Lay of the Land

Updates

Shell on the Stand. In 1995, the Nigerian military government executed nine environmentalists on trumped-up charges. Led by noted author Ken Saro-Wiwa, the activists had been protesting Shell’s polluting oil operations in their homeland, the Niger Delta. In March, a U.S. federal court that a lawsuit brought by relatives against the multinational oil giant can go forward, a decision that serves as a warning to other corporations that they could be held liable for looking the other way. (See"Priorities," March/April 1996.)

Snow Job. Less than two years after a coalition of environmental and Native American activists kept a pumice mine off Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks, another proposal threatens to befoul the mountains, considered sacred by many tribes. Faced with declining revenues from a recent drought, a local ski resort wants to start making snow from treated sewage and pumping it to its ski runs on Agassiz Peak, one of the three main summits in the San Francisco range. "We pray for natural, crystal snow on the mountains," activist Hazel James told the Arizona Republic in March. "We don’t want this deformed water treated with chemicals." (See "Profile," November/December 2000.)

For updates on renewable energy, clean air, and more, visit www.sierraclub.org/sierra.