Planet Drum Foundation has opposed the environmental impacts of the
Winter Olympics since 1996, when wildlife biologist Kimiharu
To from Nagano,
Japan contacted Peter Berg for assistance to inform the local residents and others
about
the consequences they would suffer from the 1998 Winter Games. After monitoring
the1998 Games, they formed Guard Fox Watch (GFW) to
safeguard safety for the near-wild watershed areas threatened by media spectacle
sports destruction. GFW has observed and critiqued successive Games at
Salt Lake City, USA (2002), Turin, Italy (2006) and Vancouver, Canada
(2010).
Guard Fox Watch (GFW) is sponsored by Planet Drum Foundation.
GFW prepared a thorough list of ecologically sustainable practices to
carry out before, during and after the Winter Olympics that covers: NATIVE
SPECIES HABITAT AND OTHER NATURAL FEATURES / WATER / SEWAGE / FOOD /
WASTES / TRANSPORTATION / MATERIALS / EMPLOYMENT. Most of these were
dismissed as "not feasible" or addressed in only a minimal,
foot-dragging way by Olympic Committees.
Before the Salt Lake City (2002) Olympics, a major story based on our findings broke in
the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other major newspapers. Since
then Guard Fox Watch has actively worked with concerned local citizens
before the 2006 (Turin, Italy) and 2010 (Vancouver, Canada) Games. In
preparation for the 2014 Games (Sochi, Russia), local citizen activists
corresponded with GFW and examined articles on this website for guidance.
GFW recommendations have influenced the UN Environment Program to
criticize the lack of wildlife and habitat policies at Sochi.
Index of Articles for Bioregional Olympians
(Click on links to read articles.)
2014 Sochi, Russia
Already there are concerns about the ecological impacts of The 2014
winter Olympic games. Links to articles are: UN
criticizes Russia over Sochi Winter Olympics , Winter
Olympics threatened by Bad Planning (link to this article no longer
exists), Putin
Faces Green Olympic Challenge .
The upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada neglect to monitor
ongoing environmental impact: VANOC will violate International Olympic Committee mandate for
ecological sustainability according to
the international ecological monitoring group Guard Fox Watch. This press
release details the dismal state of
environmental safeguards for 2010 Winter
Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
(Press
Release: September 2007)
2006 Turin, Italy
Winter
Olympics Won't Avoid Environmental Damage (March 2004)
Bioregional
Impacts, Ecological Implications, and Recommendations for Olympic Winter
Games is the latest summarized overview from Guard
Fox Watch. (October 2003)
Bioregional Impacts, Ecological Implications,
and Recommendations -
2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy
is a Guard Fox Watch Report which advocates specific actions. (August 2003)
Impatto Bioregionale,
Implicazioni Ecologiche E Raccomandazioni Per I Giochi Olimpici Invernali
Del 2006 A Torino — Italia (August 2003). Italian language
version of GFW Report August 2003.
Why Take on the Winter Olympics, and What Came of the Effort?
by Peter Berg (February 2002)
OLYMPICS; Greenest Games
Ever? Not! by Martin A. Lee (February 2002)
Help Stop The Greenwashing
Of The Winter Olympics! (December 2002)
Roots of Action Date to Nagano
Olympics
Environmental
Recommendations Go Unheeded by Salt Lake City Olympics Organizers Th is
is a wrap-up about actions surrounding the Salt Lake Olympics
(2002) with references to the related Background Documents.
Nobody Wins If Nature Loses by Martin
A. Lee (Summer 2001)
Background documentation for 2002 Winter
Olympics
Guard Fox Watch Communiques 1998
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Call to Action:
Make The 2002 Games In Salt Lake City Ecologically Sustainable!
The 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah represent a
precedent-making opportunity to transform one of the most popular sports
events on the planet into a model of environmental sensitivity and
sustainability. Many of these competitions are outdoors and have direct
impacts on natural surroundings. They have a worldwide following, and
serve as a standard for other outdoor sports spectacles. The Winter
Olympics should stand up to the responsibility and potential for creating
beneficial ecological changes.
