The diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States paid its first dividend for ocean life when the two nations on Nov. 18 agreed to work jointly to protect shared marine habitat from overfishing, climate change and other threats. Under the memorandum of understanding, signed in Cuba, scientists and officials from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Park Service and from Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment will promote conservation of, and share data on, marine resources in both countries’ waters. NOAA said the accord, which is not binding or regulatory, creates a sister-sanctuary relationship among five protected areas in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Straits: one in Cuban waters and four in U.S. waters. The Cuban site...
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Concern is mounting in Brazil that a trend toward aquaculture and away from small-scale fisheries will have serious social and environmental consequences, threatening livelihoods and sensitive floodplain lands in the Lower Amazon region. Recent evidence of that concern came last month in Santarém, a busy port city on the Lower Amazon. There, non-governmental groups and fishing community leaders held a conference Oct. 14-15 in which they asserted that the federal government has abandoned policies aimed at promoting small-scale fisheries seen as key to protecting floodplain habitat. Coincidentally, the government one week before had extinguished the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture (MPA) and transferred its functions to a secretariat of the Agriculture Ministry (MAPA). Authorities also suspended unemployment insurance for fishers during the...
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Peruvian environmental and indigenous leaders welcomed the designation on Nov. 8 of Peru’s newest national park, a 1.35-million-hectare (5,200-sq-mile) swath of Amazon forest where Peru’s midsection borders Brazil. But their enthusiasm was tempered by reports that illegal gold miners and coca growers are establishing a foothold further southeast in the Amazon, on protected lands in Peru’s prized Madre de Dios region. The newly created national park, Sierra del Divisor, abuts Brazil’s 2-million-hectare (7,722 -sq-mile) Serra do Divisor Park and fills a gap in a corridor of protected areas from the Loreto region in northeastern Peru to Madre de Dios in the southeast. Several nomadic indigenous groups that avoid contact with the outside world inhabit the new park, which...
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