Tierramérica

Issue of July, 18, 2005



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Mato Grosso state is where 48 percent of Brazil's Amazon deforestation occurred last year
Credit: Photo Stock

Report
Crackdown Not Enough to Stop Deforestation
By Mario Osava
Entrepreneurs and activists are challenging the results of Operation Curupira, which in June struck at the mafias behind destruction of the Amazon forest. They charge that the government's sting operation also paralyzed the legal lumber industry.

Eco-Briefs

BRAZIL: WTO to Hear Used Tire Dispute
Brazil is getting ready to defend its ban on imports of used tires from the European Union before an arbitration committee of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on July 20 in Geneva, Switzerland.

CHILE: Solar Energy for Rural Families
More than 3,000 families isolated in rural villages of Chile's Fourth Region, some 500 km north of the capital, will soon be supplied by energy from photovoltaic systems, in a project financed in part by the Inter-American Development Bank, with support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

VENEZUELA: Documentary on Vast Wetlands
The documentary "Tierras de agua dulce" (Lands of Freshwater), about the vast Venezuelan wetlands of the plains along the Orinoco River, premiered July 9 "to show the potential we have and must take care of, as one of the 12 countries with greatest reserves of freshwater," the film's directory, Ana Cristina Henríquez, told Tierramérica.

BRAZIL: Mercury Threatens Amazonian Population
An environmental disaster is developing in the Tapajós River basin, in the eastern Brazilian Amazon, due to the mercury used by 'garimpeiros' (informal miners) to extract gold from the ore.

CUBA: Soap from an Oil Nut
Farming families in El Oro community, located in the semi-arid region of this eastern Cuban province, have been successful in making soap from the extracted from the Jatropha curcas tree (known locally as 'piñón botija'), a plant that also helps prevent erosion.

Lessons From a Unique Decade - José Graziano da Silva *
Rio+20 and Beyond: Together for a Sustainable Future - José Graziano da Silva *
Why Inclusive Green Growth Can Sustain Recent Gains in Latin America - Hasan Tuluy*
The Global Food Crisis and the Latin American Paradox - Pamela Cox