The last Winter Games in Nagano, Japan were not only notoriously
destructive to the environment, they were also "greenwashed" for
the media and general public. Plastic and paper waste supposedly gathered
for recycling was actually burned in smog-producing local electricity
generating plants. Five times the normal amount of snow- melting chemicals
ran off roads into streams and rice fields. Thousands of vehicles turned
snow banks black and filled the air with exhaust fumes. Trees were
clear-cut for ski runs and native snow monkeys and birds were run off.
Local water, sewage, electrical, and waste systems were overwhelmed.
Guard Fox Watch (GFW), a Japan-USA organization which monitored and
reported on horrendous environmental conditions during the Nagano Games,
visited Salt Lake City sites and prepared a list of ways to measure
impacts in 2002. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) told the media
"We’re planning to improve environmental conditions, not just keep
them the same", but refused to carry out the studies we recommended
that could verify this claim.
We don’t want another Nagano "greenwashing"! We can still
make SLOC environmentally responsible.
GFW prepared a thorough list of ecologically sustainable practices to
carry out before, during and after the Winter Olympics that covers: NATIVE
SPECIES HABITAT AND OTHER NATURAL FEATURES / WATER / SEWAGE / FOOD /
WASTES / TRANSPORTATION / MATERIALS / EMPLOYMENT. Most of these were also
dismissed as "not feasible" or addressed in only a minimal,
foot-dragging way.
Put Guard Fox Watch's safeguards and sustainable practices in place
before the Winter Games begin. Join a widely diverse international group
of endorsing environmental leaders including:
- Arne Naess, Center for Development and the Environment, University
of Oslo, Norway
- Betsy Lehrfeld, National Institute for Science, Law and Public
Policy, Washington DC, USA
- Gordon T L Ng, The Conservancy Association, Kowloon, China
- Juan-Tomas Rehbock, Ecological Farmers Association, USA
- Santiago Villanova, Una Sola Terra, Spain
- Kris Nelson, The Climate Trust, USA
- Giuseppe Moretti, Rete Bioregionale Italiana, Italy
- Lee Hudson, California Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides,
USA
- Josep Puig, Alternativa Verda, Spain
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By Peter Berg
February 11, 2002
Planet Drum Foundation has opposed the environmental impacts of the
Winter Olympics since 1996. It was then that wildlife biologist Kimiharu
To who was studying ptarmigan birds in the Hakuba Mountains of Nagano,
Japan and working as a part-time ski guide and rice farmer contacted me
for assistance in informing the local residents and others in Japan about
the consequences they would suffer from the 1998 Winter Games.
Together we held informational sessions with farmers and resort
operators, led tours of Hakuba Valley where skiing events were scheduled,
joined up with other protesters who were more economically oriented, met
with Olympics representatives to register complaints, and issued a written
statement as a prescription for avoiding environmental calamities. The
latter was ignored as we expected considering the appalling conditions we
incidentally observed, so we next adopted the name Guard Fox Watch to
thoroughly monitor infrastructure activities such as transportation,
water, sewage, energy, wild habitat, and so forth immediately prior to and
during the Winter Games. This resulted in a set of findings with demands
to improve problem areas. They were also disregarded, but at least we had
called the Olympic's bluff and established a precedent for insisting on
beneficial watershed/bioregion changes, besides not kowtowing to public
relations misrepresentations. Some courageous media sources even took up
our story in spite of a punitive attitude by Olympics staff that implied
betrayal of the high-flown and unimpeachable goals of the Games.
When the 2002 Winter Games were scheduled for Salt Lake City, Kim and I
went there two years early to meet with representatives of local
environmental protection groups. Official Games staff showed up at the
meeting as well and although we two pressed hard for an allied association
of concerned groups, those who appeared expressed the sentiment that they
had already stated their objections, had done what they thought they could
do, or were satisfied with a few concessions.
