The northern segment of the Inter-American Highway in Panama was closed for eight days this month when over 5,000 members of the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group blockaded the route to protest planned hydroelectric and mining projects in and around their government-protected territory. During Feb. 2-9, members of the Ngöbe-Buglé, Panama’s largest indigenous group, burned trees and tires and denounced the government of President Ricardo Martinelli. All traffic was halted and several buses of tourists traveling north to Costa Rica were held captive by the Ngöbe-Buglé for six days. On Feb. 5, riot police and Panamanian security officials arrived in military fatigues and tried to clear protestors from the road forcibly. Demonstrators hurled rocks and bottles, and police retaliated by firing tear...
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The United Nations this month declared a Greenpeace forest-conservation campaigner in Brazil, Paulo Adário, one of six “Forest Heroes” worldwide as it marked the conclusion of its International Year of Forests. The world body also gave special, posthumous recognition to a Brazilian couple, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo. The couple was murdered last May after Ribeiro da Silva, a community leader in Pará state, had denounced illegal logging on conservation land. In the Forest Heroes awards ceremony, held Feb. 9 at UN headquarters in New York, Adário was praised for leading a variety of high-profile rainforest-conservation initiatives after moving to Amazonas state from Rio de Janeiro in the mid-1990s. These included his documentation in...
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That the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains harbors a rich variety of bird, plant and mammal species is not news to scientists. But a recently published study found that surprisingly large shares of endemic species and highly prized ecosystems are found outside protected areas, and thus are vulnerable to such threats as deforestation and settlement. The findings could guide not only conservation planning, but also planning of development projects such as dams, highways and pipelines. “It would be great if people would use these data when they start to talk about infrastructure projects” in the corridor that runs from the Andean highlands to the Amazon basin, says Jennifer Swenson, an assistant professor at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment who specializes in geospatial...
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