IN BRIEF.

USING DOGS TO SAVE BEARS

Bears that threaten people or wreak havoc foraging for food are a little harder to deter than the average pest. In the usual scenario, they are trapped and relocated, and if the bear returns, it must be killed--not a popular solution. It took biologist Carrie Hunt and a team of Karelian Bear Dogs to teach a life-saving lesson to problem bears.

Hunt first got the idea in 1982 to so terrify bears with dog teams that they run away, never to return. "I went looking for a breed of dog that could get out there and push bears away safely," she says. Hunt focused on Karelian Bear Dogs--a breed that originated in Finland as companions for big game hunts. In 1990, Hunt found her foundation dog, Cassie, who "showed me it could be done." Cassie and her teammates now live and train with Hunt at the Wind River Bear Institute (WRBI) in Heber City, Utah.

In Hunt's technique, a nuisance grizzly or black bear is trapped and released at the scene of its crime. Red pepper spray and rubber bullets shot from a 12-gauge shotgun sting the bear as it runs from the cage, and a firecracker-like explosion rockets it into all-out panic mode. As the bear flees, it's chased by ferociously barking dogs. It's no wonder the bears don't return.

The dog teams have left conservationists enthusiastic. Brian Peck, wildlife consultant with the Great Bear Foundation and Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project, says, "In my opinion, Carrie's work is top flight, real cutting-edge stuff that is saving grizzly bears." Hunt works with Tim Manley of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, who maintains his own dog team, but Peck would like to see more Karelian teams on the job, including two in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and two in Yellowstone. Grizzly bear advocate James Musgrove agrees, adding, "Carrie Hunt and Tim Manley are doing important work, but lots of grizzly bears are still getting killed around Glacier and Yellowstone. This is a good cause that is helping bears."

The method's success rate is high: The overwhelming majority of problem bears are conditioned to move to an area where they will be safe. Derek Reich, WRBI media coordinator, reports that interest has also been expressed in using dogs to save Asiatic black bears in Japan and polar bears in Manitoba, Canada. CONTACT: Wind River Bear Institute, [phone], www.beardogs.org. --Terra Hangen

DUMP THE YAZOO PUMPS!

Last September, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced a recommended drainage plan for the Yazoo Backwater Area, affecting a significant portion of the Mississippi River floodplain. The $181 billion Yazoo Backwater Pumps would become the world's largest hydraulic pumping plant, with a target area of 200,000 acres of wetlands to be drained for agricultural purposes.

Then-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt called the plan, which would benefit a relatively small number of landowners, the "most cockamamie" project he'd ever encountered, noting that the Yazoo River Basin is a haven for migratory birds, floodplain fisheries and wetlands wildlife.

The Yazoo Backwater Area, which extends above Vicksburg, Mississippi, approximately 60 miles along the Mississippi River, historically has functioned as a natural floodwater storage area for the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers and is isolated by a complex levee system. During low stages on the Mississippi River, flood control locks are opened seasonally to drain the interior floodplain waters. The Corps' Yazoo Pumps plan would drain water impounded by levees during high stages on the Mississippi River.

The Corps' plan was immediately criticized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), which has made significant progress working with private landowners to restore more than 33,000 acres of cropland to forested wetlands and other flood-compatible uses. Oaks, cypress and other hardwood species were replanted to help restore wetlands lost due to 1930s-era federal flood control policies.

According to Charles Baxter, Yazoo Backwater Evaluation Team Leader for the USFWS, "The Corps' recommended plan would trade off nationally significant fish and wildlife resources for further agricultural drainage."

Six environmental groups--Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Mississippi Wildlife Federation, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, Gulf Restoration Network and the National Audubon Society--also oppose the pump project.

Don McKenzie of the Wildlife Management Institute asks, "How much cropland does this country need? The Corps wants to spend almost $200 million draining wetlands to increase agricultural acreage while ignoring the fact that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending $1.6 billion per year to retire millions of acres of unneeded cropland." According to Earthjustice, this single Corps project would damage twice as many acres of wetlands as are destroyed by all other public and private projects across the nation during an entire year.

In its "Yazoo Backwater Area Reformulation Study," the (USFWS) recommends an alternative approach be found for the Yazoo Backwater Area that balances agricultural development with floodplain restoration. CONTACT: USFWS Yazoo Backwater Evaluation Team, [phone], http://southeast.fws.gov/yazoobackwater.html; Wildlife Management Institute, [phone], www.dumpthepumps.org. --Lawrence Wells

THE BORNEO PROJECT THINKS AHEAD

Helping to save the planet's oldest tropical rainforest is more about empowering people than rescuing trees. That's the philosophy of Earth Island Institute's Borneo Project, which for the past 10 years has aided indigenous peoples of the world's third-largest island in preserving both their forests and culture.

Begun as a sister-city relationship between Berkeley, California, and the Kayan village of Uma Bawang in Sarawak, Malaysia, the Borneo Project has branched out to help more than 50 villages map their ancestral lands, an essential step in asserting rights against logging companies and palm oil plantations. Other initiatives have included reforestation efforts, support for local artisans--several products can he purchased on the Borneo Project's web site--and, currently, a pilot micro-hydro project to replace a diesel generator with clean electricity.

