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MEXICO CITY - When Canada,
Mexico and the United States negotiated the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1990s,
the environmental movement was able to win the inclusion
of so-called ''green clauses.'' But now, in talks
for a free trade accord that extends from Alaska to
Tierra del Fuego, neither governments nor activists
seem much interested in ecological issues.
On the road toward the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which is slated
to take effect in 2005, the color green is notable
in its absence, agree observers of the process.
But this is no coincidence.
The environment has no part in any of the bilateral
or regional trade treaties in place in the Americas,
with the exception of NAFTA, which in 1994 created
the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation
(NACEC), the only one of its kind in the world.
''Trade authorities see
the matter as a concern of a handful of environmentalists
that create problems and obstacles, when it is quite
the opposite,'' Hernando Guerrero, head of the NACEC
office in Mexico, told Tierramérica.
''The environmental issue
is so far absent from the FTAA negotiations, but we
believe that the experience of NAFTA is something
that can be replicated throughout the American continents,''
stated Gustavo Alaniz, president of the Mexican Center
for Environmental Law.
Governments believe it
is better to leave environmental questions to other
arenas, such as product labeling, investment requirements
and bilateral accords, Alaniz pointed out.
To debate the relationship
between trade and the environment and to guide it
through the FTAA negotiations, the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) and other organizations
have convened an international conference in the Mexican
capital for Feb 19-21.
The NACEC, which is taking
part in the forum, is the only free trade agreement
body with real experience in the related ecological
issues.
Canada, Mexico and the
United States signed NAFTA in December 1992, but it
did not take effect until January 1994 because of
pressure from environmental and union groups, which
demanded parallel accords on labor and environmental
issues, leading to the creation of NACEC.
Experts maintain that the
relationship between trade and the environment is
indisputable, and that it takes on even greater importance
between neighboring countries.
Several studies indicate
that more than half the ozone at ground level in Toronto,
Canada, on any given hot summer day comes from the
United States, while many pollutants originating in
Los Angeles and San Diego, California, reach the Mexican
border city of Tijuana.
From 15 to 25 percent of
the dioxins found in Lake Michigan, in the northern
United States, comes from such distant states as south
Texas.
Many of the volatile chemicals
released into the atmosphere in North America and
other regions later appear in the Arctic and in the
mountainous regions of the three NAFTA member nations.
Among the sources of these
contaminants are electrical energy plants, export
manufacturing (maquiladoras), cargo truck traffic
and the widespread use of chemicals in agriculture.
The NACEC, made up of a
Canada-based secretariat, a council of ministers and
a public consultation council, focuses on these issues,
but also on finding better ways to prevent environmental
conflicts between the three NAFTA countries.
Its work, financed by
a three-million-dollar annual contribution from each
of the member countries, has not proven satisfactory
to environmentalists, though they acknowledge that
it is a valuable organization in that it provides
an arena for groups and individuals to take action
against government for non-compliance with environmental
regulations.
In its six years of existence,
it has received 28 environmentally related complaints:
eight against the United States, nine against Canada,
and 11 against Mexico.
NACEC's main lines of
action involve managing environmental matters of common
concern, the prevention of conflicts arising from
trade-related causes and the application of environmental
legislation.
NACEC survives and grows
in spite of doomsayers' predictions of a rapid breakdown
of the group.
It is a young organization
- some might call it embryonic - but it maintains
a high profile among the region's leading non-governmental
organizations and the governments support it, contends
the NACEC director in Mexico.
Subject to periodic external
and independent evaluations, NACEC provides information
about its projects, forums and even financing at its
website.
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