Construction of the Bolivia-to-Brazil natural gas line, the largest pipeline project ever in South America, is nearing completion. According to sponsors Enron International and partners, the $2-billion, 1,900-mile (3,000-km) line will be ready for operation by year’s end. However, environmental groups are trying to block a proposed, 400-mile (600-km) spur line from Ipiás, Bolivia, to Cuiabá, Brazil. This month, Amazon Watch, Friends of the Earth, and World Wildlife Fund-Bolivia called on the Overseas Private Investment Corp. to deny support for the spur line because it would slice through 125 miles (200 kms) of tropical forest and more than 60 miles (100 kms) of important wetlands. The Overseas Private Investment Corp. provides financing and insurance for U.S. companies...
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As Mexico in March entered its annual three-month dry season, President Ernesto Zedillo announced a campaign to curb slash-and-burn agriculture—a key cause of last year’s catastrophic fires. The initiative was prompted in part by research tracing more than half of last year’s 14,000 fires to the long-standing practice of burning forest to clear land for subsistence farming. In all, the fires consumed 465,000 acres (188,000 hectares). Officials say the government will spend $856,000 to promote sustainable farming on about half of the more than 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares) currently under slash-and-burn cultivation. The program involves economic incentives, technical assistance and the creation of demonstration plots, 54 of which already have been established in 17 Chiapas townships. Initial...
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Boise Cascade is seeking financing and permits to build a deep-water port for a proposed $150-million strand-board export operation in Chile. The Idaho-based firm and Maderas Condor, its Chilean partner, received approval in January from Chile’s Regional Environmental Commission. The project, called Cascada Chile, would involve construction of a huge sawmill in Bahía Ilque, 20 miles (30 kms) south of Puerto Montt. The plant will use local hardwoods to produce the strand board, a plywood substitute. Company directors still must approve the project. Nonprofit groups opposing it are trying to convince them the venture is environmentally unsound and financially risky. American Lands, the Native Forest Network, and Defensores del Bosque Chileno complain the project poses an environmental threat to the area’s...
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President Zedillo’s plan to break nearly four decades of state control of the electric industry has been stirring debate since it was submitted to Congress in February. Zedillo’s initiative, developed by the Energy Secretariat, seeks to raise the funds Mexico needs to meet power demand that is rising at a rate of 6% a year. Leaving this investment to the private sector would free up $250 million in government funds for other uses over the next six years, Zedillo told Congress. He added that by privatizing its power industry, Mexico would follow the examples of Chile and Argentina. Since the proposal was launched, organizations including the electrical workers union and the Citizen’s Movement for Democracy, a coalition of special-interest groups, have signaled their opposition...
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Ecuadorian President Mahuad Jamil has won broad applause for his decision to ban oil, mineral and timber extraction on 2.7 million acres of Amazon land. Wasting no time, however, a group representing indigenous residents is pressing for enforcement of the January decree, which affects the Cuyabeno-Imuya and Yasuní national parks. Numerous organizations in Ecuador—indigenous groups included—have termed Jamil’s decree historic, saying it offers protection not only to the area’s environment, but also to Indian communities. The region’s Tagaeri, Huaorani and Quechua Indians are among the most isolated ethnic groups in the world. A group representing one of those communities, the Tagaeri Peoples Support Committee, is calling on the president to establish a broad-based commission to implement the decree. The committee says...
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Four new case studies show how private capital flows can be channeled to spur environmentally sound agriculture and manufacturing in the developing world. In the book “Private Capital Flows and the Environment,” Bradford Gentry, project director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, presents case studies from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico. Drawing on the fieldwork of an interdisciplinary team of experts in the four countries, Gentry outlines ways in which governments can attract foreign capital by making environmental considerations part of their investment promotion. Appendices detail government investment and environmental policies in Latin America, giving insight into the interaction of authorities and business in the region...
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Government and NGO experts from more than 40 countries have laid groundwork for a binding international convention on forest conservation. Meeting last month in San José, Costa Rica, the experts issued a report on how the UN consultation process might be used to negotiate the accord. The report was sponsored by Costa Rica and Canada as part of the UN’s Intergovernmental Forum on Forests. Its findings, released at the San José meeting in late February, now go to the Costa Rican and Canadian governments for approval and then to the forest forum’s third worldwide conference. At that session, to be held in Geneva in May, nations are expected to work toward an agreement on major components of an international forestry agenda...
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