Guard Fox Watch was left with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee
environmental staff. The local press described us incorrectly as
"partnering" with it. We were never confident of this in-house
group's dedication to transcending the horrific conditions at Nagano
because their public relations statements kept getting in the way of
discussing problems: "We're going to have the greenest Olympics
ever!" and "The environment will actually be improved by holding
the Games." After touring the outdoor facilities, we saw situations
that scarily resembled Hakuba and decided to test the SLOC's environmental
commitment. After several month's background study, I wrote and Kim
approved a set of baseline measurements for studying conditions such as
air and water quality, transportation density, energy consumption, sewage
volume, and other factors. I submitted it nine months before the study
should be made to be able to have identical conditions as when the Games
would be held a year later. The data gathered would be compared with that
from during the Games and differences could be noted. The effectiveness of
environmental sanctions could actually be measured instead of relying on
positive intentions or "feel good" statements. The study would
have been an invaluable guide for not only Salt Lake Bioregion but all
future Winter Games anywhere. Our proposal was completely rejected with
the suggestion that Planet Drum Foundation should do it instead! As though
we were the ones claiming that the environment would be better off for
holding the Winter Games.
Even though SLOC's refusal showed a clear intention to drag it's feet
if not totally abandon concern about the environment of the Salt Lake
Basin, we decided to take another step that would demonstrate undeniable
culpability. We wrote a guide for official ecological practices before,
during and after the Games in major areas of impact similar to the
baseline concerns. Natural systems and habitat, water, energy, pollution,
transportation, wastes, sewage, food, and employment were listed. While
the date for our ignored baseline study rolled by and the Games were still
a year away, we were informed that our copious new suggestions would also
go largely unfulfilled except for a few that had been previously covered.
Guard Fox Watch's recommendations weren't "feasible".
Without any other recourse, Planet Drum sent a summary of the entire
history of the Guard Fox Watch-Olympics relationship to the media and also
its membership asking them to remit protest letters to SLOC. Finally, a
week before the Games began, a major story based on our findings broke in
the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other major newspapers. Since
then other significant stories have appeared about land development
violations, health- endangering smog from air inversion, slow and
polluting traffic, and other predicted problems. We have no idea how many
Planet Drum letters were received by officials in Salt Lake but saw copies
of those sent to us from Arne Naess, founder of the philosophy of deep
ecology, and various places including China, Mongolia, Japan, Australia,
Italy, England, Canada, and Mexico. We assume that they are being read and
will be part of the record for considering future Winter Olympics. Long
live safety for near-wild bioregional areas threatened by media spectacle
sports destruction!
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"[Peter] Berg homes in on the example of the Nagano Winter
Olympic Games to illustrate how a bioregional way of thinking would bring
benefits to the community. He describes the Olympic Games as a facet of
global monoculture, similar to McDonalds, Coca Cola, et al., which have no
relationship to the place they go, and, since the media advertisers and
land developers make their profits irrespective of future land use, leave
only waste and abandoned stadiums in their wake. Aside from the estimated
Olympian burden of $30,000 per Nagano City taxpayer over the next 20 years
to pay for the party, Peter highlights the damage to natural systems:
watersheds suffer chemical pollution from snow-bonded auto exhaust and
overuse of highway salts. Soil erosion from 115 km of newly built roads in
the geologically sensitive Nagano mountains is acute.
Native plant and animal communities are disrupted by both habitat
destruction due to building and crowd noise during their most difficult
survival season. He gives a first hand account of the 87 metric tons of
extra Olympic garbage being incinerated and the increased auto pollution
which now sully the air at Hakuba. With a bioregional approach to planning
the Games, the organizers could have, for instance, developed solar, wind,
and hot spring steam power sources to generate the required extra
electricity, thus building sustainable facilities which would remain to
benefit the region. A few well-devised policies to subsidize and create
genuine and thorough recycling programs would help provide new long-term
employment and wealth for the area, and Berg laments the lost opportunity
with the words "The real loss of the Games is to Nagano." The
Guard Fox Watch slogan sums it up: "Nobody wins the Games if Nature
loses!"
—Renate Suzuki, "Peter Berg's Olympic Message," Japan
Environment Monitor, Feb/Mar, 1998.
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