U.S. officials have approved $200 million in loan guarantees for a project to pipe natural gas from Bolivia to Brazil by way of the Chiquitano, described by conservationists as the world’s largest intact tropical dry forest. The pipeline, a joint effort by Enron Corp., Shell International Gas and Bolivian pension and state oil workers’ funds, will run from Ipiás, Bolivia to Cuiabá in western Brazil. The $570-million project also calls for construction of Brazil’s first natural gas power plant, a 480-megawatt, combined-cycle facility. The pipeline is an offshoot of a 1,900-mile (3,000-km) natural gas line being built from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to Porto Alegre, Brazil at a cost of $2 billion. Directors of the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC...
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Once again, Venezuela has a new environment minister. He’s Jesús Arnaldo Pérez, formerly director of planning and zoning in the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources Ministry. Pérez replaces Atala Uriana Pocaterra, who resigned after less than four months in office to become a candidate for a national constituent assembly, one of numerous officials to do so to strengthen the new president’s hand in adopting governmental reforms. Pérez, a 45-year-old doctor in geography, studied and worked in France for 23 years, returning to Venezuela to take the planning and zoning position. In France, he taught at the University of Toulouse and worked as a private environmental consultant. The new minister faces a welter of difficult environmental issues, ranging from controversial plans for gold and...
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The wrangling over how to limit industrial emissions of greenhouse gasses often obscures a more basic issue: How should these emissions be measured and reported? A wide-ranging group of businesses, government agencies and environmental organizations has teamed up to answer that question. The goal is to develop an international standard that could be used by business executives and government officials worldwide as a first step toward controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Such a protocol could facilitate corporate-sponsored sequestration projects in places like Latin America, already the site of numerous voluntary climate-protection efforts ranging from forest preservation to power-plant retrofitting. The initiative was announced last month at a kickoff meeting convened in Washington, D.C., by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World...
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Like its U.S. timber rival Boise-Cascade, Louisiana-Pacific Corp. is planning to build and operate a large plant in Chile to make strand-board. And like its competitor, the Portland, Oregon company hopes to beginproducing the stand-board, a plywood substitute, by next year. Louisiana-Pacific and Bomasil S.A. of Chile have agreed to form a joint venture for the project. The plant would be located on property owned by Bomasil in Panguipulli, about 200 miles (330 kms) northwest of the Boise Cascade project site at Bahía Ilque, near Puerto Montt. It would process more than 400,000 cubic meters of native hardwood and softwood a year. As the Boise Cascade project illustrates, however, there might be hurdles. An environmental group, Fiscalía del Medio Ambiente...
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The U.S. Forest Service’s International Institute of Tropical Forestry is commissioning a study of timber production in Central America and Mexico to identify alternatives to the logging of big-leaf mahogany and Spanish cedar. Heavy cutting has caused these highly prized woods to become increasingly scarce in the region. The new study will seek not only to pinpoint suitable alternatives, but also to examine ways to make use of wood that is currently discarded in the timber harvesting process. On June 1, the forest service requested proposals from “prospective offerors” interested in carrying out the study, estimating the contract value at $50,000 to $100,000. Proposals were due June 30. The work, scheduled to start this August and conclude in April of next year, is intended...
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In what it bills as its largest campaign ever, Greenpeace, the international environmental group, on May 31 launched a new drive to prevent destruction of the Amazon rainforest. The organization is opening an office in Manaus, Brazil as part of the effort, which will focus on fighting large-scale logging projects and encouraging alternative development in the Amazon region. Among other initiatives, the NGO plans to support attempts by Brazil’s National Council of Rubber Tappers to create latex extraction reserves in 10% of the Brazilian Amazon by 2000. Currently, 63,000 families of rubber tappers live in government reserves, producing 5,000 tons of rubber, or enough to supply 1.4% of the Brazilian market. Greenpeace also will promote efforts to market hearts of acai palm and the...
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