GIFU BUTTERFLY

[Tish Silberbauer & Dave Britton]

On Fri, 20 Feb 1998 00:52:12 +0900, "Kuniomi Matsumoto"
<langprac at IAC.CO.JP> wrote:

>Hi Nathan,
>
<snip details on Gifu-cho>

>The butterfly has been protected by a local law. But here again
>economy(in this case Olympic) comes before butterflies. Yes,
>they transplanted its food plant Heterotropa(Asarum) faurei
>or Miyama Aoi in Japanese. I hope the effort will make a new
>home for Gifu-cho. But I cannot be so optimistic since the
>distribution of the butterfly is much more restricted compared
>to that of potential food plants, Heterotropa sp.
>
This is probably a lot off-topic, but it follows on from what Kuni has
said about the Winter Olympics where the games come before the
environment.

Here in Sydney, Australia, where the 2000 summer olympics are to be
held, there was a lot of noise about these games being "The Green
Olympics", and the development  plans were given to the various
mainstream green groups (Greenpeace etc.) in order for them to comment
on the environmental impact of the developments.

Much of the actual development was occurring on old industrial land,
so the main debates centered on protecting athletes etc. from
contamination from industrial waste left in the ground.  However,
there is a large brightly coloured  frog which has become quite rare
of recent times (The Green and Golden Bell Frog, Littoria aurea) which
lives in ponds created by old brickworks and other industrial works.

What I find amusing, and somewhat disturbing, is that instead of
promoting the Green and Golden Bell Frog as an olympic mascot, and
funding research into its decline, the olympic committee has chosen to
keep very, very quiet about it (The green and gold colours are
strongly associated with australian international sportspeople).  A
researcher who has recieved some funds to work on the frog around the
olympic site has had to sign a legal document that effectively keeps
her from speaking to the press about the frog.

I guess it is fair enough.  The committee would never live it down if
they caused a local extinction of their olympic mascot....

>I will continue to report what is happening to Gifu-cho in
>Hakuba.
>
>Cheers,
>Kuni
>

please do keep reporting Kuni, these sorts of stories are fascinating
(even in a gruesome way)

cheers

Dave Britton (sorry I mentioned vertebrates here, but I couldn't help
myself).
--
Dave & Tish
IRC: Mutah. Remove the offensive skin condition to email