Argentina has tightened by 20% the catch limit for Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi), the principal target of the country’s commercial fishing industry. Moving to protect a species that has yet to recover from years of overfishing, the Argentine Secretariat of Agriculture, Ranching, Fishing and Food now requires that the catch of hake, known locally as merluza, be limited to 270,000 metric tons annually for the next five years. Last year the government set a limit of 340,000 tons; but on account of the fish’s population decline, fishing crews only managed to land 290,000 tons. Argentine hake were fished intensively in the 1990s, with the catch reaching a record 600,000 tons in 1996. In December of 1999, then-President Fernando de la Rúa imposed emergency limits...
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Environmental advocates in Bolivia are praising the proposed Bolivian constitution, which on May 4 will be put to a public referendum. While Bolivia’s current constitution does not include the word “environment,” the new version, drafted in a constitutional assembly that met from August 2006 to December 2007, contains numerous environmental-protection provisions. “This constitution exceeded our expectations by far,” says Adam Zemans, executive director of the Cochabamba, Bolivia-based Environment Las Americas, a nonprofit that houses an environmental law clinic and an environmental education initiative. “The question is whether any of this will now transfer from paper to practice.” There clearly is a great deal that could be transferred. The new constitution’s Article 33 declares that “all persons have the right to a well-balanced...
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This year’s edition of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize was won by four activists from Latin America and one each from Belgium, Mozambique and Russia for their work in fighting corporate polluters, conserving land and advancing sustainable development. The $150,000 annual award was presented this month to five individuals and a two-man team from Ecuador in a ceremony at the San Francisco Opera House. This year, the prize was awarded for work that included organizing a community in Cataño, Puerto Rico to protect the Las Cucharillas Marsh; fighting one of the world’s biggest oil companies to clean up pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon; and inspiring local farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico to return to environmentally friendly indigenous farming methods. The award, now in its 19th...
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Mexico plans to spend US$20 billion over the next five years to tackle its impending water crisis. President Felipe Calderón says the National Hydro Program 2007-2012, launched in late March, would represent Mexico’s largest investment ever in its water supply. And none too soon. Water shortages are a growing source of conflict here, with some communities threatening to take up arms to keep the government from diverting flows from rural areas to the cities. Meanwhile, millions of Mexicans endure severe flooding due to deforestation, development near water courses and poorly maintained flood control. Such flooding caused devastation in Tabasco and Chiapas states last fall. (See “Nature not only cause of Tabasco floods”—EcoAméricas, Nov. ’07.) The project, billed by Calderón as proof of his...
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