Around the Region

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff issued a series of eco-friendly decrees on June 5, World Environment Day, but didn’t receive strong applause from green advocates on account of her May 25 signing of controversial legislation revising the country’s Forest Code. (See related story—this issue.)

The highest-profile decree implements a 2010 law requiring that sustainability criteria be used in awarding federal contracts for goods and services and sets forth the necessary standards for agencies to follow.

At an estimated century of age, the giant tortoise and Galápagos Islands icon known as Lonesome George died this month of natural causes.

George had been an international conservation celebrity since he was found on Pinta Island in 1972. Until then, it was thought that his subspecies, Geochelone nigra abingdoni, had been extinct.

Concerns about uncontrolled coastal growth are fueling debate in Uruguay over a government plan to build a bridge across the mouth of Garzón Lagoon, which is part of this country’s only United Nations-declared biosphere reserve and a candidate for inclusion in Uruguay’s National Protected Areas System.

Legislation declaring a road or rail right-of-way through Peruvian rainforest to be in the “national interest” cleared a congressional-committee hurdle this month, but is drawing fire from environmentalists and indigenous groups.