The Environment Chronicle

Fungus of the Year 1998 is the Gomphus clavatus. It is commonly known as pig's ears. Other common names for this species include clustered chanterelle and violet chanterelle.

Tree of the Year 1998 is the Wild pear (Pyrus pyraster).

Biotope of the Year: Orchard

Fish of the Year: Blageon (Leuciscus souffia)

Orchid of the Year: March hellenorine (Epipactis palustris)

Vegetable of the Year 1998 / 1999: Broad bean or Fava bean (Vicia faba)

Animal of the Year: Fire-bellied, yellow-bellied toads (Bombina bombina, Bombina variegata)

Bird of the Year 1998 is the Skylark (Alauda arvensis).

In 1993 and 1995, the rivers Rhine and Meuse flooded their banks twice within a thirteen-month period. Because the catchment areas of these two rivers are located in more than one country, flood control inevitably became a matter of co-operation between the relevant authorities. Flanders, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Wallonia submitted a joint flood control programme to the European Commission within the framework of its INTERREG II-C initiative. This programme was approved on 18 December 1997 and was given the name IRMA, which stands for INTERREG Rhine-Meuse Activities. Besides the EU Member States mentioned, Switzerland was also participating in this programme on a project basis.

The Third Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP3) was held from 1-11 December 1997 at the Kyoto International Conference Hall (KICH) in Japan. On 11 December, after 10 days of tough negotiations ministers and other high-level officials from 160 countries reached agreement on a legally binding Protocol under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2%.

Due to a problem in the cooling system, the Ukrainian reactor must be shut down, and radioactive cooling water escapes (source: Greenpeace).

BUNDjugend, together with 135,000 schoolchildren, attempted to achieve the German government's 7 year climate targets within 7 months. The target and activities were devised by the Institute for Environmental Issues. The SPD and the Green Party also entered the challenge after the general election. BUNDjugend and the schoolchildren succeeded in showing that they could, without spending money, and against the resistance of other schoolchildren, teachers and the school board, make 10% energy savings. Their success was celebrated with a party promised by the government.

The independent commission of experts presents the environment ministry with the draft of an environmental book of law.

A defective pump floods part of the cooling system in reactor B (which was shut down at the time). Even when not in operation, the entire basin containing a reactor core must be cooled. Failure in the cooling system can cause serious problems (source: Greenpeace).

§1 The entire territory of the Federal Republic of Germany and the regions of which it is made up shall be developed, organized and protected by integrative general regional plans and the harmonizing of regionally significant plans and measures. 1(2) The overall concept ... is that of sustainable regional development which will bring the social and economic demands made on an area into line with its ecological functions and result in a stable order which will be well-balanced on a large scale.

The Used Cars Ordinance comes into force, in conjunction with a voluntary commitment by car manufacturers to recycle used cars.

The "Diamond Grace", registered in Panama, runs aground near Tokyo and loses c. 1,500 t oil.

During the night, c. 12 t toxic toluyl-endiamin escape, damaging the paintwork on c. 100 cars. The operator claims that no humans were harmed.

The Federal Economics Ministry may, with the agreement of the Employment Ministry and the upper house of the German parliament, determine that information on the consumption of energy and other resources by household appliances should be made available, and set out upper limits on energy consumption by household appliances.

After an explosion, the "ML Petron" spills 200,000 l oil off the south coast of the Philippines.

World Wetlands Day is celebrated each year on 2 February. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Convention) on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar. World Wetlands Day was first celebrated in 1997. Since then government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.

In thick fog north-west of Dunkirk, the Mexican chemicals tanker "Teoatl" collides with the Bahaman registered "Bona Fulmar". A 3x4 m hole is punched in the Bona Fulmar's stern, from which some 4,500 m_ petrol escape into the sea. The rest of the cargo was pumped into other tanks. Since the petrol evaporates quickly, there is no threat to the coastlines, the Teoatle was carrying no cargo.

A Russian tanker breaks up and sinks in the seas off Japan. Helicopters and a lifeboat rescue 31 sailors. The tanker was carrying 19,000 t oil bound for the Russian peninsula Kamschatka. A 1.8 km by 100 m oil slick is subsequently observed.

The Russian tanker Nachodka capsizes off the coast of Japan with 17,000 t oil.

In 1997, the International Coral Reef Initiative, a partnership among governments and nongovernment organizations, declared the first International Year of the Reef with the purpose of raising awareness of the state of the coral reefs of the world, and to encourage their conservation. IYOR 1997 stimulated national and international actions that helped lead to establishment of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force in 1998, and the passage of the Coral Reef Conservation Act in 2000.

Environmental protection was made a formal goal of the European Union in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam.

Fish of the Year: Grayling (Thymallus vulgaris)

Landscape of the Year: the Maas.

Orchid of the Year: Bug orchid (Orchis coriophora)

The Federal Environmental Agency publishes "Sustainable Germany - roads to environmentally sustainable development". This combination of environmental, social and economic criteria into a vision of the future challenges environmentalists to define their goals. The FEA's experts draw up scenarios for sustainable development in an industrial country like Germany up to the year 2010.

Flower of the Year 1997 is the Stemless carline thistle (Carlina acaulis).

Tree of the Year is the Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia).

Fungus of the Year 1997 is the Charcoal burner (Russula cyanoxantha).

Bird of the Year 1997 is the Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

Animal of the Year: Alpine ibex (Capra ibex)

The summit issues the "Rome Declaration on World Food Security" and the "World Food Summit Plan of Action".

§1a (1) As a part of the ecobalance the waters are to be managed in such a way that they serve the general well-being and, in harmony with this, also serve the purposes of an individual and in such a way that any avoidable damage does not occur.

This guideline provides measures avoid and, where this is impossible, reduce emissions ... to air, water and soil - including measures affecting waste - in order to achieve a high level of protection for the environment, without prejudice to other relevant community regulations.

Reactor block 2 must be shut down when the sealing rings on one of the four pumps in the main cooling system overheats (source: Greenpeace).

The second United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP 2) took place from 8 to 19 July 1996 in Geneva, Switzerland. In December 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its second Assessment Report. A key statement of the report was that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". COP 2 accepted this report, which highlighted the urgent need for a binding protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases. The Climate Change Conference in Geneva saw the United States take a major step in this direction by abandoning, for the first time, its opposition to a legally binding Protocol.