Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde is scrambling for ways to bring down unemployment amid his country’s acute economic crisis, and at least one of his ideas has environmental promise—a program to reforest 12 million acres (five million hectares) of land. The nationwide reforestation initiative has not been announced officially, but Environment Secretary Carlos Merenson disclosed plans for it this month and Duhalde reportedly mentioned it to a group of provincial governors. Duhalde is under intense pressure to create jobs. Unemployment, now approaching 30%, is the leading edge of an economic storm that has pounded the country, repeatedly threatening to topple the Duhalde administration. According to Merenson, the reforestation plan will pay workers an estimated 350 pesos (about $110) a month and require at least 30...
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Ecuador has issued a call for bids by private companies interested in performing administrative and supervisory duties in the management of the country’s forests. The move marks the final step in an aggressive outsourcing effort Ecuador hopes will stem illegal logging by reducing corruption in forestry oversight. (See “Ecuador finishing forestry-control overhaul,”—EcoAméricas, April 2002.) Last year, the Environment Ministry outsourced two forestry functions—inspection of timber projects and the monitoring of wood shipments from forests to processing and sales locations. Under the concession up for bid now, a private firm will assume such responsibilities as issuing timber licenses, overseeing the use of timber resources and collecting stumpage taxes. The bidding deadline is June 10. Ministry officials expect a contract to be signed in...
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At the request of the Spanish-owned Endesa energy company, the Chilean Economy Ministry has launched proceedings to expropriate land belonging to seven indigenous Mapuche-Pehuenche families. The land is to be flooded as part of Endesa’s $570 million Ralco hydroelectric project on the Bio Bio river in central Chile, but the families have refused to move. The families on May 8 lost an appeal aimed at blocking a commission the ministry recently appointed to set a price for the property. Their case now goes to the Supreme Court. If the appeals ruling is upheld, the so-called Hombres Buenos commission would set a price for the land and Endesa would then buy the property without the owners’ permission. The 570-megawatt Ralco dam, now...
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Despite a costly cleanup program, less than a quarter of the sewage dumped into Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay is treated, says Rio de Janeiro state’s new sanitation secretary. The charge, disputed by the state’s former sanitation secretary, has caused much finger pointing in a city concerned about the health of its picturesque but polluted estuary. In the early 1990s, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) and the Rio de Janeiro state government committed $991 million to ensure 58% of bay-bound sewage is being treated by 2000. The IDB loaned $350 million, of which $301 million has been spent; the JBIC loaned $244 million, of which $128 million has been spent; and Rio de Janeiro state pledged...
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After persuading U.S. officials to block the importation of Amazon mahogany that it claims was illegally cut, the Brazilian government last month nearly saw its efforts unravel due to an apparent bureaucratic mix-up. At issue was an April 25 letter that a mid-level official in Brazil’s environmental-enforcement agency, Ibama, wrote to Peter Thomas, a senior U.S. representative of the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species (Cites). Randolf Zachow, head of Ibama’s forest-resource management division, indicated in his letter that Brazilian mahogany being held in U.S. ports had been approved for export to the United States. In response, the U.S. Cites Management Authority approved the release of the mahogany and notified Ibama it had done so. But the U.S. Cites authority...
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