Road to Cut the Serengeti in Two?

One of the main methods for developing a wild region is to run a trunk road through it for access.  That is what Tanzania is apparently proposing to do to the world famous Serengeti National Park according to WildlifeExtra.com.  The Tanzanian Parks Authority has not responded to requests for information about the proposal, if there is one.  Such a route would play havoc with the annual wildebeest migration, one of the world's last natural spectacles.  Besides giving poachers roadside access to meat on the hoof, vehicle traffic will certainly alter the normal behavior of animals.  Construction activity alone would be enough to disrupt their natural rhythms. If wildebeest and the carnivores that depend on them cannot move freely in response to seasonal availability of food, the entire ecosystem could conceivably collapse.

BP Deserves Contract Debarment

It is a severe penalty, but BP's past environmental record and corporate arrogance on display in the midst of the worst environmental disaster in US history make it appropriate.  Even the company's venture partner, Anadarko, says the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe was the result of "gross negligence or willful misconduct".  US Person stated before that the US government has the legal means to punish British Petroleum PLC for its reckless behavior.  That means is federal contract debarment. A criminal negligence conviction for the Gulf disaster would make the case for discretionary debarment stronger, but a difficult conviction is not necessary for federal officials at the Department of Interior or EPA to prohibit award of future federal contracts to BP. The company already has four strikes against it in ten years--three environmental crimes and a deferred prosecution for manipulating the gas market. The EPA has suspended further discussion with BP regarding disbarment cases in Alaska and Texas until the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been fully investigated. The Texas case involves the BP refinery explosion at Texas City that killed 15 workers. For that incident the company was fined $62 million, and convicted of a felony violation of the Clean Air Act. BP subsequently spilled 200,000 gallons of crude at its Prudhoe Bay pipeline, the largest spill on Alaska's North Slope. The company was convicted of a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act. Both cases involved disregard for safety and environmental precautions in the interest of increasing profit. In both cases the company received statutory debarments that affected only the facilities involved.  In a discretionary disbarment an entire company is prohibited from doing federal business. FAR §9.406-1(b)

The key to discretionary contract debarment is a determination that the company has consistently displayed contempt of the regulatory process and carelessness in its operations that has not be addressed by corrective management action. The information coming from the disaster's aftermath so far shows a company more interested in making profit than safety, unprepared for a blowout in deep water, obsessed with controlling information to reduce potential liabilities, and one willing to take inappropriate risks in operations where other oil companies would desist. On the other end of the balance is the fact that BP is a huge company that did $4.6 billion in business just supplying the US war machine with petroleum. The company operates 22,000 wells across the US, many on federal lands or waters, that produce 39% of the company's profits. A federal contract disbarment would severely hurt the company's future viability.  But is it too severe a penalty for the permanent damage being done to an entire sea? Ask the "small people" who live and work along the Gulf Coast. Their lives will never be the same.

Chart of the Week: Will Work (a lot) for Food

The economy is generally in a deflationary mode, meaning prices for some commodities are falling--the May consumer price index fell 0.2%  But a new report from the UN says global food prices will rise due to an increasing standard of living in the developing world.  That means more meat and meat products will be consumed, and meat costs much more to produce.  The report says prices rises will be seen next year when animal-related products will increase 10-20%. It is not at all comforting to know that in 1991 Goldman Sachs inaugurated its Commodity Index Fund, which includes the price of cattle, coffee, cocoa, hogs and wheat. Other investment banks soon followed Goldman's successful new investment business. Speculative calls on the grain exchanges helped drive the spot price of wheat to historic highs in 2008 where it hit $11/bushel. The worldwide price of food rose 80% from 2005 to 2008. Forty-nine million Americans could not afford full meals*.

*Kaufman, Harper's Magazine 7.10

Don't Let the Door Hit You

Afghanistan's mineral wealth made the COM recently. The deposits of gold, iron, copper, cobalt, lithium and gold have been known to geologists for decades, but constant warfare has prevented their exploitation. The deposits are believed to be worth $1-3 trillion. After eight years of expending wealth and blood trying to stabilize and modernize Afghanistan, one would assume the United States would be first in line to develope the resources. But our so-called ally in the struggle, President Hamid Karzai, gave the nod to the Japanese on Sunday after a five day visit. Karzai said without a hint of recognizing the irony of his statement that, "Morally, Afghanistan should give access as a priority to those countries that have helped Afghanistan massively in the past few years." Quite a snub from a man who owes his very existence to American military power. Japan has been Afghanistan's No. 2 aid donor for reconstruction, education and health. It has pledged aid of $5 billion over five years. Only now are American officials coming to grip with the recognition that US troops are unwanted by all sides in the country. General McChyrstal has delayed the start of his 'critical' Kandahar operation due to lack of popular support in the region. The US has previously announced that its troops will be withdrawn in the summer of 2011.

