A restructuring of Brazil’s Environment Ministry and of Ibama, the ministry’s enforcement and licensing arm, has prompted a strike by Ibama workers and the resignation of two top officials. The reorganization decreed April 26 also has raised concern about a weakening of Ibama’s environmental licensing oversight, which some government officials blame for hampering development. Officials say the restructuring, which shifts biodiversity-conservation oversight away from Ibama and creates four new Environment Ministry departments, will improve Brazil’s ability to meet its domestic and international environmental responsibilities. But President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reportedly hopes the Ibama changes also will speed licensing of key infrastructure projects. High on his priority list is a controversial dam complex on the western Amazon region’s Madeira River that he and...
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Chile’s salmon-farming industry once again finds itself accused of using banned chemicals. Moreover, scientists say salmon farms’ excessive use of chemicals has caused sea lice to become resistant to the treatments used to control them, increasing the mortality rate of Chilean salmon this year. In December, British authorities announced that while testing imported Chilean salmon, they detected crystal violet—a banned substance that they believe is used by some salmon farms to kill fungus and parasites. The same month, the British Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued an alert and recall warning, prompting supermarkets in the United Kingdom to withdraw the salmon. British officials have since confirmed that the salmon originated in Chile but before going to Britain was processed in Thailand by Findus, a...
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Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has appointed Ana Lya Uriarte, executive director of the National Environment Commission (Conama), as Chile’s first-ever environment minister. Uriarte’s main task in the short-term will be to design the structure of the new environment ministry, and present that plan for approval to the board of directors of Conama and later to the Congress sometime during 2008. Conama, currently Chile’s lead environmental agency, has less autonomy than a ministry because it is a coordinating body under the control of cabinet ministers and the president’s office. Bachelet asserts the ministry will help spur modernization of Chile’s environmental institutions. “Chile needs an environmental system that guarantees high standards, permits an agile process for the consideration of projects, is consistent in its criteria...
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As greater Buenos Aires continues to generate its usual 13,750 tons of trash a day, concern is mounting that a large portion of the waste soon might not have anywhere to go. Currently, solid waste from metropolitan Buenos Aires is disposed of in three landfills. But officials have announced that two of these will close by the end of this year due to concern they are causing pollution problems for nearby residents. Meanwhile, repeated government attempts to replace them have met with failure. Formidable opposition has sprung up in all locations mentioned as possible sites for new landfills. The latest example was the municipality of Brandsen, which is 40 miles (60 kms) south of the capital. Throughout the South American summer, Brandsen inhabitants staged protest...
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