Wan-ha, meaning “river quail,” was the original Mayan name for the San Pedro Mártir River in Tabasco State, Mexico. The name Wan-ha has been chosen for a proposed protected area whose backbone would be the San Pedro Mártir River, home to what is believed to be the world’s furthest-inland mangrove forest. The intermittent stands of red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) on the banks of the San Pedro Mártir occupy a freshwater environment 170 to 200 kilometers (74 to 112 miles) from the ocean. In an Oct. 2021 article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, researchers concluded mangroves have been there since the last interglacial period, 125,000 years ago, and persisted even as oceans receded during the last glaciation. (See "Stranded Yucatán mangroves hold climate lessons" —EcoAméricas, November 2021.) Biologists say the 38,256...
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After a decade of legal battles and street demonstrations, an Ecuadorian civil-society network opposed to drilling in Yasuní National Park has won approval for a national referendum on halting oil operations in a large portion of the prized protected area. In a May 9 ruling environmentalists called historic, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court, the country’s highest tribunal, authorized the referendum, settling a legal fight over whether the civil-society network, Yasunidos, had gathered the required minimum number of signatures. The vote will be held on Aug. 20, Diana Atamaint, president of Ecuador’s National Electoral Council, confirmed to EcoAméricas on May 29. At issue are oil operations in a concession area known as Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT), or Block 43, located in the provinces of Orellana and Pastaza in the eastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Over 50% of the 200,000-hectare (494,000-acre) block overlaps with Yasuní National Park, which many scientists consider one...
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Chile’s salmon industry, which over the years has been accused of degrading coastal Patagonia’s marine environment, has attracted renewed scrutiny on news that one producer during 2016-19 exceeded the output regulators had authorized by 30%. It was reported in March that the current operators of salmon producer Australis Mar have discovered that under previous ownership, the company employed a “systematic policy of salmon overproduction” that overshot government limits by 80,000 metric tons during the period. Australis Mar, currently owned by the Chinese company Joyvio, says the excess output occurred at seven saltwater-pen locations in the Las Guaitecas National Reserve of Chile’s Aysén region, and one off Kawésqar National Reserve in the Magallanes region. It asserts evidence of the overproduction was hidden from Joyvio when it bought Australis Mar for US$921 million in 2019 from the previous owner, Chilean entrepreneur Isidoro Quiroga. Joyvio, part of the Chinese holding company...
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A Mexican mining-law reform that took formal effect on May 8 includes a prohibition on mining in protected areas and national waters. Mexico’s mining industry has grown rapidly since 1992, when legislation was enacted to spur the sector as Mexico moved to liberalize trade with the United States and Canada and attract foreign investment. The country is now a leading exporter of silver, zinc, and other metals. With that expansion, however, came concern—voiced by Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) in 2019—that the mining industry was responsible for the greatest number of toxic-pollution sites around the country. Conservationists welcome the recent, congressionally approved reform, which addresses their longstanding complaint that the 1992 mining law failed to safeguard natural areas. The government reports that 1,671 licenses have been granted for mining in natural protected areas. Fourteen of these permits allow mining in the high-conservation-priority...
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