When it comes to hunting, Uruguay is seen as occupying the permissive end of the spectrum. The impression was reinforced this month with the implementation of a decree that relaxes hunting restrictions, most notably by allowing nighttime hunting and making it easier to get permission from private property owners to hunt on their land. Two networks representing hunters and hunting businesses—respectively, the National Hunters Association of Uruguay (ACU) and the Profauna Hunting Association of Uruguay—acknowledge that they wrote the decree, which was signed by Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou. Mauricio Álvarez, president of a Uruguayan conservation network called Conservation of Native Species of Uruguay (Coendu), publicly denounced the decree, describing it as a “surprise.” “Aside from the hunters who worked on this, nobody expected it,” Álvarez says. Referring to a green-friendly tourism-promotion motto Uruguay began using in 2001, he adds: “It is a new reversal that...
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Mexico in May announced the closure of a gravel quarry in eastern Quintana Roo state, accusing its operator, Vulcan Materials Company, the largest U.S. producer of construction aggregates, of illegally extracting gravel and sand and exporting it to the United States. Calica, Vulcan’s local subsidiary, runs the 4,200-hectare (10,400-acre) quarry, which is located near the Caribbean resort community of Playa del Carmen. Parts of the quarry have been excavated below the water table and Mexico’s lead environmental agency, the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), says mining activities threaten water quality and subsoil conditions. “Vulcan strongly believes that this latest action by Mexico is arbitrary and illegal,” the company said on May 13. Calica claims the Mexican move violates the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the regional trade pact that in 2020 replaced the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement. The International Centre for Settlement...
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A subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has begun pumping the first crude from Ishpingo oilfield in biodiversity-rich Yasuní National Park, mainland Ecuador’s largest and best-known protected area. Contracted by the Ecuadorian state oil company, Petroecuador, CNPC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Company (CCDC) started up two wells, one in April and the other in May. The wells are located in an oil-concession area known alternatively as Block 43 and Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini—the names of the block’s three oilfields. Block 43 has been the cause of long-running controversy because of its location largely inside Yasuní, a key conservation asset in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The park is considered one of the most biodiverse places on the planet and is home to indigenous people with little or no contact with the outside world. Nearly all of Block 43 is within Yasuní’s boundaries, with only the Tiputini oilfield lying...
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A rebound in the number of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) overwintering in Mexico and signs of a relatively strong spring migration have fueled hopes of a slight recovery in the endangered insect’s population. Data published in late May by the World Wildlife Fund indicates that monarchs spending the winter of 2021-22 in the oyamel fir (Abies religiosa) forests of central Mexico occupied a total of 2.8 hectares (seven acres), up from 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres) the previous winter. Jorge Rickards, director general of WWF Mexico, said the increase in the area where the monarchs cluster on trees—a proxy for the size of their population—was “good news” and a sign that “we should redouble our protection measures.” An estimated 10 to 50 million monarchs roost in each hectare of woodland. Also in May, experts in the United States noted that the overwintering butterflies’ offspring—which are born in Texas...
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