Hazing Stops for Now

US Person informed you of the annual hazing of bison and their calves from Horse Butte just outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park {4.27.10}. A federal judge has dismissed ranchers' request to drive the buffalo out of the calving and feeding grounds, but two more cases brought by ranchers remain to be heard. The rationalization offered by government agencies for the cruel harassment policy is that it protects livestock from brucellosis. The brucellosis threat is a cowboy myth since there has never been a documented transmission of the disease from buffalo to cattle in the wild. There are no cattle grazing on Horse Butte. If the ranchers and their government agents were interested in solving the potential conflict, rather than just killing buffalo, they would support expanding the contours of Yellowstone Park to include buffer areas like Horse Butte that are regularly used by the Yellowstone heard.

'Toontime': State Capture

[credit: Chuck Asay]

If the United States really were a socialist state as the modern day Know Nothings (aka the 'Tea Party') ardently believe instead of a decadent corporatist one, then the Gulf of Mexico could be spared permanent ruin. Because then the state would own or control the means of stopping the eruption of crude and cleaning the contamination. As it is, we are stuck with prodding a reluctant profit-only, private concern into acting against its own survival interests. A clearer demonstration of the total failure of the profit motive as a moral and ethical imperative could not be conjured. The response to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has been disorganized, conflicted, delayed and inadequate. The federal government shares the blame with its corporate sponsors for allowing the incident to compound through irresponsible management of  valuable resources in the public's domain.  The time for tough talk is gone.  The time for command action is rapidly running out.

The national government has had a symbiotic relationship with big oil since it began as an industry at the end of the nineteenth century. British Petroleum began virtual life as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909, a year after William Knox discovered commercial oil deposits in Persia. (the Zoroastrians only used oil to burn in their fire temples). When Churchill urged the conversion of the British fleet from coal to fuel oil, the British government bought a stake in the company. The company benefited mightily from more government intervention when the US installed its client despot, the Shaw of Iran, in the successful coup of 1953. All of BP's nationalized assets were returned, and production resumed. In the eighties, BP bought AMOCO making it truly anglo-american. Despite being fined twice for significant safety violations (2005 Texas refinery explosion; 2008 OSHA fines for failure to correct conditions) and spilling crude on Alaska's North Slope (2006: 200,000 gallons) BP owns the greatest number of federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Clearly, it is time for the federal government to end this dysfunctional relationship and start taking stewardship of the OCS seriously. Forty-four has the legal means to do so, but so far has not demonstrated the political will. A criminal conviction for negligence would make BP ineligible for future lease awards. G & T's by the pool anyone?

Eden Revisited

Americans watch in horror the slow destruction of the Gulf Coast's natural environment, the presidential impotence in the face of disaster, and the corporate perpetrator putting more effort into evading liability and controlling public information than ending the crisis.  It may help to know that on this beleaguered planet there are regions still unsullied by man. US Person journeyed to a river valley in central Africa caught in a gentle eddy of time. To go there is to see what our distant ancestors knew in the cradle of their birth. Thanks to the valley's remoteness, even in the age of intercontinental jets, and the tsetse fly's infectious bite, the Luangwa River flows as it did in the time of the hunter-gatherers. The rains still fall on the Muchinga escarpment to across a landscape of riverine deciduous forest, Mopani woodland, and flood plains all uncrossed by roads.

To the credit of colonial administration the valley was set aside as a game reserve in 1938 and later declared a national park, before the game was completely hunted out. Despite protection, hunting and poaching has taken a terrible toll on the wildlife. The black rhino population was wiped out in 1987. As late as the 1970's there were perhaps 100,000 elephants in and around South Luangwa National Park. Now there are only 18,000. But elephant families in Luangwa today often contain infants and adolescents. A visitor can still photograph lion and leopard hunting numerous antelope, encounter the formidable Cape buffalo on foot, or wonder at the physiology of the endemic Thorncroft's giraffe. Hippo pods dot the river at intervals like grey boulders in midstream. Eighteen foot crocodiles recharge on sandbanks in the strong African sun. The park's nocturnal inhabitants are a revelation of zoology. Animals rarely seen by first world humans can be found with the aid of a spotlight and competent guides: civets, genets, elephant shrews, eagle owls and bush babies. Luangwa is an enact ecosystem that is a rare marvel in the 21st century.

US Person was ably hosted by Norman Carr Safaris. Founder Norman Carr was a Northern Rhodesia park ranger who turned to the safari business after his retirement from civil service in the late fifties. Carr was determined to make tourism a business that paid dividends for local people and enhanced wildlife conservation. Today, the company he founded supports a local school, conservation efforts, and employs many Zambians living near South Luwanga National Park. His book, Return to the Wild, is a candid account of the adoption of two lion cubs, whom he successfully reared and returned to the wild. Stay tuned to this space for more photos of Zambia's  wildlife.

[female leopard feasts on impala--note the spotlight is not directed into the eyes of the predator]