Mexico this month appeared poised to enact a long-anticipated biosecurity law despite a report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) recommending a more cautious approach. In a joint meeting Dec. 8, relevant committees of the lower house of Mexico’s Congress approved the controversial legislation, called the Biosecurity Law for Genetically Modified Organisms. A full lower-house vote on the bill, which already has cleared the Senate, had not been held by press time. But lawmakers expected the lower house to give its approval before the scheduled Dec. 15 close of the legislative session. The congressional activity came despite a cautionary report issued Nov. 8 by the CEC, the three-nation environmental agency created in conjunction with the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta...
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An explosion last month aboard a tanker unloading methanol in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná caused an oil slick that covered 19 miles (30 kms) of coastline, including the shore of a national park, and has prompted officials to fine four companies. The Nov. 15 explosion aboard the tanker Vicuña killed four crewmen and sent 340,000 gallons (1.3 million liters) of the ship’s fuel oil and lubricant into the harbor of Paranaguá, one of Brazil’s largest ports. Most of the methanol in the tanker when the explosion occurred, an estimated 1.3 million gallons (5 million liters), was consumed by the flames. The cause of the accident remains unknown. The slick from the spill covered the shoreline of Paranaguá Bay and two adjoining bays, as...
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Lawyers for Ecuadorian Amazon Indians suing ChevronTexaco claim they have obtained documents from Ecuador’s state oil company, Petroecuador, proving Texaco failed to perform an adequate environmental cleanup after conducting oil operations in the country from 1972 to 1992. “Documents that have been hidden for a long time will be submitted to the judge, and these forcefully prove the pollution Texaco caused and also prove that the company never cleaned up the pollution,” Steven Donziger, one of the attorneys for the indigenous claimants, asserted in a Dec. 1 press conference in Quito. Donziger presented a Petroecuador document dated July 10, 1996 in which José Paez, then manager of Petroecuador’s oil-production arm, questions remediation work Texaco was carrying out under an agreement with the Ecuadorian government...
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The Itapemirim Group, Brazil’s leading inter-urban bus company, has launched a campaign to educate its employees and passengers about the widespread illegal traffic in wildlife poached from the country’s forests and rural areas. “When I learned most trafficking is done along the highways, I thought we as a company could do something to help prevent it,” says Andréa Cola, one of the company’s directors. The company will include information about trafficking in its employee training programs, highlight the issue in internal company media and alert passengers through its onboard magazine. It hopes that once employees and passengers have the information, they will report any suspicious activity. Potentially, the campaign could reach a lot of people. Itapemirim Group has 16,000 employees on its payroll, and...
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