Green advocates applauded Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in April, when he sent troops into the southern state of Bolívar to break up illegal gold mining operations that were causing deforestation and mercury poisoning along the tributaries of the Orinoco River. (See “Chávez dispatches troops to stop illegal gold miners”—EcoAméricas, May ’10.) But with hundreds of camps destroyed and more than 10,000 miners driven from their mining pits, an unintended consequence has emerged: malaria. Health Ministry statistics published in June reveal that the cases of malaria nationwide doubled in the first six months of the year, from around 11,000 cases to around 22,000, with more than 90% of the cases in Bolívar. Authorities attribute the outbreak to the operation that has driven illegal miners from...
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Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos has named Sandra Bessudo, a French-Colombian marine biologist and shark-conservation advocate, to become his environment minister when he takes office Aug 7. The daughter of a French ecotourism entrepreneur, Bessudo, 41, is best known for her crusade to establish the 9,500 square-kilometer (3,700- sq-mile) Malpelo National Protected Area. Lying off the west coast of Colombia in the eastern tropical Pacific, Malpelo is the world’s ninth largest marine preserve. She also led high-profile efforts to designate the area a Unesco World Heritage Site, and, as the preserve’s director, to crack down on vessels whose crews kill sharks for their lucrative fins—a practice that is decimating shark populations. As Colombia’s top environmental official, she will...
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Brazil’s Senate this month passed the country’s first national solid-waste management bill, breaking a 16-year legislative logjam on the issue. The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, had passed the bill in March, setting the stage for the July 8 Senate approval. As the Senate made only a minor change in the bill, the legislation need not go back to the Chamber for a final vote. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to sign the bill into law this month or next. The legislation addresses a broad swath of waste issues, including provisions on local, state and federal solid-waste management plans; hazardous-waste handling; recycling; the development of new sanitary landfills; and the illegal dumping and burning...
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Legislation filed last month in the Argentine Congress would declare the eared dove (Zenaida auriculata) a plague. The bird, a close relative to the North American mourning dove, is being blamed by supporters of the legislation for causing significant agricultural losses. Ulises Forte, the bill’s sponsor in the lower chamber of Congress, says the bird poses a threat to human health and the environment. Populations of the eared dove, a common bird in South America, have grown rapidly in Argentina. “In my province [La Pampa], where the sunflower yield is about 2,000 kilos per hectare, the doves, which peck and eat the cultivations, have managed to ruin up to 60% of the [sunflower] crop,” Forte told reporters recently. “This is about not having the farmers...
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