Brazilian officials are challenging a study published Oct. 21 in the British journal Science that claims the Amazon rainforest is being deforested at twice the rate Brazil has reported. The study, by environmental scientist Greg Asner and colleagues at the Carnegie Institution’s Stanford University-based Department of Global Ecology, involved a new method of analyzing high-resolution satellite photos to account for small clearings caused by selective logging. The total area of these small clearings was then added to the estimates of large-scale land clearing routinely reported by the Brazilian government. The study says selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon’s top five timber-producing states during the four–year period 1999-2002 annually affected from 12,075 to 19,823 square kilometers (4,662 to 7,653 sq. miles...
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Blood samples from 250 Mexican and 125 Canadian mothers are being tested for pollutants including PCBs, DDT, dioxins, furans, chlordane, lindane, arsenic, lead and mercury. The sampling of 18- to 30-year-old women who have just given birth for the first time got underway last month at five sites in Canada and 10 in Mexico. It is being carried out as part of an initiative by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) to establish a North American profile of population exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and metals. Existing U.S. data will be included in the study, which the CEC says will for the first time allow basic comparisons of such information across the three countries. The CEC, a tri-lateral agency charged with...
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Despite heavy last-minute lobbying by the mineral and energy industries, Peru’s Congress passed a new General Environment Law last month, overriding an earlier veto of the legislation by President Alejandro Toledo. Several controversial provisions were eliminated or modified before the legislation was approved, however. One provision that would have put the burden of proof on companies to show that they are not harming the environment when allegations of pollution are filed was removed from the final version. The original version also called for mandatory use of World Health Organization (WHO) environmental-quality standards in cases in which Peru had not set national standards. The final version states that WHO standards will be used “as a reference.” Environmentalists and leaders of communities affected by mining...
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The Chilean government prosecutor’s office is preparing to sue a major pulp maker over the alleged pollution of protected wetlands near the southern city of Valdivia. The office, called the State Defense Council, has gathered evidence since April for a suit against the Chilean-owned and operated Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (Celco). It has said it will seek restoration of the wetlands and compensation for economic damages stemming from the contamination. Meanwhile, green groups have filed a complaint with Conama, Chile’s lead environmental agency, complaining that regulators have erred in allowing the Celco plant to continue operating. Celco’s US$1.2 billion mill closed voluntarily in June amid complaints it had polluted the Carlos Anwandter Sanctuary, provoking a severe decline in populations of the region’s threatened...
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