A pollution suit filed by Peruvian Achuar people against Occidental Petroleum took a step forward this month when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that the case could be heard in the United States. Marco Simons, legal director for Washington, D.C-based EarthRights International, who argued the case for more than 20 Achuar plaintiffs, said the decision means Occidental “will have to defend its operations in Peru in its own home town, in Los Angeles.” The circuit court ruled that the district court had “overlooked strong evidence ... calling into question the ability of the Peruvian courts to satisfactorily handle this case.” The case, filed in 2007, stems from pollution in oil fields in the Corrientes River basin in northern Peru, where...
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Remnants of northern Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert grasslands stand out as scattered, sparkling yellow plots in the cold of the approaching winter. Viewing them is a reminder of the intense environmental pressures the grasslands have felt—more than a century of overgrazing, decades of over-pumping of groundwater and a recent history of accelerated land-use conversion. Now, however, a network of public agencies and non-governmental groups from Mexico, the United States and Canada has formed to address the grasslands’ ecological problems. Called the Regional Alliance for Chihuahuan Desert Grasslands Conservation, the network held its first official meeting last month in Zacatecas, Mexico. Those endorsing the alliance include representatives of Mexico’s Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources, Environment Canada—respectively, the Mexican and Canadian...
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HidroAysén, the company proposing to build five large hydroelectric dams in Chile’s southern Aysén region on the Baker and Pascua rivers, last month submitted a second addendum to its environmental-impact study. Regional environmental authorities in Aysén have since responded with new questions and have given the company until April 15, 2011, to present responses in a third addendum. Environmental and citizen groups associated with the Patagonia Without Dams opposition campaign say the government should scrap the project, pointing to recent public opinion polls showing a majority of Chileans oppose it. They complain that the center-right government of President Sebastián Piñera is acting as if approval of the dam complex proposed by HidroAysén, which is jointly owned by the Italian-owned Endesa Energy and...
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