The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy urges Canada to "become the first jurisdiction in the world to start using formal environmental indicators to measure the country's real wealth and the sustainability of its economy," reports environmental reporter Martin Mittelstaedt. Indicators addressing forest range and annual greenhouse gas emissions and more would supplement the country's gross domestic product in measuring Canada's "economic well-being," Mittelstaedt reports. "We'd be the first to revise the system of national accounts and people would copy us immediately," Stuart Smith, co-chair of the group issuing the report, told the Globe and Mail. "You can have an oil spill that pollutes a huge area and wrecks the ecology, but the price of the cleanup is shown as a positive on GDP." Mittelstaedt describes the organization making the recommendations as "a body appointed by the Prime Minister to give policy advice on environmental issues. Members include business leaders, environmentalists, and academics." Among indicators recommended are those dealing with ground-level ozone and fresh water quality. The Canadian recommendations come out just weeks before outgoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Whitman is to release her own long-promised indicators report, expected to be announced on June 23. (See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030512/UENVIXO/TPEnvironment/)