Researchers from Mexico’s National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) believe they have discovered a previously unknown species of beaked whale in the Pacific waters of northern Mexico. The finding emerged from a joint research trip the two agencies conducted in November with the nonprofit Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Scientists Gustavo Cárdenas of Conanp, Jay Barlow of NOAA and Elizabeth Henderson of the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, a research and development arm of the U.S. Navy, observed three beaked whales, which breached next to the research vessel. The whales’ acoustic signals, as well as the structure of their jaws and teeth, appeared distinct from those of previously identified species, Cárdenas says. There are 23 known species of beaked whales in the world’s oceans, with three of them identified in the past 30 years. Cárdenas, a researcher in Conanp’s Marine Mammal...
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A protracted legal battle over farming in Peru’s northern rainforest could come to an end in 2021 in the wake of a recent court ruling and the issuance of fines. In a decision that disappointed conservation advocates, the Appellate Chamber of Loreto Superior Court in late December overturned a 2019 timber-trafficking verdict against the Tamshi cacao company. Tamshi grows cacao, the raw ingredient for chocolate, on part of a 2,000-hectare (9,420-acre) tract of land in Loreto, a large rainforest region in northeastern Peru. Formerly known as Cacao del Perú Norte, the company has maintained for years that when it acquired the property in 2010, the Agriculture Ministry already had designated the tract as farmland and that the local farmers who sold it already had cleared it of any primary forest. While the new ruling can be appealed to the country’s Supreme Court by the Environment Ministry, conservation...
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Electric-powered cars are still scarce in Latin America, but environmentally conscious Costa Rica, not surprisingly, is taking an early per-capita lead. The country added 727 new electric vehicles to its national fleet in 2020, making it Latin America’s per capita leader in rechargeable battery-powered automobiles, according to a Dec. 28 statement issued by the president’s office. Costa Rica now has 3,106 electric cars on the road, up from 663 in 2015. Of the 727 electric vehicles acquired last year, 330 were assigned to 35 different government institutions, including 108 for the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the nation’s government-owned electricity and telecommunications provider. Additionally, Costa Rica, one of the region’s leaders in efforts to decarbonize its economy, added 34 electric charging stations to increase the country’s total to nearly 200. Costa Rica’s plan to wean the economy from fossil fuels by 2050 calls for 30% of...
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A new data portal for Latin America and the Caribbean is available online from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Paris-based forum whose 37 member-nations include many of the world’s richest countries. The portal covers 12 subject areas, including the environment, well-being and investment. OECD officials hope it will prove useful to policymakers, researchers, journalists and others. “This is an important effort to disseminate this data,” says José Antonio Ardavín, head of the Latin America and Caribbean division at the OECD’s Global Relations Secretariat. The environmental section features graphs and figures on air pollution, meat consumption, material consumption, crude oil production and protected areas. “The environmental section is quite complete,” Ardavín says. “Some of the others don’t have so many indicators.” It also includes a section on environmental taxes, with data on government levies, such as fuels and industrial-emissions taxes, designed at...
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