Environmental groups have blasted draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) released yesterday by WikiLeaks as potentially devastating to the environment and wildlife. The massive 12-nation free trade agreement has been negotiated in secret now for almost four years, and the information release by WikiLeaks shows that key environmental safeguards in the agreement are being stripped away, including a ban on shark finning and illegal logging, as well as legally-enforced pollution regulations.
“If the environment chapter is finalized as written in this leaked document, President Obama’s environmental trade record would be worse than George W. Bush’s,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said bluntly. “This draft chapter falls flat on every single one of our issues—oceans, fish, wildlife, and forest protections – and in fact, rolls back on the progress made in past free trade pacts. — Full Story at MONGABAY –
