Brazilian environmental authorities this month were scrambling to shore up a federal ban on mahogany exports after timber mills took to the courts to free themselves from the measure’s restrictions. In December and January, a total of nine mills in Pará and Paraná states secured court rulings allowing them to proceed with mahogany shipments on grounds they had acquired their wood before Oct. 19, the day the ban took effect. But Ibama, the environmental-enforcement agency that declared the unusual ban after uncovering evidence of widespread illegal mahogany cutting, is challenging the rulings, which number five in all. And early this month, it succeeded in overturning one of them—a decision affecting the Perrachi mill in Pará state. Meanwhile, Ibama President Hamilton Casara has conferred...
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Citing the results of a telephone call-in poll, Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador is claiming strong public support for his plan to install second levels on portions of two of the federal capital’s main thoroughfares. City officials say that 72% of the 80,970 participants in the Federal District government’s Jan. 19-20 call-in poll expressed support for the project. The city will begin a bidding process immediately, with construction starting in April so the $160 million first phase of the roadwork can be finished by November, López Obrador said in a news conference. The project, he said, will create jobs, ease traffic jams and “boost the city’s pride.” Critics, claiming the project will cause more smog by promoting private-vehicle use, argue...
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Ecuador has created a new protected area in the Amazon: the 137-million-acre (55,400-hectare) Cofán-Bermejo Ecological Reserve. Announced Jan. 30 by the Environment Ministry, the reserve will be administered by the Cofán Indigenous Federation—a grouping of leaders of the seven Cofán Indian groups in Ecuador—in cooperation with the ministry and local Cofán communities and groups. The Cofán are an Amazon tribe numbering 1,000 who live in seven towns in Sucumbios province, subsisting on fishing, hunting and ecotourism. Their traditional lands, known for their biodiversity, range from low-lying tropical forest to Andean páramo. Studies done by the Field Museum of Chicago, show the reserve is home to 2,000 to 3,000 plant species, ten of them new to science; 42 large...
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Hoping to reduce waste-disposal costs, Lima officials have approved regulations aimed at getting the city’s nearly 8 million residents to separate recyclables from their trash. Under enabling legislation passed in December, residents will be expected to put recyclables into colored bags. Participation will not be mandatory initially, says Juan Arenas Lizana, coordinator of Lima’s Office of Sanitation Services. “Obviously, this will have to be done gradually,” Arenas Lizana explains. “...[I]t needs to include awareness-raising and educational campaigns.” Some 450 tons of solid waste are generated daily in Lima province, Arenas Lizana says. While four landfills serve the area, much of the refuse is handled “informally” by poor residents who scavenge paper, glass, cardboard and aluminum and resell it to manufacturers. Because this...
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An Argentine judge is expected to rule in the coming weeks on a lawsuit that the beach city of Magdalena has brought against Royal-Dutch Shell and the German company Primus over a 66,000-gallon (250,000-liter) crude-oil spill off Magdalena, which is 50 miles (80 kms) south of Buenos Aires. The accident occurred on Jan. 15, 1999, when the Shell-owned vessel carrying the crude, Estrella Pampeana, collided with the Primus container ship, Sea Parana, which reportedly had changed course due to a power failure aboard. The magistrate hearing the case, Ricardo Ferrer, a federal judge in the city of La Plata, has received technical studies, taken a helicopter tour of the spill area and examined portions of the coast on foot. Magdalena’s...
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