Mexico is moving to tackle its mounting fresh water crisis. Calling water a “national security matter,” Alberto Cárdenas, head of the country’s Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat), on May 1 formally presented the new National Water Law, which had taken effect the day before. The law creates a mix of investment opportunities and penalties to boost the water supply and guarantee clean drinking water for all 100 million Mexicans. It does not address water pricing. Due to centuries of poor management, Mexico suffers from all manner of water problems ranging from drought-like conditions in many areas and huge leakage issues to serious contamination and territorial battles over water rights. Central to the new law is the creation of a nationwide Consulting Water Commission...
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The World Bank expects next month to approve the first US$300 million tranche of a $1 billion loan aimed at helping Brazil implement environmentally sustainable policies. Brazil will receive the credit in the form of a so-called environmental-adjustment loan, which goes directly to the national treasury and—unlike project-oriented World Bank loans—requires no government matching funds. “The government will use the low-cost loan to maintain its current level of reserves and thus support macroeconomic policy,” says Eduardo Coutinho Guerra, the National Treasury’s general coordinator. “The loan won’t be given to prompt a shift in policy...but to recognize and support a policy change already underway.” So far, the World Bank has given environmental-adjustment loans to Mexico ($202 million...
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Brazil’s Senate ratified the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) this month, but it has drawn fire from green groups for putting one of those pollutants on an exemptions list. Senate President José Sarney signed a legislative decree (#204/2004) ratifying the treaty on May 7, a day after the Senate approved the measure. The POPs treaty curbs the so-called dirty dozen pollutants: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, furans and nine pesticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex and toxaphene). Since 1992, Brazil has prohibited production and use of all these substances except heptachlor and askarel, which contains PCBs and is used in electrical transformers. But in 1994 the government ordered power companies to replace askarel with an alternative. The substance Brazil exempted...
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A mayor on one of the Galápagos Islands is trying to nullify the Ecuadorian Air Force’s ownership of Baltra, one of the islands in the prized archipelago. Baltra, which has an airport and was the site of a U.S. Army air base during World War II, is controlled by Air Force but is located in the Galápagos municipality of Santa Cruz. In March it was revealed that last year, a civil magistrate on the Galápagos had granted full property rights over the 6,282-acre (2,542-ha) island to the Air Force at the Air Force’s request. The decision, made public a full year after it was reached, touched off a storm of debate about the environmental consequences that unfettered Air Force ownership might hold for...
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