Two suspects have been arrested and charged in the shooting death of a 21-year-old peasant conservationist fighting illegal logging in woodlands outside of Mexico City, and Mexican police are searching for two other suspects. Brothers Silvestre Jacinto Medina, 20, and Fernando Jacinto Medina, 18, were arrested this month and are being held for trial in the May murder of Aldo Zamora, the Mexico State prosecutor’s office says. Prosecutors and witnesses say the two were among four gunmen who fired on Zamora and family members near their Tlahuica Indian community of San Juan Atzingo in Mexico State, about a two-hour drive southwest of Mexico City. Aldo Zamora was killed and his 16-year-old brother Misael injured in the attack, which environmental and...
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The long-running trial in Ecuador pitting rainforest Indians against Chevron over decades of oil-industry pollution in the Amazon entered a new phase last month as a court-appointed investigator began preparing a global assessment of impacts caused by oilfield operations. Investigator Richard Cabrera, appointed by the Ecuadorian judge handling the case, Germán Yanez, will review impacts in the provinces of Orellana and Sucumbíos. Rainforest lands there allegedly were contaminated from 1972 to 1992 by Texaco Petroleum Co. (Texpet), a subsidiary of Texaco and now a subsidiary of Chevron, which acquired Texaco in 2001. Cabrera’s assessment marks the third phase of the four-year-old trial, in which rainforest Indians are demanding a cleanup and billions of dollars in damages. The first two phases...
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The conservation group WWF says salmon farming, typically associated with contamination of coastal inlets, is also causing significant environmental damage to Chilean lakes. In a report released last month, WWF calls on farm operators to move production of salmon smolt from lakes to closed-containment systems on land. The recommendation has been embraced by the world’s largest salmon producer, Norway-based Marine Harvest. “Chile is alone in the global salmon farming industry in its large-scale use of freshwater lakes for salmon-smolt production,” says David Tecklin, director of the WWF office in Chile. “Lakes are more vulnerable to environmental damage than other aquatic ecosystems, as there is less water circulation and a longer flushing period.” Tecklin says none of the 51 existing lake-based...
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A 115-foot (35-meter) Argentine fishing vessel departed the Patagonian port of Comodoro Rivadavia on July 17 and returned a week later with 80 tons of shrimp in its hold. Of more interest than the catch, though, was the vessel’s fuel, which included 5,000 liters of biodiesel made from squid- and hake-processing waste, seaweed and wild rose bushes. The biodiesel formed only a small part of the fuel supply of the vessel, named Codepeca I and owned by the Argentine fishing company Harengus. Nevertheless, it reflects efforts in Argentina to develop alternatives to the most common biofuel feedstock here—soy oil. For the past three years, private companies here have been working on pilot projects aimed at extracting seaweed oil for use in...
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