comments are in the form of postcards to Vice President Gore and Forest Chief Dombeck and half are emails sent directly to Vice President Gore via the Heritage Forests Campaign's website.

• Campaign to Defend America's Environment Launches `Million Voices' Project.

More than 300 entertainment industry leaders attended the launch of the Campaign to Defend America's Environment's "Million Voices" project Monday to use the Internet to bring the environmental views of an unprecedented number of Americans to bear on politicians in Washington, DC

The Campaign to Defend America's Environment is a joint effort by Defenders of Wildlife, Earth Communications Office (ECO), Environmental Media Association, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, to build a nationwide network of activists to defend fundamental U.S. environmental protections.

• Change the world via e-mail

But has the nature of protest been changed by the Internet? It seems that it may be adding a new weapon to the protester's armoury, rather than simply replacing existing methods. For example, in the campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) - an agreement between the OECD nations that would have placed major restrictions on the ability of states to regulate the activities of multinational corporations - there were no significant street protests but a lot of online activity.

In fact, it was the Internet that gave campaigning groups the power to derail the agreement. Once the main discussion document was leaked and posted on the web, then unions, environmental groups, consumer groups and others promised so much opposition from such diverse sources that it became politically untenable for the OECD to proceed. The authority of civil servants and their private briefings was undermined by the fact that non-governmental organisations often knew more about what was going on than they did.

The Internet is changing the way protest groups operate in more prosaic ways, too. It cuts costs, with no postage or printing to be paid for. And it reduces the reliance on sympathetic journalists to get the message across in the media.

For many groups, this is the biggest change brought by the new technology, because it reduces the imbalance between them and their opponents, often large multinational corporations. The millions of visits to the McSpotlight website created an impact beyond the wildest dreams of the original London Greenpeace demonstrators. By cutting the costs of networking and by making it more difficult for governments to maintain secrecy, the net has reduced the slope of the playing-field for protesters of all types.

This change is most obvious in the case of the developing contacts between groups opposed to economic globalisation. Linked through the loose network of Peoples' Global Action, anti-GM campaigners in Britain can co-ordinate their protests against Monsanto with those of Zapatistas, Indian farmers and Brazilian land-rights activists. In this way, the largely abstract and imaginary coalitions of the dispossessed beloved of many radical theorists are becoming real, even if they are still limited by access to computers.

wildcanada.net "Raising awareness about these issues is part of the democratic process," says Legault, who expects his e-activist network to grow from 3,000 to 30,000 by the end of 2004. "We want to make it easy for Canadians to tell their elected leaders what they think of their performance."

LINK Working Assets is also one of the most powerful progressive citizen-action groups in the nation. In 1999 alone, customers generated nearly one million calls and letters to Congress

LINK "It takes a $1,000 check to get a politician to listen to your point of view in offline politics," explained Allen, "but on the Internet, it doesn't cost anything for hundreds of thousands of people to participate."

Recently, Working Assets' network of activists helped block a Bush Administration proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by generating more than 132,000 e-mails, faxes, letters and phone calls to the Bush Administration.

Take Action for the environment. Right from your computer, right now! Take action on any of the critical issues below. Send free faxes and emails to top decision-makers when they need to hear from you. Once you take action, you will receive email action alerts keeping you informed of how you can act online to save the planet.

• Environmental Internet Activism in Britain Jenny Pickerell

Five key processes of mobilization emerged...using the Internet as a gateway to activism; using it to raise the proifile of group campaigns; stimulating local activism; mobilizing on-line activism; and attracting participants to existing protests

• The Internet and the Seattle WTO Protests Matthew Eagleton-Pierce

EXCELLENT RESOURCE

• International Plug n Play? Citizen Activism, the Internet, and Global Public Policy Ronald Diebert

Opinions on the significance of these citizen networks, however, are divided. Among more optimistic observers, ranging from the Gramscias to liberals across the political spectrum, there is a belief that citizen networks have increasing power and authority in world affairs. Gramscians see in citizen networks a potential source of "counter hegemony" to the unleashing of global market forces and neoliberal ideologies. For liberals, this type of political activism has become a beacon of hope in the quest to create a mode of political participation linking individuals at the local level to issues of global concern. For both, they are seen as largely positive expressions of genuine democratic participation in world arenas that for too long have been monoplized by states and planet-roaming corporations. And it is the Internet that is considered the fuel for such development.

Far from being an expression of democracy, Internet-based citizen activism is leading to its positive ruin, on a global scale.

But this power is greatly aided by another much noticed, though scarcely analyzed phenomenon - the mind sharing enhanced through listserve distribution.

