Paris Journal 2007

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Lion at Square Cambronne. The Paris beach project is underway, with many, many visitors. Two more locations have been added to the original project site, so now its name is plural, Paris Plages. We’re finally having some warm, summery weather (but not TOO warm) and kids are enjoying the dancing fountain at Parc André Citroën. The balloon at Parc André Citroën is being used again. No storms are threatening now. Even though the weather is warm, we are not suffering from air pollution this time. Air Parif is the association charged with monitoring air quality in the Paris region. They even offer English on their web site! This truck was in the Champ de Mars checking on monitoring equipment (below) installed on a maintenance shed roof tucked away in the park.

Wednesday, August 1 Well, I spent the morning unexpectedly having to clean a number of bathroom fixtures, scrub a bathroom floor, and even clean some bathroom walls. But then all was pretty much in order for the arrival of my sister and brother-in-law, Carolyn and Doug, who will be staying in the sixth arrondissement. They were so tired when they arrived, but they still wanted me to show them the nearest grocery store, bakery, wine shop, and recommended restaurants. This I did, and I helped them buy their initial groceries. I admire their stamina. When we first arrive from the U.S., all I want to do is collapse and sleep for a while. We did indeed have our dinner at Le Blavet last night. That was with Tom’s side of the family, and it included Mary and Dan (their last night in Paris this summer!) as well as Tom’s ex-wife, Sheila, and her husband, Guy. So with six of us, we filled up a big corner of the small restaurant, which was very busy even though it was a Tuesday night. Mary was very sweet, wanting me to place her order for her (I think because madame can still be intimidating, and I can face up to madame just fine). Not wanting to repeat the Le Blavet mistake of too much rich food in one meal, I had suprême de volaille (slices of chicken breast in a nice but light sauce) that came with lovely mashed potatoes. The potatoes were topped with a slice of undercooked bacon which I ignored. And for dessert, I ordered a tasty, seasonal gratin des fruits which was healthier and much lighter than the chocolate torte dessert that I had there last time. This restaurant of exceptional value and quality is capable of serving too much rich food all at once, so be prepared to restrain yourself. I did allow myself to have that superb croustade des escargots with creamy garlic and parsley sauce again. Oh it is just soooo good. Restaurant Le Blavet, 75 bis rue de Lourmel, 75015 Paris, Telephone 01-45-79-08-16. Now Mary and Dan are off to Brussels for the night, returning to Kentucky tomorrow. While they were at our apartment yesterday to use the phone and internet, they asked about a web site for booking cheap places to stay. Expedia and Travelocity were just not coming up with much of a choice of affordable places for them in Brussels. I told them about kayak.com, which I haven’t tried yet because I just learned about it from my friend Wendy right before we flew to France. Evidently, it was perfect for Dan and Mary. They booked a room in a Holiday Inn via kayak.com for just $50 or so. That’s pretty good. I must check out that web site! After getting Carolyn and Doug settled this morning, I walked all the way home, which includes walking right past UNESCO, of course. That reminds me about an utterly stupid decision made there recently – to remove the Everglades from their list of endangered places! It is really so absurd. Here’s an article about it: Imperiled Glades cut from watch list A U.N. committee downgrades the park, despite concerns. By CRAIG PITTMAN Published July 31, 2007 Last month, the U.N. World Heritage Committee made headlines when it took Everglades National Park off its list of endangered sites. The committee, charged with protecting irreplaceable landmarks of outstanding universal significance, hailed the progress the United States had made toward Everglades restoration. This, even though a report released a week later showed that the billion-dollar restoration project already had fallen years behind schedule. The committee's decision went against the National Park Service's own recommendation and the U.N. committee's science advisers. "We said it should stay on the danger list because further work needed to be done," said David Sheppard, who heads the Programme on Protected Areas for the Switzerland-based Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which goes by the initials IUCN. However, Sheppard said, "the head of the U.S. delegation made the comment that it should come off (the list) because of the progress they had made," and the committee went along with that. The National Park Service's top scientist says politics drove the decision. "There's always been a kind of pressure from the Washington level to say, 'Okay, we've got a plan, now take us off the list,' " said Robert Johnson, director of the South Florida Natural Resources Center at Everglades National Park since 1995. "I think for the Bush administration, it was seen as a black eye to be on that list." Being taken off the list "gives people the impression that things are going well," when the restoration is actually decades away from achieving its goals, he said. For the past four years it has been the only American site listed as being in danger. Being on the list "focuses more international attention on what we do," Johnson said. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Todd Willens was the leader of the U.S. delegation who made the motion to take the Everglades off the list. Until last fall, Willens was a top aide to former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., a frequent critic of environmental laws and environmental groups. Willens said that making the change was not the result of some political agenda. In fact, it wasn't even his idea, he said. Instead, he said, before the meeting, representatives from some of the 21 other countries on the committee told him they wanted the Everglades off the list because of the 7-year-old restoration project. So even though the National Park Service's own report recommended keeping the Everglades on the danger list, "I changed the last sentence of our report and said we wanted to be taken off," Willens said. He said he made the motion before any other country could jump in, because "the U.S. should be fully in charge of its own sites." The committee is the governing body of the 176-nation World Heritage Convention, set up under a treaty initiated by President Richard Nixon. In 1973, the United States became the first nation to ratify it. The committee takes inventory of all major world landmarks. It compiled a list of 380 World Heritage sites, including Stonehenge and China's Great Wall. In 1996, when a Polish company proposed building a shopping center near Auschwitz, its World Heritage Site status helped spur international opposition. Twenty U.S. sites are on the overall list, including the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park. Everglades National Park has been listed as a World Heritage site since 1979. When the committee puts a site on its danger list, the goal is to call attention to the threats facing the site. For instance, the Galapagos Islands are being invaded by exotic species, and Jerusalem's Old City is imperiled by Mideast unrest. The committee put Everglades National Park on the danger list in 1993 when it was beset with threats from encroaching development, water pollution and damage from Hurricane Andrew. In 2000, Congress and the state Legislature approved a complex plan to restore the River of Grass. Some of its crucial elements are six years behind schedule and the cost has ballooned to nearly $20-billion, according to a Government Accountability Office report made public this month. Last year, on behalf of the U.N. committee, Sheppard of the IUCN visited Everglades National Park to check on progress. "I thought the site, although there had been significant progress, still faced significant threats," he said. That's why the IUCN recommended the committee keep the Everglades on the danger list for at least two more years. Meanwhile, Johnson said, the park staff "put a lot of work into" creating a list of benchmarks that could be used to gauge their progress on dealing with the threats, such as curtailing the phosphorous pollution flowing into the park. But the committee's own staff noted this month that there are still concerns about water pollution in the park and urban development creeping closer to the park boundaries. "Various sources have emphasized that restoration is progressing very slowly," the committee's staff wrote in a recommendation to keep the Everglades on the list. But when the committee heard Willens' motion, it went along with it. There was no formal vote, Willens and Sheppard said, and no dissent. Willens said that's because other sites on the list are in far worse shape than the Everglades, such as one in Iraq. "Some of the other sites are in war zones," he said. "This way the Everglades doesn't take a lot of attention away from them." Fast Facts: Endangered sites Some World Heritage sites classified as endangered: Dresden Elbe Valley, Germany Samarra Archaeological City, Iraq Galapagos Islands, Ecuador © 2007 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times ←Previous Next→

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