Accusing the government of ignoring their health and environmental concerns, Achuar indigenous communities in the Corrientes River Valley last month blocked access routes and took over oil wells in the Peruvian Amazon, forcing the PlusPetrol Norte oil company to halt operations. The 13-day protest cost the company about US$15 million in lost production, according to Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines. Achuar affiliated with the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes River (Feconaco) lifted the blockade in Blocks 1AB and 8 on Oct. 22, after signing an agreement with the company and the national and regional governments on environmental and health issues. Among the Achuar’s key objectives was to get PlusPetrol to stop contaminating local waterways with production water, the saline, heavy...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Worried by reports of environmental damage and abuses of Indian rights, Colombia has suspended a US$13 million port project in the Caribbean department of Guajira until the company involved can address the objections of conservationists and indigenous leaders. Brisa, a private Colombian company, began building the Brisa Multipurpose Port in September at the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world’s highest coastal range. It said the port would spur regional development, handle exports of more than three million tons annually of limestone, coal and other raw materials and generate 3,500 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs. But environmentalists argue work on the port would harm local, small-scale fishing as well as two wetlands that harbor important species of fish, migratory birds...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Despite strong opposition from leading environmentalists, Panamanians voted overwhelmingly Oct. 22 to embark on a US$5.25 billion project to expand the Panama Canal so the largest cargo vessels and tankers can use the waterway. In endorsing the project, 76.6% of voters looked beyond warnings that a bigger canal would exacerbate problems of water supply and quality, accepting government arguments that a third set of locks was key to Panama’s prosperity. The government had long argued that to remain competitive in trade, Panama needed to build an additional set of locks capable of handling so called post-Panamax ships, which are too wide and long for the current locks. The new locks, to run parallel to the two existing sets of locks, will permit the...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Green advocates are calling on the Mexican Congress to boost funding for forests in the 2007 federal budget, citing alarming deforestation rates and an inadequate response to the problem in recent years. In a report issued last month, Greenpeace Mexico said that in order for the country to avoid losing virtually all its forests in the next 50 years, Congress must increase its forest-conservation and reforestation budget from US$182,000 (1.975 million pesos) annually to $737 million (8 billion pesos). Greenpeace forests and jungle program coordinator Héctor Magallón, drawing on figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, estimates that during the six years of President Vicente Fox’s administration, 8.8 million acres (3.6 million has) of forestland was cleared. Said Magallón in a prepared...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
A report suggesting the British government might advocate conservation purchases of Amazon land by an international body has drawn an angry reaction in Brazil, where officials called on Britain to mind its own business. Last month, Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that British Environment Secretary David Miliband would propose a plan involving “the creation of an international body to buy the rainforest…” The trust, the article said, would then sell trees to conservation “stake-holders.” The Oct. 1 article appeared on the eve of a climate-change meeting last month in Monterrey, Mexico that was attended by ministers from 20 of the world’s major energy-consuming nations. The article quoted Miliband as saying: “Obviously, there are sovereignty issues, but deforestation is a massive issue…and...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
