Coca, the raw material for cocaine, continued to spread throughout Colombia in 2005, penetrating into the heart of some of the world’s most fragile and biodiverse ecosystems, according to reports released by two drug control agencies. Despite the aerial fumigation of nearly 346,000 acres (140,000 has), a record high, the area covered by coca crops expanded 26% in Colombia last year, according to a report released in March by the U.S. State Department’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. A second report, released last month by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), estimates the increase at 8%. Drug experts described as especially worrisome the spread of coca in the northwestern state of Chocó, the southeastern department of Vichada and the southern department of...
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Argentina has failed in its attempt to secure an immediate halt to the construction in Uruguay of two massive pulp mills on the Uruguay River across from the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. By a 14-1 vote, the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected Argentina’s request that it order a temporary halt, saying Argentina did not show the projects present a “current threat of irreparable harm” to its environment or economic and social interests. The decision, which the court issued July 13, was limited to Argentina’s request for a provisional stop-order. The court will continue to weigh Argentina’s complaint about the pulp projects, which are being carried out by Finland’s Metsä-Botnia and Spain’s Ence at a cost of US$1.2 billion and...
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Wine growers, farmers, fishermen and thousands of other residents in Chile’s Itata Valley, located in south-central Chile near the city of Chillán, are protesting the expected start-up next month of one of the world’s largest pulp mills. The Nueva Aldea pulp project also is drawing fire from green groups. Last month, Greenpeace organized a road blockade to protest the US$1.5 billion mill, prompting Chilean Interior Minister Andrés Zaldívar to threaten the expulsion from Chile of Argentine, Brazilian and Uruguayan activists involved. Itata residents fear the mill will pollute their valley’s air as well as the waters of the Itata River, threatening their livelihoods and health. In part, their concerns arise from the sheer volume of output expected from the facility. Owned by...
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A Mexican government report on the state of the nation’s beaches has drawn skepticism from Mexican environmental and community groups, which claim the study underestimates the actual contamination awaiting this summer’s coastal visitors. “It’s not possible that this vacation season there are only five contaminated beaches,” says Alejandro Olivera, the Greenpeace environmental group’s oceans campaign coordinator in Mexico. “Greenpeace doubts the veracity of the samplings undertaken, especially when the coverage of water treatment continues to lag and thousands of liters of wastewater are discharged [directly into the oceans].” The report, released this month by Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resource Secretariat (Semarnat), is based on data gathered by the Federal Commission to Prevent Sanitary Risks (Cofepris). It says that only five of Mexico’s 236 beaches were...
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