Indymedia's model of net activism is based on collective, collaborative action...It is committed to nonviolent civil disobedience - direct action in a global arena. Indymedia is the news source compliment (sic) to the People's Global Action Network."

• Public Television Special on the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion

"The World Wildlife Fund recently proclaimed the Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion to be one of the world's most biologically diverse temperate forests. It is a distinction Americans need to know about."

• Lou Gold/Kelpie Wilson E-mail Campaign -

This is the proposed Siskiyou Wild Rivers Protected Area, encompassing a little over one million acres of public lands in the Siskiyou National Forest (863,400 acres) and adjacent lands in the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management (184,800 acres). The goal is to protect, preserve and restore the globally important objects of scientific and historic interest found in Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains.

• Siskiyou Wild Rivers - TAKE ACTION (send a fax)
• Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument Campaign

In 2000, long time conservation activists and some new business partners seized the opportunity to permanently protect the embattled wild lands and wild rivers of the Siskiyou Mountains by mounting a campaign for a one-million acre Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument. The campaign was successful in sending 15, 000 grassroots letters to President Clinton urging him to proclaim this new monument before he leaving office.

KS Wild is also involved in several campaigns in collaboration with other groups, including the national Campaign to phase out Commercial Logging on Public Lands. We currently sit on the steering committee of the Oregon Wild Campaign and the Northwest Old-Growth Campaign designed to protect the last roadless areas and mature forests in our region respectively.

Some of the campaigns are national or regional in scope, reflecting the network of activists required to push for wildland protection. Others are local so that we can address issues that take a closer look. Some campaigns will arise to address specific threats to the region including cattle grazing, off-road vehicles and large predatory species persecution.

Conservation Action Network activists sent more than 7,000 messages urging the forest service chief to reconsider his position.

In addition to the Conservation Action Network -- the action center sponsored by WWF US – WWF has other online action centers that let you make your voice heard.

• 3 sept 2002 - ACTION ALERTS

  an attempt to solicit volunteer contributions of time for letter-writing, rallies, etc - no listserv or letter-writing campaign in use

Simultaneously, in Oregon there are efforts to end the practice of clearcutting on public as well as private lands. In the recent elction (sic) in November The Sustainable Forestry Initiative was defeated. The Initiative known as Measure 64 was outspent 10 to 1 by the forest industry industrialists.

The Seventh Generation Plan is similar to the approach that is used by Working Assets. The difference is that Working Assets is a for profit company which takes 1% of its profits and divides that money among fifteen or more of the larger progressive institutions with large overheads. With The Seventh Generation Plan 100% of your moneys are dedicated to the grassroots forest defense campaigns of the OWF, a nonprofit group.

The plan is simple. If you presently use the internet and have a long distance telephone service The Seventh Generation Plan won't cost you money and if fact will probably save money. After nine months of extensive research to locate the best US communications companies OWF has reached an agreement with Teleport Inc., an excellent internet provider and Arcada Communications, a leading and cost effective long distance telephone service. Both companies are very well established and are located in the Northwest. They have both agreed to share a portion of your monthly bill with OWF. The moneys you help us raise through the Seventh Generation Plan will be used to drive the engine of The Campaign To Win to save our ancient forests from destruction.

• November 28, 2000 - Petition to Babbitt seeking endangered species protection for the fisher (Martes pennanti)

The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Noah Greenwald, American Lands, Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation, Friends of the Kalmiopsis, Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath Forest Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Predator Conservation Alliance, Siskiyou Project and Siskiyou Action Project hereby formally petition to list a distinct population segment of the fisher (Martes pennanti)...

• Biodiversity Activist

Click below to become a Biodiversity Activist and join a highly effective team of dedicated individuals in protecting endangered species and habitats. By joining, you'll periodically receive biodiversity updates and requests to help stop... (i.e. this is a listserv feature)

• list of individuals, agencies and organizations that received a copy of the final environmental impact statement

To accomplish its goals, it will address land-use conflicts in the region such as the water crisis in the Klamath Basin, the disputed process of establishing the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and the merits of the proposed Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument in the Rogue Valley.

• January 5, 2001 - It's Down to the Wire For the Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument: Now or Never (mention of the attempt to get Clinton to sign before leaving office)

  Scientists speak of the area's unique geology and a landscape that has remained unchanged by the lava flows, glaciers and other forces that dramatically altered the West during the past 200 million years. In 1993 the World Conservation Union proclaimed it one of seven areas of global botanical significance on the North American continent. A study by the World Wildlife Fund identified the Siskiyou National Forest as the most diverse in the national forest system.

