In an effort to extend its socialist revolution to the oceans, the government of Hugo Chávez has passed a major fishing-law reform which, to the delight of environmentalists, bans the destructive practice of bottom trawling throughout Venezuelan waters. The reform forms part of a new Law on Fisheries and Aquaculture passed by the National Assembly on March 14. The legislation includes measures such as price controls on fish and a requirement that industrial fishing fleets deliver 5% of their catch to the state for nutrition programs. But the law’s most environmentally significant feature is the ban, starting March 2009, on all bottom-trawl fishing in Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone and territorial waters: an area of 230,000 square miles (600,000 sq kms). The law’s implementing...
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Chilean President Michelle Bachelet gave environmental issues a prominent place in her recent state-of-the-nation speech, touting initiatives ranging from the creation of an environment ministry to the establishment of a whale sanctuary along the length of Chile’s coast. Addressing the Chilean Congress on May 21, Bachelet also took aim at growing concern here about dwindling power supplies, vowing to boost renewable energy. Though her call for solar projects in the arid north no doubt pleased green advocates, what appeared to be a veiled endorsement of controversial hydroelectric plans in Patagonia likely stirred concern among groups fighting large dam projects in that region. “We don’t have the luxury not to take advantage of energy-generating resources,” Bachelet told Congress, “especially during a time...
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Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras, known as much for its oil spills in recent years as for its deep-sea drilling achievements, does not have a sterling environmental record. Yet like most oil companies, it runs ads aimed at portraying itself as ecologically aware. Those efforts hit a snag recently, when Brazil’s National Council of Self-Regulatory Advertising (Conar) recommended that its media-outlet members suspend ad campaigns promoting the oil giant’s environmental image. Conar, whose recommendations are routinely followed by the media, acted on complaints that Petrobras has misled the public in asserting its concern about environmental protection and sustainable development. Specifically, critics accuse the oil company of dragging its heels in providing low-sulfur diesel fuel needed for cleaner trucks and buses scheduled...
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The Argentine province of Salta has become the site of high-level political finger-pointing following the disclosure that Australia’s BHP Billiton has been drilling there for water it wants for Escondida, a copper mine the company operates across the border in Chile. Salta’s daily El Tribuno newspaper reported the water prospecting in April. Then last month, a geologist BHP Billiton had contracted for the work confirmed to the daily Ciudad de Córdoba that exploration had been under way since the end of last year in Salta’s Puna region. The dry plateau, 11,500 feet (3,500 meters) above sea level, is believed to be underlain by significant water reserves. The exploration has been carried out about six miles (10 kms) from the Chilean border and 60...
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