Public hearings scheduled for this month on a controversial gold and copper-mining project in northern Peru were canceled shortly before they were to have been held, ostensibly due to security concerns. Canadian-based Manhattan Minerals was to have presented its environmental-impact statement at hearings slated for Nov. 5 in Lima, Nov. 6 in Piura and Nov. 7 in Tambogrande, where mineral exploration has been underway since 1999. In mid-October, Peru's Energy and Mines Ministry announced it had canceled the Tambogrande hearing, citing a "lack of security guarantees." Local authorities and residents of that farming area, which produces most of Peru's limes and large quantities of mangos for export, have consistently opposed the project, which would require relocation of a third of the...
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Fernando Gabeira, a founder of Brazil's Green Party, made headlines in 2001 when he switched to the Workers' Party (PT) of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He did so figuring environmental causes would have strong state support in the event that Da Silva, known as Lula, won Brazil's presidency. Lula did win. But last month, just 10 months into the new administration, Gabeira quit the PT on grounds the governing party has ignored its own environmental platform. "The PT has started to break all its promises in the environmental area," says Gabeira. "I'm in the opposition now." One of Brazil's best-known environmental politicians, Gabeira says his disenchantment with the administration began when the government in March started loosening restriction on the importation of used...
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The judge handling a lawsuit that seeks to hold ChevronTexaco responsible for environmentally destructive oil operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1972 to 1992 will inspect 100 pits containing drilling wastes. Superior Court Judge Alberto Guerra says it will probably take him eight weeks to visit the sites, where oil crews dumped toxic production water generated in the oil-extraction process. He was asked to do so by the plaintiffs in the case: Amazon Indians who claim irresponsible oilfield practices by an Ecuadorian subsidiary of Texaco caused—and continue to cause—widespread environmental damage in the region. The case, being heard in Nueva Loja—capital of Sucumbios, the Amazon province where most of the disputed oil activity took place—marks the plaintiffs' second attempt to...
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An Italian-flagged ship sailed from Buenos Aires last month with 200 tons of toxic waste aboard, closing the book on one of Argentina's most serious toxic-dumping cases. The waste, much of it lindane pesticide and some of it DDT, had been removed from a shallow pit in the northern province of Santiago del Estero. (See "Industry group agrees to cleanup of Argentine site"—EcoAméricas, Sept. '02.) It had been buried illegally in 1990. Environmental groups had denounced the illegal dumpsite near the tiny town of Argentina in 1994. But not until July of last year did the nation's Environmental Secretariat reach agreement with Argentina's Chemical and Petrochemical Industry Chamber (CIQyP) on cleanup of the waste. Green groups pin blame for the illegal pesticide...
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