iBEX Expeditions Private Ltd, recipient of the 1999 Green Globe award for environment friendly practices in tourism, has won another honour. On April 19, Ibex managing director Mandip Singh Soin received the 48th Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Award for his company's environmental achievements in the field of tourism. The award specifically lauded the organisation for upholding its environmental pledge and its initiatives in environmental education programmes about eco, nature and adventure tourism.The PATA award comes close on the heels of the Green Globe Honour in March, which Ibex won at the world's largest travel fair, the ITB in Berlin. Only two organisations were honoured with the `distinction' award, the other one being the French Accor Hotel group.

Soin received the award in Nagoya, Japan, at the special luncheon of the 48th Annual PATA Conference.

Public interest groups quit food safety committee

While the pesticide industryquibbles, children are at continuing risk of exposure to toxic chemical residues on their foods, according to all the public interest groups from the EPA's Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee (TRAC). The groups all resigned last week, protesting ``inaction and caving-in to pressure from the pesticide industry and agribusiness'' by the Clinton administration and the EPA.

Illegal gem mines threaten nature park in Horton Plains

After praying for luck at a makeshift shrine, the men move stealthily into the deep forest on this high plateau in central Sri Lanka.

They are going to hunt for precious stones that abound in the soil of the Horton Plains National Park, some 2,200 metres above sea level.

The men, armed with pickaxes and shovels, know that what they are going to do is illegal and that they face a stiff penalty if caught.

Heading for the banks of the Bogawanthalawa Oya River, which flows through the woods, they will dig the forest floor for gems. Hundreds of pits, some more than sixmetres deep, have already been dug.

``We get paid SLRs 200 (about $3.7) per week for mining the pits. If we find a stone, we get a couple of thousands. Not long ago, we found a blue sapphire,'' said one of them.

The clandestine activity has been going on for years and conservationists say it is spoiling the reserve. The open pits are a threat to trekkers and wild animals and cause soil erosion.

Greens go to court over Calcutta expansion

The Calcutta High Court has admitted a public interest petition seeking to block the government from going ahead with a 7,000-acre satellite township planned near India's second-largest city. Environmental campaigners said in their petition that the township, planned outside Calcutta, would deplete the wetlands on the eastern outskirts of the city and that an environmental impact assessment report (EIA) had not been obtained.

The project is called New Calcutta, or Rajarhat township, and is located outside the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, which has apopulation of over 11 million and is the second most crowded city in India after Mumbai, which has about 13 million people. This petition was filed by a non-profit group, called the Gantantrik Nagarik Samiti (Democratic Citizens' Society). They claim that if the wetlands are filled up, Calcutta will lose its lungs. They are concerned about the possibility of frequent flooding in the city as the natural drainage system would get blocked.

The government of West Bengal has promised to prepare an action plan that would preserve the ecological balance in the east Calcutta wetlands. But the official promises have not satisfied the Greens, who see the issue differently. They have told the court that the government has falsely claimed there is no fishing activity or permanent water body in the area.These unique wetlands, which include sewage-fed fisheries, cover an area of 12,500 hectares (30,887 acres). They are the only ones of their kind in India. This case is thought here to be the first time a conservationaction plan has been proposed for an urban wetland anywhere in the world.