Brazil’s National Environmental Council (Conama) has approved a resolution requiring construction companies to deposit asbestos waste in industrial landfills. In 2002, Conama ruled such waste must be sent to ordinary landfills as opposed to open-air dumps, which typically are unfenced, unplanned affairs lacking in site preparation or pollution controls. The new resolution, approved last month and now in effect, tightens the restrictions further. Though ordinary landfills often are fenced, the public has access to them. This is not the case with industrial landfills, which also are subject to tighter requirements that they be lined and capped regularly to stop soil, groundwater and air pollution. Conama took the new action to ensure that “the waste, whose inhalation or ingestion increases the risk of lung and...
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Gradually, the doors are opening on North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) investor-state dispute tribunals. Mexico last month agreed to open to the public the proceedings held under Nafta’s Chapter 11, which governs investor protections and investor-state dispute resolution. Though Nafta partners Canada and the United States had signed off on public hearings in October 2003, Mexico had declined to go along until last month. Mexico’s move is just the latest step aimed at opening up Chapter 11 tribunals. Last October, all three Nafta nations agreed to accept third-party friend-of-the-court (amicus curiae) briefs in the proceedings. The opening is not unqualified, though. Proceedings in which confidential business information might be put at risk, for example, will be closed. Both...
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Debate has cropped up in Chile concerning a pair of major land-conservation efforts. Green groups charge a Jan. 2003 agreement they negotiated with Chilean authorities to safeguard coastal temperate rainforests in the southern Valdivia region is threatened by government non-compliance. Meanwhile, a US$10 million land-conservation purchase made in Chilean Patagonia by Kris McDivitt—the wife of Douglas Tompkins, former owner of the international clothier Esprit—has prompted a backlash in the Chilean Congress. The highest-profile of the two initiatives, the Valdivian rainforest agreement, has in many respects made strides, experts say. It targets an area the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) ranks as one of the 25 world eco-regions most in need of conservation. But the government is...
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Indigenous communities in Bolivia’s Pilón Lajas Indigenous Territory and Biosphere Reserve have joined green advocates to challenge an environmental license granted to Brazil’s Petrobras for oil exploration in the area. In a complaint filed July 28 with Bolivia’s Sustainable Development Ministry, indigenous residents and reserve advocates call for revocation of the license, saying the project threatens the region’s ecology and ecotourism industry. Organizers of Petrobras’ project, called Rio Hondo Sur, intend to begin seismic testing and road building by the end of this year. The affected area is located on the border of Madidi National Park and in the middle of the Vilcabamba-Amboro ecological corridor, which straddles the border of Bolivia and Peru. Scientists say the region contains the highest rate of biodiversity in...
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