A project to more than triple the amount of protected land in the Brazilian Amazon got underway last month after receiving US$73.5 million in funds from the German and Brazilian governments, the World Bank Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Currently just 3%, or 30 million acres (12 million hectares), of the Brazilian Amazon has protected status. The new initiative, called the Amazon Region Protected Areas project (Arpa), marks an ambitious effort to increase that share to 10%, or 100 million acres (40 million hectares), by 2012. The initial $73.5 million in funding will be used to demarcate land, build such facilities as visitor centers and perform other start-up tasks, says Rosa Lemos de Sá, conservation director...
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The European Union (EU) announced last month that in November it would rescind its tariff exemption for imported Colombian flowers. Colombian flower producers now fret that after years of effort to meet EU environmental standards, they will lose European market share and eventually could be forced out of the EU market altogether. Colombia, the world’s second largest exporter of cut flowers after the Netherlands, has sent flowers to Europe tariff-free since 1991 under a program intended to reward the country for its struggle to fight illegal drug cultivation. Last year, Europe accounted for 9.3%, or US$63 million, of Colombia’s flower exports. But the EU determined that by becoming more competitive in Europe, the Colombian flower industry had “graduated out” of the so-called...
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Over the objections of environmentalists, Mexico has granted Royal Dutch-Shell and Sempra Energy International environmental permits to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in Baja California. Both companies plan to construct the facilities on the Costa Azul, a plateau fronting the Pacific Ocean 50 miles (80 kms) south of the U.S.-Mexican border and 10 miles (16 kms) north of the outskirts of Ensenada. The terminals will receive and re-gasify natural gas shipped by tanker from abroad. Though plans for such complexes abound now, they had been deemed uneconomical for years due to falling natural gas prices in the 1970s and 1980s. Only four of the terminals operate in the United States, all of them east of the Mississippi. Environmentalists say the two...
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Cycling in Lima requires uncommon nerve, but the Peruvian capital’s new mayor hopes bikers—as well as skaters and pedestrians—will feel welcome soon. Twelve years after inaugurating Lima’s first bikeway as a city councilman, Luís Castañeda Lossio has reestablished the Metropolitan Program of Non-Motorized Transportation. “Luís Castañeda is a futurist, and we trust his vision,” says María Traverso, executive director of the program, who sees biking as a way for residents to stay fit while helping to reduce the city’s smog and traffic. “He’s spearheading this project because he is concerned about the human factor.” Traverso’s office has received US$1.4 million from the World Bank to repair the 60 miles (100 kms) of bikeways built during the last decade but neglected since...
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