Construction of a controversial dam in Belize will continue after Britain’s Privy Council last month refused a request from environmentalists for an injunction until the final ruling is made. The London-based council, which serves as a court of appeals for Belize and other Commonwealth countries, will hear the case in December. Conservationists in Belize came before the council to request judicial review of the Belizean government’s approval of the Chalillo dam project’s environmental-impact assessment (EIA), which they claim is replete with procedural flaws. They cite the omission from the impact assessment of key sections of an independent scientific study on the dam’s potential effects on wildlife. They also charge the public hearing on the impact assessment was held following the document’s approval. Project...
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The seizure in Rotterdam of 180 tons of Chilean farmed salmon contaminated with the fungicide—and suspected carcinogen—malachite green has prompted probes and legal action in Chile. Dutch officials impounded the European Union-bound salmon, worth US$200,000, in July. Since then, environmental groups have filed suit in Chile’s courts, and Chile’s government has pledged to investigate. Malachite green is a synthetic fabric dye that was found to kill the fungi and parasites often plaguing farmed salmon and trout. Suspected as a carcinogen, it is banned in the United States and Europe and has been outlawed in Chile since 1997. But because of its effectiveness and low price—some 20 times cheaper than alternative fungi- and parasite-control methods—the substance is nevertheless believed...
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Argentina risks losing an area of rainforest habitat where nearly half the country’s biodiversity is concentrated, according to green advocates, academics and some Argentine government officials. The Yungas region in the northern Argentine provinces of Salta and Jujuy encompasses rich habitat ranging from subtropical rainforest to mountain forests on the eastern slope of the Andes. Extending to the Bolivian border, it is home to 203 bird species and 89 species of mammal, according to Unesco, which last year created a Las Yungas biosphere reserve in the region. But land clearing, mostly to permit sugar, cotton and soy cultivation, has reduced Yungas forests to one third their original size, says Javier Corcuera, director of the Argentine green group Vida Silvestre. “Of what remains, most is degraded...
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Members of the public may comment on a draft of the first-ever evaluation of the Canada-Chile Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (CCAEC) during an Oct. 24 meeting in Ottawa of the two nations’ environmental officials. The environmental pact took effect in 1997, along with Chile and Canada’s bilateral free-trade agreement. The joint Chilean and Canadian evaluation will become final once public comments have been reviewed. A draft of the review that was made public in June notes that efforts must be made to raise awareness of—and boost civil-society participation in—the bilateral environmental pact. It calls for improvement in funding levels, the handling of citizens’ complaints and the scheduling of meetings. For Beth Rohr, coordinator of a Canadian government office that...
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