DISPATCHES
The Spirit Bear Lives On
Along Canada's western seaboard, one of the largest remaining tracts of temperate rainforest provides a vast primeval habitat for grizzly bears, wolves, eagles, and the "spirit bear," a rare, white-colored black bear that exists nowhere else on earth. Clearcut logging and mining have narrowed crucial habitat and threatened the survival of many animals, as well as many sites important to the region's indigenous communities. Over the past 10 years NRDC has worked with Canada's First Nations, local and national environmental groups, and the government of British Columbia to establish permanent protections for the rainforest. In February, the province set aside a quarter of the region's 20 million acres as the Great Bear Rainforest Park. First Nations will manage the park in an effort to sustain the land for generations to come.
-- Cassie King
Teaching Them a Lesson
For years, teachers and students at the Avalon Gardens Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles complained about odors and clouds of "steam" emanating from a large manufacturing plant situated less than 500 feet from the schoolyard. Residents of the predominantly Latino and African American neighborhood worried about the thin film left on their cars, homes, and lawns. The plant, owned by Falcon Foam, was making polystyrene foam for building insulation and packing material, and it was one of Southern California's largest emitters of volatile organic compounds, including cancer-causing benzene and formaldehyde. Local advocates alerted NRDC to the problem in 2004, and NRDC filed suit against the Atlas Roofing Corporation, the parent company of Falcon Foam, for violating the Clean Air Act. In March, Atlas Roofing settled the case and agreed to close the Falcon Foam plant.
-- Erin Kiley
Forces for Nature
NRDC honored John Esposito (far left), president and CEO of the Warner Music Group's Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corporation, and NRDC trustee and global warming crusader Laurie David (center left) with this year's Forces for Nature Awards. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (center right) and NRDC president Frances Beinecke (far right) spoke at the event, which was held in New York City on April 6.
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Agricultural giants in California's Central Valley are siphoning off irrigation water from the upper San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in record high amounts, their huge pumps routinely sucking spawning fish and their young into 15-footwide pipes in the process. One species, the delta smelt, found only in the Bay Area, is now perilously close to extinction; just a few decades ago the tiny smelt was the most common fish around. Scientists have also documented declining populations of bass, sturgeon, and other fish, but the once-abundant smelt's near disappearance suggests that the delta is now on the verge of collapse. The sharp drop prompted NRDC and other conservation groups to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the species as endangered. Protecting the smelt would benefit the 22 million Californians who rely on the waterway for drinking water, as well as the fishermen and local communities that depend on a healthy delta for their livelihoods.
-- Erika Brekke
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