The San Diego, California green group Wildcoast recently posted ads in Mexico City in an attempt to challenge the belief among many Mexicans that eating turtle eggs boosts virility The campaign, featuring posters showing a scantily clad model and the words: “My man doesn’t need turtle eggs,” fueled a media firestorm that exceeded Wildcoast’s greatest hopes. Mexican women’s groups led by the National Women’s Institute, a women’s-rights nonprofit, complained angrily that the posters placed in restaurants, markets and other locations would reinforce attitudes of machismo. The uproar, in turn, drew intense media attention to the Wildcoast campaign, which began in August and is slated to run until the end of this month. “I’m going to send Patricia Espinosa, the president of the National Women’s...
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Disagreement over Uruguay’s plans for two huge pulp mills on its border with Argentina continues to test relations between the two countries. Uruguayan Vice President Rodolfo Nin Novoa last month accused Argentine President Néstor Kirchner of displaying an “unfriendly” and “impertinent” attitude in opposing financing for the plants. The two mills are slated to be built near Fray Bentos, across the Uruguay River from the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. Site work already has begun on the projects—one planned by Finland’s Metsä-Botnia at a cost of US$1.2 billion and the other by Spain’s Ence for US$600 million. Argentina says the plants will cause cross-border air and water pollution, affecting the quality of life and economy of the city of Gualeguaychú...
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The Guatemalan Congress has ratified the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, a controversial move that allows Guatemala to join the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Critics of the Sept. 13 vote assert Guatemala has no whaling interests and is only joining the commission to curry favor with pro-whaling Japan in return for Japanese foreign aid. “Guatemala has no interest in either whale hunting or watching,” says Carlos Albacete of Trópico Verde, a Guatemala-based environmental group. Albacete adds that participation in the commission is an unjustified expense for the impoverished country. Guatemala would become the 67th country to join the IWC, which dates from 1946, when the whaling convention was signed. The convention established the IWC to oversee conservation and management of international...
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Brasília’s local authorities have issued a decree aimed at guaranteeing a steadily increasing rate of recycling of plastic bottles and tires in Brazil’s federal district. “The law was necessary because the federal district’s landfill is at the end of its useful life,” says Fernando Fonseca, the district’s environmental undersecretary. “Used tires and plastic bottles are increasingly being dumped in illegal rural or roadside landfills and rivers.” The federal district, encompassing the nation’s capital and 26 satellite cities, is home to two million people. That’s bigger than the populations of most Brazilian cities, though less than those of most Brazilian states. As there are no tire makers and few plastic-bottle makers in Brasília, the law will mainly affect local tire and plastic-bottle distributors. It...
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