The ozone hole over Antarctica this year reached its smallest peak size since 1988, scientists say. Measurements by U.S. space and atmospheric agencies showed that the hole’s maximum size for the year, reached in September, was 7.6 million square miles (19.7 million sq. kms), or 1.3 million square miles smaller than last year’s peak and 2.3 million square miles smaller than the 2015 maximum. Such news likely heartens residents of the southern tip of South America who are concerned that added ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth’s surface due to thinning of the protective ozone layer could cause them problems ranging from elevated skin-cancer rates to irregular plant growth. Shrinking of the ozone hole also validates the Montreal Protocol, the international agreement forged in 1987...
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Australian oil company Petrel Energy and its U.S. partner Schuepbach Energy have announced an oil find in northwest Uruguay, touching off concern among environmental advocates that hydrocarbon extraction in the country, if it happens, might threaten a major regional aquifer. The discovery was produced by the first onshore exploratory well sunk in Uruguay in 30 years and marked the first such find, but officials from the companies say they have yet to determine whether oil is present in the area in commercial quantities. The location of the find is a remote, sparsely populated area of cattle ranching. But environmental advocates assert that aside from adding to the problem of carbon emissions, oil development in the region might threaten the Guaraní Aquifer, which is among the...
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Peru’s huge tropical forest, complicated forestry system and poor law enforcement leave huge loopholes that timber exporters continue to use to market illegally cut wood, two new reports show. A forestry law overhaul that took effect in 2015 has failed to stop the use of fraudulent paperwork and illegible or incomplete records, which make it impossible to verify that a timber shipment is legal, according to a study by the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington, D.C. In conversations recorded by hidden cameras as part of a separate investigation by Global Witness, another Washington-based nonprofit organization, timber exporters admitted that they use fraudulent documents. The two reports follow the U.S. Trade Representative’s announcement in October that it was ordering customs authorities...
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The six-month-old government of Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno has restored legal status to the Pachamama Foundation, one of the country’s leading environmental organizations. The move reverses a sanction imposed in December 2013 by then-President Rafael Correa that effectively shut down the group and drew widespread criticism both within Ecuador and abroad. In announcing on Nov. 17 that Pachamama had regained legal recognition, the Environment Ministry stated that Correa’s sanction “infringed on due process and the right to defense.” When he took that action, Correa accused Pachamama of “interference in public policies, attacking internal state security and affecting the public peace.” The group, which had functioned in Ecuador for 16 years, drew the president’s ire by opposing government leasing of oil concessions in...
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