Latin American wildlife experts and environmental officials are discussing the creation of a system of biological corridors that would connect the region’s jaguar populations. Alan Rabinowitz, a jaguar expert with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a U.S.-based nonprofit that in July hosted a regional meeting on the subject in Costa Rica, says the effort reflects growing awareness that jaguar conservation requires a new approach. “For years, biologists had written off places between parks and protected areas,” says Rabinowitz, who has studied jaguars in Central America for years. “Now, we are starting to see how important they are for jaguars and other migratory animals—even in places inhabited by humans.” The initial plan involves identifying the most important land links that would allow the intermingling...
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Doe Run Peru last month was fined US$230,000 for environmental violations caused by its metals smelter in the Andean town of La Oroya in Peru’s central Junín department. And on Aug. 31, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ordered the Peruvian government to take steps to protect the health of residents of La Oroya, where repeated studies have found high blood lead levels, especially in children. Doe Run has been the target of protests since shortly after it bought the smelter from Peru’s state-run mining company in 1997. Underlying them is concern over heavy-metals and sulfur-dioxide emissions at the smelter, which processes lead, copper and zinc. (See “Peru court orders agencies to protect town”—EcoAméricas, May ’05 and “Mining town...
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Tension between Argentina and Uruguay is growing as a massive pulp mill Uruguay has allowed a Finnish company to build near the countries’ common border nears completion. Argentina claims the US$1.1 billion pulp complex Botnia is finishing on the banks of the Uruguay River poses an air- and water-pollution threat to the Argentine province of Entre Rios on the opposite shore. Located at Fray Bentos, across the Uruguay River from the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú, the new plant is designed to produce up to one million tons of pulp annually. It includes a warehouse capable of storing 100,000 tons of pulp, and has its own private port, 40 miles (70 kms) downstream. A source of cross-border angst during its planning and development...
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A trio of conservation entities have joined in an unprecedented effort to reintroduce Amazon manatees, an endangered species, into Brazil’s rainforest rivers. Researchers plan to place two male members of the freshwater species (Trichechus inunguis) into a tributary of the Rio Negro next February. Manatee numbers in Brazil plunged in the period 1930-50, when hides from some 200,000 of the animals—known locally as “peixe bois” or “fish cows”—were turned into industrial belts here and abroad, often for sewing machines. Killing manatees for their pelts ended with the development in the 1950s of synthetic rubbers. But the animals face other threats, including habitat loss and death at the hands of Amazon hunters, who sell manatee meat to river dwellers. Sometimes hunters capture baby manatees...
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