Text :
19.04.01 :
Brazil : Dam-affected block access to IDB-funded dam project
(Minaçu, Goiás, Brazil) Since yesterday,
some 500 men, women, and children have been camped, blocking access
roads to the Cana Brava dam construction site. They have been protesting
delays and inadequacies in the resettlement and compensation programs
offered by the dam's constructors, Belgian company Tractebel, which
received a $160.2 million loan from the Inter-American Development
Bank.
The complaints of the dam-affected populations were
to have been discussed this week in a meeting with the National Electrical
Energy Agency, ANEEL, but the government agency cancelled the meeting
without explanation.
For its part, the Inter-American Development Bank
has refused to respond to letters from international NGOs and from
the National Movement of Dam-Affected People (MAB), and it is unclear
what action, if any, the Private Sector agency of the IDB is taking
to guarantee fair and adequate compensation to the dam-affected. The
IDB has also stood out among regional development banks in its refusal
to take measures aimed at implementing the recommendations of the
independent World Commission on Dams, which it supported financially.
For more information: Vilmar, MAB +55.62.9605.4574,
Silvani, MAB +55.11.232.1328, IRN +55.11.3666.5853
17.04.01 : France : prochaine
réforme de la Loi sur l'Eau.
Une nouvelle loi sur l'eau (qui va remplacer celle
de 1992) va bientôt être soumise au Parlement .
Elle devrait, entre autre, renforcer le principe
poullueur-payeur.
Vous trouverez tout un dossier d'information sur le site du Ministère
de l'Environnement :
http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/dossiers/eau/reforme/default.htm
Un colloque sur ce sujet est par ailleurs organisé
par France Nature Environnement :
"Quels enjeux pour une gestion durable et équitable?"
1ère session : "Force et faiblesse de la politique de
l'eau en France"
2ième session : Les enjeux d'une nouvelle politique de l'eau;
Table ronde loi sur l'eau 2001; Quels objectifs pour quels usages?
Discours de clôture par Dominique Voynet
Ce colloque aura lieu le 22 mai 2001, salle de conférence V.
Hugo, 101, rue de l'Université, Paris 7
17.04.01 : Consumers are prevented
from using water efficiency measures
Water consumers in Europe are being prevented from using devices that
can substantially cut their water consumption, due high prices and
a lack of information on the technology, according to a new report
by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
For full article : http://www.edie.net/news/Archive/4105.cfm
11.04.01 : Energy Production,
Sprawl Threaten America's Rivers
By Cat Lazaroff
Washington, DC (ENS) - Energy production is slowly strangling some
of nation's most beloved rivers and the species that rely on them,
a new report charges. The 16th annual "America's Most Endangered
Rivers" report from American Rivers finds that almost half of
the 13 rivers cited have been damaged by impacts of hydropower dams,
fossil fuel drilling and pollution from fuel burning.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-11-06.html
09.04.01 :
WCD Mention in G8 Environment Summit Communiqué
Paragraphs on ECAs from the final communiqué
of G8 Environment Summit in Trieste, Italy, at beginning of March,
2001.
Environmental Guidelines for Export Credit Agencies
34. Export Credit Agencies (ECAs), given their important
function in supporting export trade and facilitating investment in
economic development and infrastructure projects, can play a key leadership
role in fostering sustainable development. ECAs should therefore take
necessary actions to ensure that environmentally negative impacts,
both local and global, arising from the projects benefiting from their
support are mitigated and minimized.
35. The potential of ECAs to contribute to sustainable
development needs to be fostered through a strong and effective commitment
of the international community to quickly develop and implement common
binding environmental guidelines for ECAs' for encouraging strengthened
integration of environmental consideration in investment decisions.
These common guidelines should be based on the practices of other
internationally recognized, publicly supported multilateral finance
agencies such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank. ECAs
should also adopt common measures to increase the transparency of
their decision making process, including public access to environmental
information, public consultation and consideration of relevant elements
of the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams (WCD).
36. We therefore welcome and urge special effort to
meet the commitment taken by the G8 Heads of State and Government
in Cologne and Okinawa to develop common environmental guidelines
for ECAs by the July, 2001 G8 Summit. We welcome the work carried
out so far within the OECD towards common approaches on the environment
and on officially supported export credits, look forward to the report
on progress of the OECD Export Credit Group (ECG) to the OECD Ministerial
Council 2001, and call for increased and urgent attention to this
issue to ensure its successful and rapid completion.
05.04.01 :
WCD Wins 2001 Institutional Award from International Association of
Impact Assessment
Global, 2,500 member organisation recognises WCD's
review of environmental, social impacts and recommendations to incorporate
impact assessment into decision-making
Cape Town, 02 April, 2001 -- The International Association
for Impact Assessment (IAIA) has selected the World Commission on
Dams to receive the IAIA Institutional Award, to be presented in Cartagena,
Colombia later this year.