• Rogue Valley Community Television
• Steve Holmer - American Lands Alliance
• Jim Jontz - American Lands Alliance (Executive Director and staff to our Global Trade working group and programs)
• Lou Gold - Siskiyou Regional Educational Project
• Chris van Daalen - Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment (have emails from)
• Darci Cronin - Headwaters
• Cate Hartzell - Collaborative Learning Circle
• Elizabeth Barclay - Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange (former ASJE staff on global trade)
• name - organization
• name - organization

• Link to list of their MEMBERS

The Bush administration will open most of the 1.2 million acres of federal land in southwestern Oregon to mining claims, drawing the ire of environmentalists who say the action threatens salmon and steelhead protected by the Endangered Species Act.

In addition to the Frontiers of Freedom/People for the USA and the BlueRibbon Coalition, other groups involved in the rally included the Alliance for America, American Land Rights, Cave Junction-based Oregonians for Responsible Conservation Alliance, Coos County Board of Commissioners, Diamond Lake Homeowners Association, Oregon Cattlemen's Association, Oregon Citizens for a Sound Economy, Oregon Hunters Association, Oregon State Snowmobile Association, Jackson County Board of Commissioners, Jackson County Cattlemen, Jackson County Farm Bureau, Jackson County Snowmobile Association, Josephine County Board of Commissioners, Oregon Snowmobilers, Siskiyou County Sportsmen, Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association and a host of others.

The news disturbed local conservationists and World Wildlife Fund officials, who had urged the Clinton and Bush administrations to designate a national monument in the area. It has 15 wild rivers tumbling through forested canyons and more than 280 plants unknown anywhere else on Earth.

Clinton has used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to justify his monument proclamations. During his entire time in office, Clinton has created or added to 10 national monuments, covering nearly 4 million western acres in his effort to carve out an environmental legacy. Clinton's top aides have stated the president plans to continue to use his authority in issuing executive orders, presidential decision directives and proclamations right up until the day he leaves office.

In a matter of days, the two of them had managed to build a local chapter of People for the USA and establish weekly meetings attracting up to 500 opponents of the monument plan.

Ever since Clinton announced his Lands Legacy Initiative in January of last year, Babbitt has been zigzagging the West looking for areas already administered by the Bureau of Land Management he deems in need of special protection by the federal government as national monuments, critical habitat areas or other designation. This year, the president has designated at least five such monuments -- but none as big as the proposed Siskiyou Wild Rivers Monument that encompasses more than one million acres of mostly rugged forest surrounding the Illinois Valley towns of Cave Junction, Selma, Kerby and O'Brien and a rural population of some 17,000.

Under the 1872 Mining Law, mining companies extract minerals from publicly owned lands without paying royalties to the federal government. This policy differs from federal policy toward the coal, oil and gas industries, all of which must pay royalties for extracting minerals from public lands. In 2000, mining corporations extracted almost $1 billion worth of minerals from public lands without any royalty payment to taxpayers. Adding insult to injury, the 130-year-old law also allows a mining company to patent, or buy, mineral-rich public land for $5 an acre or less, paying 1872 prices for land worth billions of dollars. The archaic 1872 Mining Law not only distorts the minerals market, it promotes environmental destruction of public lands because it includes no provisions for environmental protection and elevates mining as the best use of the land, regardless of other potential uses.

...launching into a history of the devastating effects of the uranium mining boom in the 1950s on the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. He reminds the audience that although new mining proposals are defeated from time to time, the more than half-million abandoned mines in the West pose equally great dangers to human health and rural communities.

• Under the 1872 Mining Law, public land is being sold for $5.00 per acre
• Since 1872, the U.S. government has given away over 3.5 million acres of public land­ an area equivalent to the state of Connecticut.
• The 1872 Mining Law forces the government to give away $2 billion - $4 billion inminerals every year
• The 1872 Mining Law has no provisions for environmental protection
• The 1872 Mining Law's lack of environmental accountability has left 557,000abandoned hardrock mine sites unreclaimed

• Advocacy Campaign Team (ACT)

is a network of individuals from the mining community who recognize the importance of becoming involved in the political process...and provides the tools necessary to easily and quickly communicate with legislators.

The trend for U.S. mining in recent years has been one of increasing uncertainty and stagnation. Our nation must pursue a National Minerals Policy that reverses that trend for both economic and security reasons. CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION!

