IN BRIEF.

PLANTING TREES FOR THE FUTURE

In an ideal world, sustainable tourism adds value to nature, thus helping avert the kind of development that spews greenhouse gases into the air. Unfortunately, just stepping on an airplane to begin your trip can contribute to the problem.

On average, for each mile flown en route to your destination, one pound of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere. But until non-fossil fuel options become a more realistic choice, the nonprofit Trees for the Future can help offset your negative effect.

Each tree planted through the organization's Trees for Travel program absorbs about 50 pounds of carbon dioxide for each of the first 30 years of the tree's active growth. "Since 1989, we have helped plant over 20 million trees in some of the most environmentally degraded parts of the world," says Bill Ligon, executive director of Trees For The Future. The organization has helped rejuvenate denuded landscapes in more than 60 countries.

Working cooperatively through the local community, Trees for the Future initiates projects that help restore watersheds, reduce soil erosion, provide wildlife habitat, enhance wood used as fuel and building material, and cultivate livelihoods in agroforestry that reduce pressure on forested lands.

In Cameroon, for example, the organization has partnered with the community-based Lun Women's Cooperative in a tree planting program to address soil erosion, low soil fertility and shortages of firewood. "Less than five years later, the Lun Cooperative has become self-sufficient," says Scott Bode, African program director, "Now the Cooperative, using money from tree seedling sales, is moving into other sustainable development activities."

Because humid tropic and sub-tropic areas sustain tree growth at a rate three times that of temperate zones--thus tripling the carbon dioxide-sequestering effect--many projects are initiated in these regions. Since 1998 when Hurricane Mitch first devastated Honduras, Trees For The Future has distributed over four million trees there to help mitigate the effect of future catastrophic storms, and to mobilize communities around alternatives to more damaging land-use practices.

Independent travelers can purchase a $30 Tree Planting Certificate that pays for 200 trees in developing countries such as Honduras, Cameroon, Ethiopia and the Philippines. Some tour groups and agencies also make donations on the behalf of ecotravelers: Ecotour operator Tread Lightly Ltd. automatically contributes $1 (seven trees) for every long distance airline ticket it sells; agencies Escape Artists Travel in San Francisco and Skyward Travel in Takoma Park, Maryland make similar contributions.

While it won't solve global warming single-handedly, Trees For The Future may help delay the consequences, at least until "flying the friendly skies" truly becomes more eco-friendly. CONTACT: Trees For The Future, [phone], www.treesftf.org.

--John Ivanko

FOR MALARIA: THE COCONUT CURE

The World Health Organization estimates that malaria kills about 2.7 million people annually, about twice as many as AIDS. Half a billion more suffer fever, chills, muscle pain and other symptoms of the disease.

It's no secret that Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis H-14 (Bti) can be used to wipe out the insects that spread malaria. The spore-forming bacterium provides an environmental alternative to highly toxic insecticides like DDT, which is banned in the U.S. But until Peruvian scientist Palmira Ventosilla and a team of researchers developed a cheap and easy incubation method, it might as well have been.

A coconut becomes the only lab necessary when a cotton swab containing Bti is placed inside and sealed. After fermenting for two to three days, the coconuts are split open and left in mosquito-breeding ponds. Mosquito larvae ingest the Bti toxin, which is lethal for them but safe for other life forms and the environment.

"This is the first project of its kind where the community is directly involved in malaria prevention," says Ventosilla who, in 1998, completed a successful seven-year pilot project on Peru's northern coast. Now her research team has been asked to bring the project to the Peruvian Amazon, where researchers found that tea made from the cheap and abundant yuca plant could replace the coconut. The U.S.-based Rivers of the World (ROW) funded a laboratory, and the first applications began last December. The only ingredient not found locally are the Bti swabs, which the health ministry has agreed to provide.

Ventosilla has already trained a team of Mexican scientists, and ROW has expressed interest in transferring the technology to Africa, where many countries still use DDT to combat malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

"The conservative wing of the scientific community has been slow to accept the possibilities for transforming agriculture with ecological production," says Luis Gomero of Peru's Action Network for Alternatives to Agrochemicals. Economic power wielded by large pesticide manufacturers poses a further stumbling block, along with fears from nations with high malaria rates.

"We cannot ban these insecticides because we don't have alternatives," Berhane Mikail, an Ethiopian health official, said last year. Every year around 160,000 Ethiopians die from malaria and millions more contract the disease. But

Ventosilla points out that since the early 1970s, mosquitoes have been developing resistance to pesticides, including DDT. She says her team's simple and inexpensive method of producing Bti, combined with such precautions as using mosquito nets and paving irrigation channels, provides the long-awaited alternative for developing nations. CONTACT: Rivers of the World, [phone], www.row.org.

--Stephanie Boyd

CALIFORNIA CONDORS IN ARIZONA SKIES

There's a unique experiment going on in the skies over northern Arizona these days. Huge, black vultures -- California condors, with wingtips like slender fingers--soar over canyon, desert and forest, circling nimbly on updrafts. Among the rarest birds in the world, the endangered condor is a resourceful pioneer, forging a new path for its species' survival.

The Arizona Condor Recovery Project, sponsored by the Idaho-based Peregrine Fund, has released 35 young birds into the Arizona wilderness since 1996, in an innovative recovery effort to return them to an area that was part of their range less than a century ago. The Fund's field team tracks the fledglings daily using radio telemetry, providing food and intervening in emergencies. Still, the birds face a formidable challenge--they are learning to be wild again, by trial and error.

