Conservationists are claiming that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is having negative effects on the North American continent's freshwater fisheries and forests; creating hazardous wastes and impacting domestic environmental laws.

   Established in 1994 the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC) hosted an inaugural two day symposium this week in Washington, D.C. The commission was created for the purpose of examining the relationship between free trade and the environment. Putting out a call last year for papers to be presented at the symposium resulted in 14 presentations explored how trade liberalization policies such as NAFTA have affected the continent's natural resources.

   Grace Chomo and Michael Ferrantino of the U.S. International Trade Commission kicked off the session by outlining their paper on the impact of NAFTA on the North American fisheries. Chomo and Ferrantino concluded that NAFTA liberalization "could have either a positive, negative, or negligible environmental impact" on an economic undertaking such a North American fishery. The key to predicting the outcome, the authors concluded, can only be determined by charting the pre-NAFTA and post-NAFTA tariff levels that influence the operations of the fishery. For example, NAFTA induced imports of fisheries products could relieve environmental pressures if they substitute for production of an overfished species, while NAFTA induced exports of an already overfished species could increase pressure on the fishery," Chomo and Ferrantino concluded in their report.

   The evidence was more conclusive that NAFTA has increased the environmental degradation of forests in Chihuahua, Mexico, according to a paper presented by a coalition of human rights and policy study groups from Mexico and Texas. The elimination of tariffs under NAFTA will likely force the forest products industry in Chihuahua to oppose environmental regulations so that it can remain competitive in the world market. This pressure comes at a time when wood production in Mexico has already been ramped up because of the country's entry into NAFTA, the authors said.

   The authors were troubled by an aspect of NAFTA that restricts Mexico from challenging the legality of logging operations bankrolled by other nations. That provision poses a "significant threat to Mexico's ability to adequately regulate forestry or forest product operations of companies from Canada or the United States," they wrote.

   Other researchers analyzed how the trade agreement has affected the transportation and manufacturing sectors of the economy, and how those changes have in turn impacted the environment.