Bidders interested in developing Peru’s massive Camisea gas fields will have more time to submit their proposals for the $3-billion project. At the request of prospective investors, Energy and Mines Minister Jorge Chamot moved the bidding deadline for gas transportation and distribution work from Dec. 14 to Jan. 25, setting the concession award for Jan. 28. He also extended the deadline for bids on gas production from Jan. 18 to Feb. 15, scheduling the concession award for Feb. 18. The move marks the fourth time this year the government has rolled back bidding deadlines for development of Camisea, a natural gas field that contains 13 trillion cubic feet in proven reserves and underlies pristine tropical rainforest. But Chamot says this will be the last...
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UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee added Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park to its list of World Heritage sites “in danger,” but declined to include Mexico’s Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve at its annual meeting Nov. 29 to Dec. 4. In its decision on Iguaçu, the committee acted on the recommendation of a U.N. fact-finding mission to Brazil that cited helicopter flights in the park, unsatisfactory progress in closing a road opened illegally by local residents, and the absence of a management plan for Iguaçu. A committee fact-finding mission to Mexico, meanwhile, concluded that Vizcaino, a gray whale sanctuary on the Southern Baja California coast, is not in danger despite plans for commercial salt works there. Though it did not list Vizcaino, the panel said it would revisit...
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Agencies overseeing the first sewage plant in the United States to handle waste from Mexico have reached a long-awaited decision on how to upgrade treatment. The decision, issued Dec. 8 by the International Boundary Water Commission (IBWC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, calls for construction of six aerated ponds adjacent to the International Wastewater Treatment Plant near San Diego, just north of the U.S.-Mexican border. The agencies, facing possible fines by San Diego’s state Regional Water Quality Control Board for the plant’s non-compliance, delayed their decision seven months to consider an alternative proposal for meeting secondary treatment requirements. (See “Binational treatment plant: model or muddle?”—EcoAméricas, November ‘99.) The alternative plan, proposed by a private venture called Bajagua, would have involved...
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Hosting a U.N. desertification conference last month, Brazilian officials called attention to the plight of the country’s northeast dry lands, which cover one third of the national territory. Drought in this region over the last six years, Environment Minister José Sarney Filho said, has led to poverty, disease and migration. The resulting economic pressures have hampered soil conservation, which has worsened desertification, said Recife Mayor Roberto Magalhães Melo. The Environment Ministry is overseeing a $670-million World Bank project to supply water to the area, but the effort has been limited by Brazilian budget constraints, Sarney says. Sarney, who presided over the Nov. 15-26 conference, says more international aid is necessary both for Brazil and other nations to address desertification. (For information on Chile’s desertification...
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A newly released World Bank study suggests public access to environmental information and decision making can further conservation. “Greening Industry: New Roles for Communities, Markets and Governments” draws on field work in Latin American nations including Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. It finds that when the region’s governments have departed from conventional regulatory approaches in consultation with key stakeholders, they have had unexpected success. The study also concludes that poor countries impacted by trade-induced industrial growth don’t have to become wealthy to address pollution. One experimental program highlighted in the report is a pollution-charge system Colombia established in 1997. Jettisoning hard-to-enforce sanctions, the country empowered regional environmental agencies to bill local factories for emissions by the unit. Controversy over use of income...
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