Posted by brianc on April 11, 2001 at 15:59:47:
In Reply to: Devil's Advocate posted by mattschechter on April 11, 2001 at 15:31:45:
Matt,
I'm chief biologist for a company that does business in over 50 countries. I work on modelling to reduce pesticide use. Many of the poorer countries that we work with have very strong environmental laws. Often stronger than U.S. laws. The enforcement of those laws, however, is often non-existant. The laws and regulations were written for various reasons, sometimes political, but more often financial. International lending and granting sources sometimes require environmental regulations be enacted before funds become available. Hence, the environmentally favorable legislation. Without enforcement, though, these laws are meaningless.
The U.S.A. is not without fault in this. I have worked with a major company in the U.S. in an environmentally sensitive area that did not want to use our monitoring equipment because it was too accurate and produced records that could be used in court by environmental groups. The growers they worked with always turned in reporting data that met government standards. The company did not know how this was achieved and they did not want to know. All they knew was that they had reports to turn in to the EPA that were accepted.
Another instance is the loss of the temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest. It is being lost faster than the Amazon tropical rainforest. Replanting by logging companies of clear-cut forests does not replace or repair the damaged ecosystem, but it meets the letter of the law.
As long as toothless laws and regulations can be passed, the only sure solution is to go to the extreme of complete bans. I think that's sad, but I also think it's realistic.