Following protests by indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon, Congress has handed President Alan García a rare defeat, overturning two executive decree laws in a vote that some environmentalists say could prompt future challenges to presidential decrees. By a 66-29 vote with no abstentions, Congress has repealed decrees 1015 and 1073, which reduced the voting support needed for native communities in the tropical lowlands and campesino communities in the highlands to make decisions about land use, including sales or leases. Community leaders protested that they had not been consulted about the measures, which lowered the required majority from two-thirds to a 50% plus one. (See “Trade-related decrees triggering protests in Peru”—EcoAméricas, Aug. ‘08.) According to Ernesto Ráez-Luna, director of science and...
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The state-owned Brazilian oil company Petrobras is giving up a drilling concession area that had become highly controversial because nearly three-quarters of it is located in a prized national park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The action, however, owes as much to economics as environmental opposition, analysts say, leaving open the possibility that oil exploration might still be carried out in the 497,917-acre (201,500-ha) concession area. Under an agreement negotiated with the Ecuadorian government last month, Petrobras is relinquishing its rights to the area, called Bloc 31, all but 28% of which lies within the borders of Yasuní National Park. Petrobras acquired the concession from the Argentine company Perez Companc in 2002, which ostensibly gave it a 22-year period in which...
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For years, cows—and more to the point, their burps—have won prominent mention among the causes of global warming. Not only do they emit a great deal of gas, but that gas, the vast majority of which emerges in burps, includes methane, which is over 15 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. Just how prominently cattle figure in the climate-change picture has become the subject of intensive study in Argentina, home to some 55 million cattle. Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology (Inta) recently rigged cows with tubes leading from a surgical incision in their stomachs to a tank strapped to their backs in order to estimate with some precision how much greenhouse gas the animals produce...
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In “Brazil to unveil auto fuel-efficiency stickers” (EcoAméricas, Sept. ’08—print edition), the total number of automobile makers and importers in Brazil is given as 17. There are 27. In “Mexico vows strong push to save vaquita” (EcoAméricas, Sept. ’08—print edition), the name of Mexico’s protected-areas commission is misstated. The correct name is National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp). In “Forest conservation looms large in climate debate” (EcoAméricas, Sept. ’08—print edition), the job title of The Nature Conservancy’s Zoë Kant is misstated. The correct title is Manager of Carbon Markets...
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