Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are back in the news in Argentina following the filing of a complaint against Edenor and Edesur, the two power companies that provide electricity in Buenos Aires. The complaint, filed by two federal prosecutors, alleges that the companies did not follow through on their commitments to get rid of transformers containing PCBs. Argentina’s Congress passed legislation in May 2001 outlawing the use of PCBs. The measure does not require removal of all equipment containing the chemicals until 2010. But Edenor and Edesur signed agreements with Buenos Aires authorities in 2001 promising to take PCB-tainted transformers out of service in a matter of months and send them abroad for disposal. The two companies later announced they had followed through on those agreements...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Conflict continues in the Ecuadorian Amazon between the Quechua community of Sarayacu and the General Fuels Company (CGC), an Argentine energy firm planning to conduct oil exploration and production operations on the indigenous community’s land. Twice in the past three months, Sarayacu residents have seized—and released—CGC workers to protest the project. As of early this month, Ecuadorian government officials were working to mediate an agreement that would allow oil exploration to go forward. Sarayacu, a community of 1,200 in Pastaza province, is located on the banks of the Bobonaza River, a tributary of the Marañón. Its residents make their living by farming, hunting, fishing and selling crafts and medicinal plants. In 1992, during the center-left government of then-President Rodrigo Borja, the...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Chile’s fishing industry is now subject to transferable 10-year quotas on landings for all of the country’s commercial operators—large or small. The quotas were created by fishing reforms enacted in December and implemented in January. They replace a temporary system of largely non-transferable quotas that had been in place for two years due to a dramatic decline in Chilean fishing stocks during the past decade. Chile’s fish exports climbed 100% from 1985 to 1994, but the boom period left fishing stocks—according to the World Bank, among other institutions—in a state of total over-exploitation. Chile is the world’s fourth biggest fishing nation after China, Peru and Japan. Together with Peru, it supplies up to 70% of the world’s fish meal...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
For Latin timber producers trying to enter green markets, obtaining environmental certification is challenging enough. But that’s only half the battle. There’s also the matter of developing demand for certified products, catering to foreign tastes and meeting rigorous quality standards. Such challenges dominated discussion at the latest Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) conference, held in November in San José, Costa Rica. They also led to the unveiling of a regional body aimed at promoting certified-wood production and sales. The GFTN, a sustainable-forestry advocacy organization coordinated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), brought representatives of Caribbean, European and U.S. certified-wood buyers and consumer networks together with certified-timber producers from Mexico, Central America and South America. Among the topics to...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
