The environmental group, Greenpeace, accused a Taiwanese company last week of taking advantage of poverty in Cambodia by dumping 3,000 tonnes of toxic, mercury-laced waste in the country. Representatives from Greenpeace and the Basel Action Network -- a group focussed on toxic transhipments -- denounced Formosa Plastics Corp. for preying on ``a convenient open target'' by sending the waste to Cambodia.

The shipment, which sparked a frenzied exodus from a Cambodian city, ``is an example of the worst case of waste dumping we have seen for a long time'', said Von Hernandez, a toxins specialist for Greenpeace.

The waste, believed to be compressed industrial ash, passed without notice through Sihanoukville seaport on November 30 and was found by environmental officials a few weeks later in an exposed heap 10 kilometers outside the coastal town.

Tests conducted on the waste have shown it contains extremely high levels of the poisonous metal, mercury, butthe environmentalists complained that tests for other life-threatening materials such as dioxin have not been done. Five deaths have been blamed on the waste -- a dock worker who cleaned the hold of the ship that brought it from Taiwan, and four people killed in road accidents during a panic-stricken exodus from Sihanoukville.

A non-governmental organisation, NGO Forum, linked a sixth death to the shipment: a 23-year-old villager living near the dump, who rummaged through the waste and used the bags it was shipped in to build a makeshift bed. He died two days later. The group cautioned it had not established a direct link between the waste and the death, but noted that both the dock worker and the villager suffered from similar symptoms, including acute vomiting, exhaustion and thirst.

The waste has been packed by the army into oil drums and freight containers, while the government waits for Formosa Plastics to fulfill its promise to take it back.

DiCaprio pledges to respect Thai beach

LeonardoDiCaprio promised not to mess up a Thailand beach, early last week. The actor's pledge came in response to environmentalists who say the sets being constructed on Phi Phi Le for the film star's latest movie, The Beach, are harming the island national park in the Andaman Sea.

The environmentalists are worried about the planting of non-native coconut trees and the smoothing over of sand dunes on Maya Beach, and have tried to get the courts to halt the shooting.

``Preservation of the environment has always been of utmost concern to me, and I would never be part of any project that did anything to harm nature,'' DiCaprio said in a statement. ``I have seen extraordinary measures being taken to protect the island. And I pledge to remain vigilant and tolerate nothing less than these maximum efforts.''

The star said he was assured the island would be returned to its natural state after the shooting.

Orders increase for fuel technology systems

Ionic Fuel Technology Inc. announced it receivedorders for installation of its IFT System at 11 separate sites throughout the United Kingdom and Europe during the first two weeks of January 1999.

All of the orders are for rental of the IFT System with installation occurring over the next two months. As a result of these orders, rental income will increase by approximately 55 per cent over previous quarters, with the full impact beginning in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, 1999.

Anthony J S Garner, president and chief executive officer, stated, ``We are very pleased with results achieved thus far in the quarter. The number of installations confirm the effectiveness of our three-pronged strategy of forming alliances with large companies, expanding the application of the IFT System to other industrial processes such as heaters and reformers and leveraging relationships with existing customers. At several of the new installations, customer focus is on the need to reduce carbon dioxide as well as the fuel savings provided by theIFT technology.

Finance firm to give leases for fuel-monitoring systems

James P Crehan Sr, chairman of the Board of Environmental Digital Services, Inc, a publicly traded high technology based provider of underground tank monitoring, leak detection and risk management solutions, has announced the closing of an agreement with Green Tree Vendor Services Corporation of Paramus, New Jersey, one of the country's leading lease finance firms. The agreement commits Green Tree to accept applications from EDSi customers for the purpose of leasing its Capscan fuel monitoring system. The agreement runs for the duration of 1999, and subject to Green Tree's normal credit and documentation review, will allow for up to $40 million of lease transactions.

Rare deer returns to Kashmir Valley

Even wildlife is beginning to respond to the return of relatively peaceful times to the Kashmir Valley.

The Hangul, a rare Kashmiri deer, has been sighted in more than their usual numbers for the past nine years,thus bringing cheer to an otherwise freezing winter. The Jammu and Kashmir Wildlife Department has recorded the sighting of 380 Hanguls this season. These deer are counted in winters when they come down to the Dachigam wildlife sanctuary in north Kashmir, about 20 kms from Srinagar, the state's summer capital.

Wildlife officials have been keeping a record of Hanguls on a year to year basis. Their number was close to 800 in 1989, before separatist terrorism shook Kashmir. Thereafter, their number started decreasing. It fell to a low of 90 in 1992.

``This was an alarming decline,'' the state's forest minister, Mohammad Ramzan, told IANS. ``The decline was the result of the unchecked poaching in the early 1990s, when there existed no authority and whatever existed was defied by those wielding guns.''

Use of natural gas in American homes goes up

Natural gas was connected in 69 per cent of the single-family homes completed in 1997, continuing its dominance of the home-heating market, according tothe American Gas Association survey released recently in Dallas, Texas. ``Consumers overwhelmingly prefer natural gas heat because it is a good energy value and because it performs well,'' said David Parker, the association's president and CEO.

``For more than 10 years, natural gas has steadily increased its share of the space-heating market in single-family homes because more and more consumers want the comfort and efficiency of gas heat.''

Sustainable forestry watch established

A Sustainable Forestry and Certification Watch has been established to monitor and report on forest certification worldwide. The mission of the organisation is to enhance the understanding of forest certification and its implications, particularly for sustainable forest management, international forest policy, trade in forest products and consumer choice; and to encourage the responsible stewardship of global forest resources by facilitating the identification and adoption of effective approaches to forest resourcemanagement and policy.

The organisation has a newsletter, Forest Certification Watch, which monitors and reports on the development of the various forest certification schemes worldwide.

Green energy firm to supply electricity to US homes

Green Mountain Energy, a brand of cleaner electricity, and Prudential California Realty have announced a strategic partnership designed to provide home buyers with the opportunity to choose Green-e certified energy from Green Mountain. As part of this agreement, home buyers who purchase their homes through Prudential California Realty will be given information on how to help fight air pollution simply by choosing Green Mountain as their electricity provider. Buyers will be greeted in their home with detailed information on California's newly deregulated electric utility industry, as well as information on Green Mountain's blends of electricity, featuring renewable resources.

Welsh port authority fined 4 million pound for oil spill

A recordfinancial penalty was imposed last week on the port authority found guilty of causing the disastrous February 1996 Sea Empress oil spill on the south-west coast of Wales. Milford Haven Port Authority was ordered to pay UK 4 million pound (US $6.63 million) for its role in the UK's third worst oil spill ever.

According to the Cardiff Crown Court presiding judge Justice Steel, the fine would have been even larger if a wealthier organisation, such as a major oil company, had been found to blame for causing the spill.

The port authority pleaded guilty to causing polluting matter to enter controlled waters, a crime as defined by the Water Resources Act, 1991. Milford Haven Port was found to have provided a pilot with insufficient training and experience to guide the Sea Empress oil tanker into the harbour up a narrow rock-strewn channel on an ebbing tide.

More than 72,000 tonnes of oil poured from the ship during the six days it was stranded on the rocks, affecting 200 kilometres of Pembrokeshire coastline,including a national park. The total cost of the incident, including clean-up operations, the impact assessment and losses to fishing and tourism, has been estimated at up to UK 100 million pound.