In his first week as president of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez this month fulfilled a campaign promise to overturn a decree that was signed by his predecessor and blamed by environmentalists for encouraging deforestation. Abdo Benítez repealed a decree signed in Sept. 2017 by then-President Horacio Cartes. The Cartes measure effectively gave rural landowners with parcels bigger than 20 hectares (49 acres) an alternative to complying with a forest-law requirement that they keep 25% of their property in a natural state. For those who want to clear more land than allowed, the decree permitted them to buy tradable environmental-services certificates awarded by the government to property owners who have conserved more than the 25% minimum. The Cartes decree came amid government efforts...
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Amid many problems facing Puerto Vallarta as the Mexican resort city celebrates its 100th anniversary—erratic garbage disposal, unreliable public transportation and runaway urban development, to name three—comes bittersweet environmental news: discovery of a new but threatened turtle species. Called casquito de Vallarta, the small mud turtle thus far only has been found near freshwater streams and ponds in developed areas says Fabio Cupul, researcher for the University of Guadalajara’s Puerto Vallarta branch (CUC) and co-author of a scientific paper on the turtle that was published this spring. The turtle was given the scientific name Kinosternon vogti sp. nov., in honor of Richard Carl Vogt, a legendary U.S.-born herpetologist and turtle conservationist who has worked extensively in the United States, Mexico...
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Indigenous communities in Guatemala have called on the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to withdraw its financial support for two hydroelectric dams, saying the lender failed to comply with its own policies. The two run-of-river dams are under construction in the municipality of San Mateo de Ixtatán, which is in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango Department, near Mexico’s southern border. The area is home to various Mayan indigenous groups, including the Chu, Q’anjob’al and Akateko. In 2013, IDBInvest, an arm of the IDB that finances private-sector projects, approved loans of up to US$9 million for the 20-megawatt San Andrés dam, being built by Generadora San Andrés, and up to $6 million for the 10.65-megawatt Pojom II, being built by Generadora San Mateo...
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An article on Argentina’s glacier law (“Rough sledding in implementation of glacier law”—EcoAméricas, July ’18) incorrectly implied that Ricardo Villalba, former director of the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (Ianigla), recommended the legislation be modified to exempt glaciers and periglacial areas smaller than one hectare from its protections. Though Ianigla under Villalba’s leadership did exclude such areas from a national glacier inventory it created, Villalba at no time proposed that the glacier legislation be altered to exempt them from safeguards provided for in the law. The PDF of the July issue of EcoAméricas, available at www.ecoamericas.com, has been edited to reflect this, and the online English- and Spanish-language versions of the article have been modified further to include additional context on the criteria...
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