An oil-pipeline break on Jan. 28 in an Ecuadorian national park has affected more than 100 indigenous communities in the Amazon region, the majority of them Kichwa and Shuar, according to early reports from local leaders and environmental groups. The privately owned OCP pipeline, which transports crude from rainforest oilfields, broke in Cayambe-Coca National Park, the Environment Ministry has confirmed. The rupture happened near an area of the Coca River where scientists say severe erosion has been occurring due to a process known as regressive erosion. Also called “hungry waters,” this process involves rivers becoming more erosive when their sediment loads decline. Scientists believe it precipitated the collapse of Ecuador’s largest waterfall in Feb. 2020 and the rupture two months later of a trio of oil pipelines, including the OCP. That event also claimed a stretch of highway linking the rainforest oil city of Lago Agrio with Quito...
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Cutting a ribbon made of refuse collected during a coastal cleanup project on the Galápagos Islands, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso on Jan. 14 inaugurated a major addition to the famed archipelago’s marine reserve. The move, previewed at the COP26 global climate summit held last November in Glasgow, Scotland, effectively bolts a new reserve of 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 sq. miles) onto the existing 138,000-square-kilometer (53,000-sq.-mile) Galápagos Marine Reserve, which was created in 1998. Half of the new conservation area, which has been named the Brotherhood Marine Reserve, will be designated as “no-take” waters where fishing is prohibited. The other half will be subject to restrictions that include a ban on the use of longlining, a form of deep-water fishing that takes a particularly steep and indiscriminate toll on marine species. No less importantly, scientists say, the new swath of protected waters will cover migratory...
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The Tren Maya, a flagship infrastructure initiative of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has drawn multiple legal challenges from environmental- and social-advocacy groups concerned about impacts of the 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) railway project to link Yucatán Peninsula tourism centers. A variety of these organizations have gone to court to ensure that work on the US$8 billion project’s seven track segments—and the government’s various revisions of the specific routes—receives proper review. Now they are charging that the López Obrador administration is using a dubious executive-branch order to preempt such lawsuits before they can be weighed in court. They cite an executive-branch measure, dubbed an “agreement” by the government and “El Decretazo”—or Mega-Decree—by critics, issued in November. The measure declares federal government projects of numerous kinds—including tourism, communications, environment and railways—as matters of public interest and national security. Federal...
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A type of frog discovered in Panama has captured world attention on account of its name: Pristimantis gretathunbergae. Also called Greta Thunberg’s Rainfrog in honor of the celebrated Swedish climate campaigner, the newly identified species’ discovery was reported on Jan. 10 in the biodiversity research journal ZooKeys and by the Panama Environment Ministry (MiAmbiente). The frog is found in the cloud forests of southern Darién province and in other mountainous areas of eastern and central Panama. It was identified several years ago, but needed to undergo subsequent study before a scientific journal article could be written to mark its status as a new species. According to that article, the frog is distinguished from others of its genus by its “ventral and groin coloration, unusually prominent black eyes, a contrasting light upper lip, commonly a single conical to spine-like tubercle on the upper eyelid, and a larger head.” “Based on...
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