March / April 1993
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The Ecologist Vol 23 No 2 March/April 1993 C * £3 (US $6) My Enemy's Enemies A "Model" Indian Coal Mine Women Evade WID Diversity's Decline •The Great Snail Disaster ISSN D5L1-3131 03 > The Flag of Convenience Multinationals and Maastricht i "770261H313003 Subscribe to Bioscience The biologist's monthly magazine "Editorial standards are excellent, guaranteeing that the papers can be understood by all biologists. As I have traveled worldwide, I hear Bioscience strongly praised by all biologists!" —David Pimentel, Department of Entomology, Cornell University "Bioscience brings to biological scientists the important issues of Whence Bat Fii#»t? the day that affect future directions of research."—Paul Stumpf, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California at Davis Join AIBS and start your subscription today! 1993 Rates (per year): Individual @ $49.50 Name Family @ $68.50 Address Sustaining @ $73.00 Emeritus @ $31.50 Charge my: Mastercard _ VISA _ Exp. 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Tel: (617) 253-2889 Copyright: The Ecologist 1993 The Ecologist is available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, 300 North Zeeb St., Ann Arbor, Ml, USA Publisher The EDWARD GOLDSMITH Founding Editors Ecologist Vol. 23, No. 2, March/April 1993 EDWARD GOLDSMITH PETER BUNYARD Editorial Editorial NICHOLAS HILDYARD SARAH SEXTON My Enemy's Enemies. 42 SIMON FAIRLIE Nicholas Hildyard Managing Editor SALLY SNOW Feature Articles Associate Editors PATRICIA ADAMS Maastricht: The Protectionism of Free Trade 45 Probe International (Canada) Nicholas Hildyard TRACEY CLUNIES-ROSS (England) The legislation of the European Single Market has been forged to accomodate MARCUS COLCHESTER World Rainforest Movement the interests of the multinational companies that have actively lobbied for its (England) creation. The Maastricht Treaty on European Union, if ratified, will hand RAYMOND DASMANN over to these multinational interests much of the legal and executive power University of California, Santa Cruz (USA) hitherto invested in national governments. SAMUEL S. EPSTEIN University of Illinois (USA) Piparwar: White Industries' Black Hole 52 ROSS HUME HALL Satinath Sarangi and Carol Sherman (USA) SANDY IRVINE For decades, the coal mines of South Bihar in India have ravaged the The Green Party (England) environment and displaced peasants from their lands — but they have at MICK KELLY least provided some employment for those displaced. The new Australian- University of East Anglia (England) funded mine at Piparwar, however, is so highly mechanized that displaced MARTIN KHOR KOK PENG people will be deprived of any chance of earning a living. Many in the area Consumers Association of Penang (Malaysia) are now opposing all future mining. SMITHU KOTHARI Lokayan Social Action Canadian Aid, Women and Development: Rebaptizing the Filipina . 57 Group (India) SIGMUND KVAL0Y Colette St-Hilaire Ecopolitical Ring of Cooperation (Norway) Like many "Women in Development" projects, SHIELD, a community LARRY LOHMANN (USA) programme in the Philippines, has redefined women rather than empowered PATRICK MCCULLY them. In their new role as objects and subjects of development, they are (Northern Ireland) offered unattainable dreams and unrepayable loans, to which they respond JOHN MILTON with wry and evasive resistance. (USA) JIMOH OMO-FADAKA African Environmental The Decline of Diversity in European Agriculture . 64 Network (Kenya) JOHN PAPWORTH Renee Vellve Fourth World Review (England) The loss of biodiversity, often portrayed as a 'Third World " issue, is an equally ROBERT PRESCOTT-ALLEN serious problem for the North. The standardization of European agriculture PA DATA (Canada) has caused a dramatic decline in the number of crop species and varieties JOHN SEED available, while modern breeding techniques are leading to dangerous Rainforest Information Centre (Australia) genetic uniformity. VANDANA SHIVA Research Centre for Science and Ecology (India) The Philippine Snail Disaster . 70 ROBERT WALLER Bridget Anderson Commonwealth Human Ecology Centre (England) RICHARD WILSON The Golden Apple Snail was introduced into the Philippines as a source of (England) food and cash for poor and landless peasants. Instead it has devastated DONALD WORSTER ricefields and widened the gap between rich and poor. University of Kansas (USA) EDITORIAL OFFICE, Books. 73 AGRICULTURE HOUSE, BATH ROAD, STURMINSTER NEWTON, DORSET, Letters 77 DT10 1DU, ENGLAND, UK. TEL +44-258-73476 FAX +44-258-73748 Cover design by Sarah Sexton, map by Pete Sonderskov. E-MAIL [email protected] The Ecologist is printed on recycled paper, whitened with hydrogen peroxide. The Ecologist, Vol. 23, No. 2, March/April 1993 41 My Enemy's Enemies ... In opposing destructive developments within their own commu munity, our campaigns are often not a response to direct nities, local peoples are often cannily opportunistic in the threats to our livelihoods or to an environment on which we actions they take and the alliances they forge to increase their depend for our immediate needs, but to threats to other bargaining power. Rivalries between those who would impose peoples' livelihoods and environments — or even more ab a project — different government departments, for example, or stractly, to "people" and "nature". The issues we professional companies competing for the work — may be exploited to good campaigners tend to embrace are not limited to achieving effect; outside pressure groups approached to bring their specific objectives (stopping a dam here or banning a given support to the local cause; the vanity (or genuine doubts) of harmful chemical there) but are driven by open-ended, officials played up to in order to obtain inside information; and amorphous ones — "saving the planet", "social justice", "hu the cause of individual species or particular social groups few man rights", "gender equity", "fair trade" or whatever. And, just had previously concerned themselves with adopted as symbols as the global reach of multinationals permits them to evade of resistance, if to do so wins the day. Who, for example, had political control by any given community, so there is a danger heard of the snail darter before opponents