This year's Institution Award recognises the WCD "for
its contribution to the policy debate about the environmental and
social impacts of large infrastructure projects, and for urging that
due consideration be given to incorporation of impact assessment in
consideration of any project."
IAIA is a global umbrella organisation of environmental
decision-makers and impact assessment specialists and practitioners,
with 2,500 members in over 100 nations around the globe. It is a forum
for advancing innovation, development and communication of best practice
in impact assessment. Its international membership promotes development
of local and global capacity for the application of environmental
assessment in which sound science and full public participation provide
a foundation for equitable an sustainable development.
The upcoming meeting in Cartagena will be a landmark
in the organisation's history as the first meeting held in South America,
and will expect a turnout of 1,000 people from over 80 nations.
"On behalf of the Commission, I am delighted
and honoured to accept this generous award," said WCD Chair Prof.
Kader Asmal. "When a group of professional peers - and in this
case the world's leading experts in the field of impact assessment
- makes such an award it is a particularly valued tribute. I use the
word tribute to recognise that the WCD was a collective effort- involving
so many across very deep divides of experience and perspectives. To
nevertheless be recognised in this way by IAIA is thus also a celebration
of the triumph of hard-won and pragmatic consensus over ongoing conflict
or paralysis."
For more information, please contact: James Workman
World Commission on Dams Secretariat PO Box 16002, Vlaeberg, Cape
Town. 8018 South Africa * +27 21 426-4000 Fax: + 27 21 426 0036 Mobile
(27) 83 680 6155 E-mail contact: jworkman@dams.org/
Home Page: http://www.dams.org
05.04.01 : WCD: Changing of
the Guard: New Director Appointed for Transition Period
As IUCN-bound Achim Steiner steps down, Jeremy Bird
to lead transition Secretariat through August, when follow-on Unit
is scheduled to start
Cape Town, 02 April 2001 -The WCD Report was published
and widely disseminated starting last November 16. As scheduled, the
Commission has been effectively and successfully "decommissioned."
The WCD has formally completed its dissemination phase. Secretary-General
Achim Steiner, like the bulk of the Secretariat, has departed to face
new challenges elsewhere.
Gone, but not forgotten, the spirit and momentum of
the WCD is scheduled to live on in a newly established, independent
Dams & Development Unit (DDU), hosted, provisionally, by the United
Nations Environment Program, as requested by a broad consensus of
the Final WCD Forum. That unit is scheduled to start work August 1,
2001.
Consequently, at the request of the Forum, Professor
Kader Asmal has agreed that from April 1 through July 31, a small
crew from the WCD Secretariat will bridge the gap through a transition
effort. The group will be led by former Senior Advisor Jeremy Bird,
a specialist in river basin management, water resources and irrigation
policy with extensive experience in Asia.
The new and independent transition group will continue
to carry out the dissemination and communication efforts, following
in the footsteps of the WCD and preparing for a smooth hand over to
the future DDU.
This agenda was made explicit in the proposal that
arose in the Final WCD Forum meeting at Spier, as detailed from an
independent facilitator's "Sense of the Meeting":
"After extended discussions in the ensuing two
days, members of the Forum agreed in the final session to work through
their diverse governmental, private sector and civil society organisations
and affiliations: * To ensure widespread dissemination and understanding
of the report, its findings and recommendations, in particular within
countries from the national to local level and among all sectors.
Further translations of the report will be promoted. * To promote
testing, refinement and adaptation in implementing the Commission's
proposed guidelines in the varied practical contexts world-wide, for
example concerning the assessment of options and the practicality
of the WCD recommendations. * To promote dialogue, information exchange
and networking in working with the WCD report.
Given that the Commission has completed its mandate
and consequently the WCD Secretariat will be closed and the role of
the Forum in advising the Commission has come to an end, the Spier
meeting mandated the Forum Liaison Group (FLG) to take the lead in
establishing new arrangements for the dissemination and implementation
of the WCD report."
As a result of the Forum meeting, details are being
worked out for: a Dams and Development Unit (DDU), a small office
to be established by August 1, 2001, that would be charged with facilitating
the exchange of information among all stakeholders about initiatives
and outcomes relating to dams and development, and to co-ordinate
future meetings. The DDU will have a mandate to operate for two years.
For more information, please contact: James Workman
World Commission on Dams Secretariat PO Box 16002, Vlaeberg, Cape
Town. 8018 South Africa * +27 21 426-4000 Fax: + 27 21 426 0036 Mobile
(27) 83 680 6155 E-mail contact: jworkman@dams.org/
Home Page: http://www.dams.org