The latest venture, done in partnership with Green Empowerment and Friends of Malaysia, will divert a portion of stream flow to a generating turbine. "There's no dam, and we don't heat the water," says Wick Pancoast, the Borneo Project's Executive Director. "The turbine is fairly low-tech, so it can be maintained locally. It will provide lights and refrigeration for 400 people."

Another work in progress involves the Penan tribe, a nomadic people ravaged by development. "We're trying to help develop marketing strategies to sell the gorgeous rattan mats the Penans weave," says Joe Lamb, the Borneo Project's founder and inspirational leader. Lamb cites challenges both in finding markets and in maintaining a supply of native materials. Assistance in developing sustainable resource management practices is another Borneo Project priority. "The forest that is legally theirs is a spectacular resource that can provide the opportunity for a whole new future," Lamb says.

The path to that future is not easy. Many tribes have had to shift from traditional to modern societies in a single generation. Children are leaving home to get the only work they can: as loggers and palm oil producers. This trend, and the bribing of some community headmen, have led to deep rifts within once-harmonious communities. "The pace of change has been staggering," says Pancoast, "I think of our work as change management."

The people, like the forest, are resilient, though. Pancoast considers the project's greatest success to be its development of human resources, leading to awareness of rights and opportunities and, ultimately, empowerment.

They're in it for the long haul, say the leaders of the Borneo Project. With respect to ancient forests and civilizations, that only makes sense. CONTACT: The Borneo Project, [phone], www.earthisland.org/borneo /topic/our_work.html. --Tom Joseph

NATURAL WORSHIP IN MEXICO

Religious pilgrims are trampling the grounds of the El Carmen monastery in the Sierra del Nixcongo Mountains near Mexico City. Thousands of them flock there on Catholic holidays to set up camp and walk a forest path that recreates Jesus' crucifixion. But they don't just walk. They drive through the forest and park wherever they can find room. Opportunistic food vendors caught on, setting up shop in a clearing that was meant for meditation and reflection, not hot dog sales.

The result has been air and water pollution, soil erosion and an endangered canopy of cedar, spruce and oak trees along the steeply declining, half-mile path, which starts in the tiny village of El Carmen (population 1,000) and leads to the monastery. The site got so bad that Padre Carlos Martinez, a former head monk at the monastery, sent out a call for help. Enter six University of Arizona architecture and landscape architecture students. For their semester project in a class taught by professors Chuck Albanese and Marlo Schjetnan, the students developed a plan to manage runoff, limit erosion and direct the flow of people and cars near the monastery. They drew up plans for campgrounds, a re-paved path and a series of reflecting pools to collect rainwater. They designed a visitor's center and an open-air marketplace near the entrance so vendors wouldn't need to encroach on the path.

The students also got a bit spiritual. They designed a retaining wall with niches where pilgrims could leave religious artitacts, and they suggested ways to stabilize a series of uprooted "cross stations," markers along the path that depict Jesus' last days.

"We're trying to bridge tourists, the community, the forests and the monastery, and at the same time keep the sacred pathway intact," says student Harry Cooper.

So far, the padre likes what he's seen. "I am very impressed by this experience," Martinez said after reviewing the students' plans in December. "For us Carmelites in Mexico, this convent, this monastery, is like the heart of our whole institution." CONTACT: University of Arizona Architecture School, [phone] or [phone], http://architecture.arizona.edu/landscape.html. --Eric Weslander

UNLIMITED ACTIVISM

The first and only time I spoke with Donella Meadows, I was a sophomore studying in Dartmouth College's Environmental Studies Program -- and very nervous to be sitting in the office of one of the school's most famous professors. I had developed an interest in writing about the environment and asked if she had any advice to offer. "It's important that you continue to take science courses," she said as I got up from my chair. "Don't ignore them." I smiled because I knew these words came from a woman who graduated with a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University.

Donella Meadows' death this past February at age 59, from bacterial meningitis, stunned the environmental community. As a leading advocate of the sustainability movement, Meadows, fondly referred to as Dana by her friends and colleagues, had co-authored The Limits to Growth in 1972. Drawing upon global computer models, the bestseller projected devastating environmental degradation if population and consumption continued unchecked. Two decades later, she co-authored Beyond the Limits, updating the international situation.

"There are a lot of people in the world, but very few can change the world the way Dana did," says Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute. "She had the uncommon combination of a sharp scientific mind along with the capacity to communicate effectively. For me, she was a cutting-edge thinker."

Meadows worked tirelessly to promote environmental awareness and sustainable resource management. She joined the faculty at Dartmouth in the early seventies, where she most recently taught classes on environmental ethics. In 1985, Meadows began writing a weekly newspaper column, "The Global Citizen," for which she received a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1991. She also co-founded and coordinated, with former husband Dennis Meadows, the International Network of Resource Information Centers -- a coalition of systems analysts and activists in 50 nations. Just four years ago, she founded the Sustainability Institute, a "think-do-tank" that led to the establishment of a sustainable residential community in Four Corners, Vermont.

Meadows received numerous awards for her work. In the past decade, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and was selected as one of 10 Pew Scholars in Conservation and the Environment.

A staunch defender of the precautionary principle, Meadows urged readers to "look before you leap," in a "Global Citizen" column last December. "If you can't afford to lose," Meadows wrote, "don't gamble." In a world where countries, companies and individuals often risk irresponsible growth for short-term profits, Dana Meadows challenged us to think globally and helped us realize what was really at stake. CONTACT: The Sustainability Institute, www.sustainer.org. --Roxanne Khamsi