Bolivian President Evo Morales has suspended the construction of a controversial highway through a portion of the Amazon following violent clashes between police and protestors concerned about the survival of one of Bolivia’s most biodiverse regions. Morales had planned to build a 190-mile (306-kilometer) highway running from the central department of Cochabamba to the Amazonian department of Beni. The road was to cross the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, a 3,860 square-mile (9,997-sq-km) preserve of cloud forest and rainforest that is home to thousands of species of plants and animals. Indigenous people from the Yuracaré, Moxeño and Chimané groups, which jointly hold the preserve, protested that the road would open the region up to oil companies and drug...
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Over the past year, faith in the long-term prospects for the forest-conservation mechanism known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (Redd) has seemed to ebb. Progress on establishing the terms of Redd, under which rich countries would pay poorer, rainforest countries not to cut down trees, was one of the few bright spots at the successive United Nations climate meetings in Denmark and Mexico in 2009 and 2010. Redd, it was thought, would soon become part of the UN system. But with much uncertainty hanging over the survival of the UN system itself when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, many analysts also assumed investors would move slowly on Redd. After all, if the UN climate system were to collapse and...
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A new law requiring that indigenous people be consulted about development projects that affect their rights is being hailed as a milestone of Peruvian legislation, but questions remain about exactly how it will be implemented. Congress unanimously approved the Prior Consultation Law on Aug. 31, and President Ollanta Humala signed it on Sept. 6 in the northern town of Bagua, where a confrontation between indigenous protesters and police over natural resources legislation left more than 30 people dead in 2009. (See “Amazon violence prompts Peruvian repeals”—EcoAméricas, June ’09). The new law grew out of talks between indigenous organizations and government representatives after that violence had taken place. Congress initially approved it in 2010, but then-President Alan García sent it back to lawmakers with...
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Two congressmen accused of causing environmental damage with their small-scale mining claims are among the first cases that will be heard by Peru’s new Congressional Ethics Commission. One of the lawmakers is Amado Romero, who was elected to Congress in April in President Ollanta Humala’s Gana Perú coalition. Romero represents Madre de Dios, the Amazonian department that is the epicenter of Peru’s illegal gold mining boom. (See “An early test for Humala: regulating miners”—EcoAméricas, July ’11.) Before running for Congress, Romero headed the Federation of Artisanal Miners of Madre de Dios. The federation mobilized thousands of miners, transportation workers and service providers to protest former Environment Minister Antonio Brack’s efforts to curb wildcat mining, which has become the leading cause of deforestation in...
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