For the first time, Mexican authorities have acknowledged the environmental damage caused by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s flagship infrastructure project—the Tren Maya, a 1,554-kilometer (966-mile) railroad linking coastal tourist destinations on the Yucatán Peninsula. Alicia Bárcena, who took office as environment minister last December under President Claudia Sheinbaum, said on March 31 that an integral restoration plan will be drafted to mitigate the environmental impacts of the Tren Maya. Built through tropical forest along much of its route, the project has required extensive deforestation—an estimated 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) from 2019, a year after the project started, to 2024, according to Mexican and international watchdog groups. That land-clearing is perhaps the most obvious impact, but environmentalists say the train has also interfered with pollination, seed-dissemination, pest control and carbon sequestration. Critics of the project assert that the train is also posing risks...
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The recent decision by Honduras to shelve plans for a coal-fired power station means Latin America now has no active proposals for new coal plants. The Honduran government’s May 21 announcement—during Regional Climate Week in Panama City, Panama—came with a pledge to join other countries in a global coal-to-clean energy transition. The government said it would become the 10th country from Latin America and the Caribbean to join the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a coalition of governments, businesses and nonprofits promoting a global shift to clean energy sources. Other nations in the region that have joined the effort are Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. “This is another sign that the transition to renewables is unstoppable in the region,” says Gustavo Pinheiro of Brazil, a senior associate at E3G, a global independent climate change think tank...
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Recent moves by Brazilian environmental authorities have boosted speculation they will bow to political pressure and allow the state oil company Petrobras to explore for oil and natural gas in a deepwater basin off Brazil’s northern coast, experts say. Petrobras has sought a permit for the drilling since 2021 from Ibama, the licensing arm of Brazil’s Environment and Climate Change Ministry. It aims to drill in Block 59, one of six contiguous oil and gas concession blocks it owns in the deepwater area, called Mouth of the Amazon Basin and located 500 kilometers (300 miles) seaward of the Amazon Delta. Company officials say the region’s geology is similar to deepwater basins off Guyana and Suriname where major oil and gas deposits have been found. They say similar finds seaward of the Amazon Delta could make Brazil the world’s fourth largest oil producer and offset declines in production elsewhere in Brazilian...
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Just 1% of environmental-crime cases brought in Paraguay result in convictions, and in 80% of those that do, the sentences do not require environmental remediation to reverse the damage, according to a report presented recently by a Paraguayan Supreme Court of Justice judge. “You destroyed a river or stream bed, you illegally deforested, and the penalty is donating computers to schools [or] hospitals,” said Víctor Ríos, one of nine judges of the Paraguayan Supreme Court of Justice on June 25. “That is to say, it is very good that this is being done, but we cannot lose sight of the constitutional mandate of environmental restoration, which beyond the constitutional mandate is a matter of life or death for humanity.” Ríos spoke while presenting the first report of the Environmental Law Directorate of the Court, an office that since 2019 has been charged with providing technical support to the tribunal...
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Initiatives to conserve or create links between habitats have been underway in various parts of Latin America. Some, such as the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor running from Panama to southern Mexico, span international boundaries. Others, at least initially, are aimed at ensuring genetic flow between areas of natural habitat within a single region of one country. A new initiative in the latter category is northeast Ecuador’s Cuyabeno-Yasuní Connectivity Corridor, a project formally established in May to link a wildlife reserve with Yasuní National Park, widely considered to be among the most biodiverse places on Earth. With support from the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, local governments in the Ecuadorian Amazon pressed successfully for a national ministerial agreement recognizing the 2,750-square-kilometer (1,062-sq.-mile) conservation corridor between Yasuní and Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. The rainforest project brings to four the number of bio-connectivity corridor initiatives in Ecuador, ranking second...
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