Hard-rock mining is concentrated in the West, where much of it takes place on public land and where senators doggedly guard the industry's interests whenever there is talk of changing the General Mining Law of 1872. Virtually every year, reformers in Congress file bills to modernize the law, which allows miners to dig precious metals on public land without sharing the proceeds with the owners -- the U.S. taxpayers. Sometimes those companies go out of business, leaving the public to pay for cleaning up a toxic mess.

pro-mining Westerners held senior positions on two committees important to the region and critical to the interests of miners: Appropriations and Energy and Natural Resources.

Pro-mining senators from Alaska served as chairmen of both committees. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which must pass any substantive reform, is routinely dominated by Western senators.

The industry also is aided by a corps of generously funded lobbyists. From mid-1997 through mid-2000, mining firms spent $20.8 million on lobbyists -- more than $22,000 per day, on average, according to lobbyists' reports, analyzed by the Post-Intelligencer, based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics and Political Money Line, non-partisan organizations that track money in politics.

Our Communication Team brings you the acclaimed WALL list which is a subscription email list dedicated to the dialogue among forest activists, the OWF/WALL webpage which you are now enjoying, and maintains our growing data base

ONE OF THE MOST significant accomplishments of the Clinton administration was the shift in focus of the U.S. Forest Service from extracting resources from the national forests to managing those lands for broader benefits, including environmental and recreational values. That long-overdue change found its ultimate expression in the "roadless rule," which barred new road-building in 58.5 million acres of untouched national forest land, protecting those wild areas from future incursions.

Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) are set to introduce a bill that would turn the original Clinton rule into law. The measure has attracted 172 cosponsors, a reflection of the strong public support for the roads ban, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is preparing a companion measure in the Senate. Congress is right to put on the pressure. The values to be protected outweigh the worth of possible timber harvests or energy extraction. It's time to finish the job of putting these lands off limits.

text

A bipartisan coalition of 100 Representatives and Senators announced today their support for the Act to Save America's Forests, legislation to reverse what they called "a century of wasteful and destructive logging practices in the Federal forest system." Carl Ross, Executive Director of the Save America's Forests national organization, joined the bill's sponsors, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) for the event. Said Ross, "This new unprecedented level of support shows that the Act to Save America's Forests can run the gauntlet of logging company lobbyists and become law." The bill would curtail what it deems "destructive logging practices" (such as clearcutting) in the entire national forest system. In a statement, the bill's sponsors claimed that "over 600 leading scientists. have said the act provides the best way to save our national forests."

• We want to gather the greatest number of petition signatures in history using the power of the Internet. Let your friends know about the threats to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• March 2001: More Than 500 Scientists Call on White House to Halt Plans to Drill in Arctic Wildlife Refuge
• February 2001: Petition to Save Arctic Refuge Overwhelms White House E-Mail System - In only the first month of Defenders'’ electronic petition drive to save the refuge, supporters sent more than 650,000 e-mails to President Bush and Congress.

• Oil and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -NRDC activists sent more than 120,000 messages to senators in the three days leading up to the votes - MORE POLAR BEARS

In a crucial vote, the U.S. Senate defeated a proposal to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Conservation Action Network activists played a key role in the victory, sending more than 50,000 messages to the Senate before the vote. (compared with the 7000 for the Siskiyou issue)

The vote was a victory for the refuge, the many species that live there, and future generations of Americans. It would not have been possible without the steadfast and loyal support of grassroots activists.

According to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, the oil industry is responsible for more than 1,600 spills totaling more than 1.2 million gallons of oil and chemicals around Prudhoe Bay and along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline between 1994 and 1999.

• ANWR vote page

• ANWR

• ANWR - See how your Senators voted

• ANWR

Edit Your Letter to Congressman Tauzin and Senator Bingaman

America is increasingly dependent on overseas oil for our energy needs, yet the nation has significant energy resources that remain untapped. Congress should allow domestic production of energy in a manner that minimizes any environmental impacts, such as in ANWR. ANWR could hold as much as 16 billion barrels of crude oil. By comparison, total proven reserves in the United States are 21.8 billion barrels.

4 dec 2002 - LINK Greenpeace continues to campaign against unsafe oil tankers in the aftermath of the disastrous Prestige spill off the coast of Spain.

After delaying the departure of the Byzantio, chartered by the same company, Crown Resources, that chartered the Prestige, Greenpeace activists confronted the ship off the coast of Denmark and then attached a banner and climbed the ship when it docked in Rotterdam this afternoon.

As well today, Greenpeace activists "decorated" the headquarters of Crown Resources in Zug, Switzerland with waste from the Prestige spill.

More than ten thousand people from around the world have sent letters to the International Maritime Organization. This is the fastest response ever to a Greenpeace international cyberaction. Thank you to everyone who has participated.