The vaquita marina, the small porpoise teetering on the brink of extinction in the Gulf of California, has prompted the first request for environmental consultations under the revised trade agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States in 2018. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced on Feb. 10 that it is requesting consultations with Mexico concerning protection of the critically endangered vaquita (Phocoena sinus), now believed to number fewer than a dozen. For years vaquitas have drowned in nets set illegally in Mexican waters to catch totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), a fish—also critically endangered—whose swim bladder commands thousands of dollars per pound as a delicacy in the Asian market. Invoking a provision of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which formally took effect in 2020, the United States is signaling concern that the vaquita’s plight stems from a failure by Mexico to enforce its...
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Six environmental activists who spent two years behind bars in connection with their opposition to a Honduran mining project were sentenced on Feb. 9 to six-year prison terms for allegedly damaging the mining company’s property. But the outlook for the men suddenly brightened the next day, when the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the activists released after finding that the sentencing judge did not have the legal authority to handle the case. The freeing of the men did not occur for 15 days, ostensibly due to an administrative glitch; but on Feb. 25 they were, in fact, released. The controversial sentence was issued by Judge Lisseth Vallecillo. It drew immediate condemnation from civil society groups and was denounced as arbitrary by Isabel Albaladejo Escribano, the Honduran representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Albaladejo Escribano demanded the immediate release of the six—José Márquez, Kelvin Romero, José Cedillo...
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A Bolivian environmental group staged a protest outside the National Protected Areas Service (Sernap) offices in La Paz this month, looking to boost public awareness of a surge of illegal gold mining in highly prized Madidi National Park. The protest was held Feb. 17 by the Coordinating Committee for the Defense of Mother Earth (Codma), a nationwide association of conservationists, scientists, ecotourism operators, environmental-law practitioners and other green advocates. It was prompted by reports in January that at least nine new illegal mining sites had been established in the northwest Bolivian park, considered one of the most biodiverse reserves in the world. Park guards and local activists were the first to sound the alarm in January, publishing images on social media of men on tractors, bulldozers and trucks removing trees to create a mining camp inside the park on the banks of the Tuichi River. Witnesses reported that the...
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Brazil is putting the finishing touches on the ground rules governing its first offshore wind-energy concessions. A presidential decree issued on Jan. 25 and set to take effect on June 15 creates two means of obtaining offshore-wind concessions. One, a “planned-use concession” process, involves bidding on offshore wind farm sites determined by the Brazilian Mines and Energy Ministry. The second allows wind developers to choose their own sites under an “independent-use” concession process. Developers interested in bidding on independent-use concessions will first have to get their plans approved by nine government ministries and agencies, then secure final approval from the Mines and Energy Ministry. The January decree gives the nine government ministries and agencies until Dec. 12 to identify what input they will need to grant approvals for the plans of would-be independent-use concessionaires. Among the information they will likely require of developers...
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