The population of vertebrate wildlife—mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish—plummeted by 94% from 1970 to 2016 in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a world biodiversity report published this month by the environmental group WWF and the Zoological Society of London. Worldwide, the percentage loss was lower but also alarming, with a decline of 68%. The report, entitled “Living Planet,” has been updated every two years since first being issued in 1998, always using 1970 as the reference year. In the 2018 edition, Latin America and the Caribbean were shown as having lost 89% of vertebrates compared to 60% worldwide. This year’s edition drew on information from some 4,000 mostly public sources on 21,000 animal species around the world. Though alarming in a global sense, the picture painted by the report is nothing short of horrendous regarding Latin America and the Caribbean. “The level of biodiversity destruction...
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A treaty to boost public access to environmental information and decision-making in Latin America and the Caribbean is on the verge of taking force following Argentina’s ratification of the agreement on Sept. 24. The Escazú Accord, adopted in March 2018 after six years of negotiations facilitated by the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac), must be ratified by 11 of its 24 signatory nations in order to take effect. Argentina has now joined nine of these 24 countries in doing so: Antigua & Barbuda, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panamá, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Saint Kitts & Nevis and Uruguay. “Now we’re very close to the treaty being applied,” says Andrés Napoli, an Argentine attorney who served as a representative of the public during the treaty negotiations. Describing the agreement’s importance for South America in particular, Napoli adds: “South American countries generally have complete environmental legislation, but this treaty...
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Víctor Manuel Toledo resigned as Mexico’s Environment Secretary on Aug. 31, the second official to leave the post in the first two years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration. Toledo, like his immediate predecessor Josefa González-Blanco, resigned from the position amid controversy. In early August, Toledo was recorded criticizing the López Obrador administration as “full of contradictions” and lacking in its support for environmental protection. Toledo also complained in the recording about the president’s chief of staff, Alfonso Romo, whom he said has impeded initiatives proposed by the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat). These initiatives included efforts to reduce production of transgenic cotton and lower agrochemical use in the country. The audio and transcript of Toledo’s comments were disseminated on social media and in Mexican news outlets in the first week of August. Days later, in an Aug. 11 column published by the newspaper La Jornada...
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Brazil’s Human Rights Ministry this month sent the country’s Supreme Court a more detailed version of its original plan to shield indigenous people from Covid-19, which is being spread in part by an estimated 20,000 miners illegally digging for gold on indigenous lands. The revision was required in an Aug. 21 decision by Supreme Court Judge Luis Roberto Barroso, who pronounced the government’s original plan “generic,” “imprecise” and “a mere declaration of intentions.” Brazil’s Health Ministry reported this month that 27,520 indigenous Brazilians—over 3% of the country’s 900,000 indigenous people—had contracted Covid-19, and 434 had died of the disease as of Sept. 23. But the true totals in both instances are believed to be significantly higher. That’s not only because many cases have likely gone unreported, but also because the Health Ministry figures do not take into account indigenous people living in cities and other areas...
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