For as long as those who live near Nicaragua’s Playa Chacocente can remember, leatherback sea turtles have landed on the Pacific beach each year from November to March, hauling themselves above the tidal zone to dig nests and lay their eggs. Weighing up to 1,500 pounds and reaching up to seven feet in length, leatherbacks are the largest of all sea turtles, often attracting hordes of tourists to Playa Chacocente. But in the nesting season just past, the beach’s visitors went home disappointed. Not a single leatherback came ashore. Until the 1980s, hundreds of leatherbacks nested on Chacocente every year. But then Nicaragua began building better roads, connecting urban areas to the rural coast and spurring urban demand for turtle eggs. This encouraged a surge of poaching, which biologists believe has taken a large toll on turtle numbers in recent decades. Nicaraguan conservation groups estimate they can protect over 90...
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Peru has reversed its decision to move the country’s forestry oversight agency (Osinfor) from the prime minister’s office to the Environment Ministry following objections from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. In an April 8 resolution canceling the decision, Peru’s Council of Ministers also announced that it would open a competitive search for a permanent Osinfor director within 10 days. The last three heads of the agency have been interim. The Peruvian government had placed Osinfor under the aegis of the Environment Ministry in December 2018. Critics argued that the move would limit the agency’s independence and make it more susceptible to political interference. (See "Peruvian forest-agency move causing U.S. concern" —EcoAméricas, January 2019.) Deforestation in Peru, which has the second-largest expanse of Amazonian forest after Brazil, has been increasing in recent years. Osinfor led high-profile operations...
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Argentine President Mauricio Macri has weighed in on the side of agricultural producers in their battle with environmentalists and teachers over the spraying of crops near rural schools in the province of Entre Ríos. During a visit to the central-Argentine province on April 4, Macri dismissed as “irresponsible” a court decision a week earlier that overturned a provincial decree allowing aerial spraying as close as 500 meters from schools and land-based spraying as near as 100 meters. The court ruling came in response to complaints that the provincial decree, issued Jan. 2 by Entre Ríos Governor Gustavo Bordet, was so permissive that it would threaten the health of students and teachers. The decree had strong support from agricultural producers, who argued such a measure was needed to counteract an Oct. 2018 court decision establishing more restrictive controls on spraying. Those court-ordered limits, prompted by a complaint from...
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro this month issued a decree which businesses say will dramatically speed the resolution of disputes over environmental fines but which critics condemn as a recipe for impunity. The April 12 move came less than four months after the right-wing president took office on the heels of a campaign in which he vowed to end the “industry” of environmental fines that “suffocate producers.” The decree (No. 9,760) creates a process by which a company’s fines for environmental violations can be reduced, annulled or converted, at hefty discounts, into ecosystem-protection investments. Industry welcomed the measure, claiming fines often are excessive, but outraged conservationists said the decree would invite more violations by effectively reducing penalties. The decree, slated to take force on Oct. 10, will allow a company facing an environmental fine to argue its case before a conciliation committee. The panel would then negotiate a settlement...
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