After causing an outcry, a U.S.-Mexico border-barrier project launched by the Trump administration in the Big Bend region of Texas is on pause. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced the suspension August 17 as opposition to the $1.7 billion project mushroomed. Scott said he would visit the contested terrain with a “small team” for consultations with locals “to ensure that we secure our borders while simultaneously protecting [Big Bend] for generations to come.” The uproar is fueled by concern about environmental damage the project would cause in 800,000-acre (324,000-hectare) Big Bend National Park as well as Big Bend State Ranch and the Wild and Scenic Rio Grande corridor, a remote area along the border river renowned for its natural wonders. Unlike other U.S. border-security infrastructure projects underway along the U.S.-Mexican border, the Big Bend work would not involve installation of the...
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The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) has announced the second phase of ProFloresta+, a program to strengthen the voluntary carbon market by spurring forest-restoration projects in all six of the country’s biomes. The credits certify net greenhouse-gas emissions reductions produced by forest restoration and other climate-change mitigation projects. These projects are carried out with funding generated in the voluntary carbon market, the largely unregulated global marketplace in which companies buy and sell emissions-reduction credits. In the first phase, called ProFloresta+1, the Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras, earlier this year bought 5 million carbon credits based on greenhouse-gas emissions reductions that would be generated by reforestation work to take place over seven years. At an auction, Petrobras purchased the credits from low-bid developers of projects to conduct large-scale, native-tree reforestation targeting degraded areas of the Brazilian Amazon. The second phase, Profloresta+2, aims...
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Reflecting the downgrading of environment ministries elsewhere in Latin America, Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Aug. 13 folded the country’s Ministry of Development Planning and Environment into a broader ministry headed by the former head of a major agricultural lobby. The agency is now part of the Ministry of Sustainable Production, Environment and Water. The expanded ministry is led by Óscar Justiniano, former president of the Agricultural and Livestock Chamber of the East (CAO), a powerful farming and ranching industry association in Bolivia’s Department of Santa Cruz. Under the new arrangement, the environmental portfolio, including the National Protected Areas Service (Sernap) and the Forest and Land Authority (ABT), now resides in Justiniano’s agency as a vice ministry. The move was part of a consolidation intended to cut the cabinet from 14 to 12 ministries, ostensibly to reduce bureaucracy and improve government efficiency. It follows an initial restructuring last year. On...
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