Scientists feel a bit more optimistic about the vaquita marina, a small porpoise that is endemic to Mexico’s Gulf of California and for years has teetered on the brink of extinction, following reports that acoustic monitoring this year has yielded 41 detections. The findings were announced on July 18—international vaquita marina day—by Mexico’s National Commission for Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) at an intergovernmental meeting in San Felipe, Baja California. “This is good news, and scientists agree it is a considerable number of detections for the start of the research, indicating that protection measures are working,” says Julián Escutia, executive director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a U.S.-based marine-protection nonprofit. This year’s detection produced more encouraging results than last year’s. Following their May 2024 observation cruise, Sea Shepherd calculated observers had spotted 6 to 8 individuals, a decrease from a year earlier when it was calculated 8...
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Bolivia could double its solar-energy capacity if it follows through on a project for which it recently received a US$110 million credit from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF). The Chichas Solar Plant project, overseen by the country’s National Electricity Enterprise (ENDE), would have an installed capacity of 120 megawatts—sufficient to meet 3.5% of the country’s daily power demand, or the power needs of 106,000 homes. Ten years ago Bolivia received 69% of its power from fossil-fuel based thermoelectric plants, 30% from hydroelectric plants and the remaining 1% from alternative renewable-energy sources. In 2015, the government estimated that by 2025 no less than 74% of electric power would come from clean sources (hydroelectric dams, wind and solar farms, and geothermal systems), with the rest from thermoelectric plants. However, as of 2025 Bolivia’s power grid is dominated by fossil-fuel-based plants...
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Mara Lezama, governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, has announced a project to build an Integral Center for Sargassum Sanitation and Circular Economy, a facility intended to turn the region’s glut of seaweed into commercially viable raw materials. Alongside Mexican Environment Minister Alicia Bárcena, Lezama explained the center will monitor, manage, collect and transport sargassum to three residual water treatment plants in Cancun’s hotel strip. Biodigestors there will process the sargassum as well as other organic residues to create biomethane, also known as natural gas, which will be sold to fund sargassum removal. Quintana Roo’s Caribbean coast, which relies heavily on tourism, has been plagued by extraordinary waves of sargassum washing ashore since 2018, when the first mass arrival turned the white sand beaches into piles of decomposing algae, causing chaos in the tourism industry. The causes are not fully understood, but scientists say glacial melt has modified...
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An invasive ornamental tree introduced from China in the 1830s is now growing in 13% of Uruguay’s native forests. Broad-leaf privet (Ligustrum lucidum), known in Uruguay as ligustro, ranks as the country’s most widespread forest invasive. The honey locust tree (Gleditsia triacanthos)—called Thorn of Christ in Uruguay—is the second most prevalent, occupying 7% of native forests. These figures are estimates based on the analysis of satellite images and on data gathered as part of Uruguay’s National Forest Inventory, which was published by researchers Óscar Blumetto and Alejandro Brazeiro late last year. Experts say broad-leaf privet and honey locust are the most successful in dominating certain native-forest environments, particularly in the south and southwest of the country. By diminishing native species, the trend “endangers our flora diversity,” says biologist Mauricio Bonifacino, a professor at the Faculty of Agronomy at the University of the Republic. There are...
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