Chile’s lead environmental agency, the National Environmental Commission (Conama), has drafted a new policy to upgrade management of the nation’s fast-growing flow of solid waste. Conama Executive Director Paulina Saball says the policy is “more than a mere declaration of intentions,” promising the government will commit to specific short-term deadlines and a medium-term work plan. The new policy likely will be voted on by Conama’s governing body, the Council of Ministers, in December or January, according to Jorge Troncoso, Conama’s pollution-control director. Troncoso says the policy seeks to address solid-waste-management weaknesses in all 12 regions of Chile. The country’s solid-waste stream is growing at a 5% annual rate that within 10 years will require the country to double...
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Brazil accounts for nearly 10% of the global wildlife trade, and the vast majority of wildlife commerce in the country is illegal, according to a report issued this month by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The study estimates that 38 million animals are removed from their natural habitats around the world each year. It says that up to 95% of Brazil’s wildlife trade is illegal, with about a third of the animals captured for export. Researchers say that for every animal sold, three die during capture and transport. A law enacted here in 1998 set penalties for wildlife trafficking, but critics say its failure to distinguish between domestic and international trafficking and its generally low fines only encourage international poachers. Poachers in...
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Without water, there is no life. And unless Nicaragua boosts public spending, the UN warns, it won’t have enough drinking water. In a report issued Oct. 28, the UN says Nicaragua must boost its budget for drinking-water services by an average of 10.8% annually over the next decade just to maintain current supplies. To meet targets it set at a UN summit in 2000, the report states, the country must boost this spending by 12% annually between now and 2015. The UN says 77% of Nicaragua’s rural population and 85% of its urban population have access to potable water. By “access,” the world body means that a public or private water source is “within a 15 minute walk of the individual’s place of residence...
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Brazil is trying to fix a regulatory glitch that it says timber companies and landowners have exploited to fell Paraná, or candelabra pine, an endangered tree species. Because this pine (Araucaria angustifolia) is endangered, cutting it is illegal except when the tree is plantation-grown. But some southern Brazilian landowners and timber companies have been felling native Paraná pines in large numbers and claiming falsely that the trees had been planted, authorities say. So Brazil’s Environment Ministry has issued a decree requiring authorities to verify in the field that Paraná pines and other endangered trees are indeed planted before any cutting of these trees can occur. Paraná pines, tall, thick and straight-trunk conifers, are found in the Atlantic Rainforest, a coastal woodland that has...
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