Since condors were first released in Arizona in 1996, 15 have died and five have been returned to captivity after becoming too friendly with humans. Biologist Shawn Farry, condor project manager for Arizona, says that despite these setbacks the remaining birds are adapting well. The most recent fatalities occurred this summer when at least three birds succumbed to lead poisoning after ingesting shotgun pellets, presumably from carcasses on which they were feeding.

Condors are scavengers, and this new lead risk echoes hazards encountered by condors in California, where captive-bred birds were first released in 1992. California U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Greg Austin says researchers there have found high lead levels, but there has so Par been no evidence of poisoning deaths. Scientists nevertheless count lead poisoning and collisions with power lines the two biggest threats to condors in California. "All of these present-day hazards are human-caused," Austin says.

Mike Small, wildlife team leader for the Bureau of Land Management in Arizona, says the lead incidents could be indicative of a larger problem. "Condors are the most monitored bird in this part of the world right now. How many animals are being affected without anyone knowing?"

Lead-free ammunition is available, but hunters have been slow to switch, partly due to increased cost. "The birds have to change and adapt," says Farry, "but they can't stop being scavengers. We have to change if we want condors around."

Another dozen birds are scheduled for release in Arizona within a year. In the meantime, some of the older birds are expected to reach sexual maturity soon and may begin to breed in the wild, creating Arizona's first generation of wild condors in 100 years. CONTACT: Arizona Condor Recovery Project, [phone]; Peregrine Fund, [phone], www.peregrinefund.org.

--Joanne Rideout

MAKING GARBAGE VISIBLE

It stands to reason that if garbage were not so invisible, we might not have so much of it. Trash disappears into bags and gets hauled to the landfill, never to be thought of again. But a growing army of environmental artists is bringing disposables back into the limelight. By using garbage in their art, they encourage recycling and raise awareness of the ecological problems associated with waste disposal.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the artist in residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation since 1977, is a leader in this effort. Ukeles made headlines with "Touch Sanitation," a performance piece in which the artist shook hands with 8,500 garbagemen, and she was among the first to combine recycled glass and asphalt in paving.

Today, Ukeles is focused on the Fresh Kills Landfill, the Staten Island behemoth scheduled to close at the end of this year. As the city searches for a design team to create a park on the site after it closes, Ukeles is planning a work of revelatory art that will celebrate the site's history. "This could be a site of transformation, where people could see our power to take something that was degraded and heal it," Ukeles says. "But we can't forget what it was, because if you do that, you excuse yourself from the problems."

Estelle Akamine is one of 30 artists who have participated in an artist-in-residence program at San Francisco's Norcal Waste Transfer Site. There, Akamine wove clothing out of recycled material to force people to acknowledge waste--because "no one wants garbage next to their skin," she says. Mini-blinds, six-pack rings and garbage bags all became formal wear for a charity gala.

Two museums in Connecticut use art to teach reuse as well. At the Children's Garbage Museum in Stratford, the "Trash-o-saurus" is a 24-foot-long dinosaur made entirely of refuse--trash as intimidating creature. At the Mid-Connecticut Project Visitor Center in Hartford, educators point to items embedded in the "Temple of Trash"--from candy wrappers to bicycles--and identify whether they can be reused.

More than a quarter of the U.S. population recycles. But as long as most people let trash disappear into far-away landfills, these artists will continue their work. For a closed landfill in Israel, Ukeles recently proposed a system of lights that will dance across the mound, color-coded according to the site's toxicity. That way, as the land begins to heal, everybody can watch. CONTACT: The Children's Garbage Museum, [phone].

--Kim A. O'Connell

THIS LITTLE PIGGY CREATES WASTE

Now imagine the combined power of thousands of piggies packed into a single building, with each swine producing 10 pounds of waste per day. Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are becoming a horrifically polluting hallmark of competitive agriculture.

Waste from the pigs is washed out into large holding ponds, called lagoons. A three-acre waste lagoon from a typical CAFO can leak up to a million gallons a year, according to the North Carolina-based Hog Watch, a project of Environmental Defense. Lagoon waste is also sprayed on fields, where rain can wash it into adjoining water supplies. Because dust and gasses from hog firms can travel up to two miles, neighbors often complain of respiratory problems.

Plans for a massive hog production plant in Eastern Idaho were narrowly defeated last fall, after a yearlong struggle between hog boosters and local environmental groups. The Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Board, in a close six-to-five vote, denied a request by farmer David Robison to build a 100,000-hog facility near the town of Roberts. Robison, who farms 5,000 acres, had offered the latest in a series of proposals for area hog production facilities.

"This facility will provide good paying jobs with health benefits and pay $150,000 a year in property taxes," promised Robison, who during testimony at a heated board meeting held up a jar of bull testicles and claimed someone put them on his doorstep with a threatening note. Robison added that the tax money "will be a shot in the arm for our farm economy."

Lianne Buxton, president of the Jefferson County Coalition for Clean Air and Water, led the opposition. "Almost no one favored the hog facilities, except a few large landowners wanting to sell out to corporate hog producers," she argues. "These landowners are in bad shape because of several years of poor crop prices." The Jefferson County complex, which would have included a slaughterhouse and grain mill, was slated to produce a million hogs per year.

"A few of us got together and were able to stop this environmental nightmare," says Denise Cooley, a Coalition member. "At the beginning we had no political experience and the hog people appeared to be invincible. But soon the whole county was involved, so we got a lot of help. Our neighbors were glad we took a stand." CONTACT: Hog Watch, [phone], www.hogwatch.org; Jefferson County Coalition for Clean Air and Water, [phone], [e-mail].

--Michael Fryer