Eco-Briefs

	HONDURAS
	Mining Companies Accused of Pressuring Lawmakers

TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 12 (Tierramérica).- The Honduran Civic Alliance for Mining Law Reforms has accused mining companies operating here of putting pressure on Congress to postpone approval of legislative changes.

The companies "want to remove the debate from Congress and take it to a different arena, thus breaking the consensus of more than six years," Pedro Landa, of the Civic Alliance, told Tierramérica.

The Association of Mining Enterprises proposed that the para-governmental National Forum of Convergence take over the discussion of the reforms, which would invalidate the entire course of the process completed.

The modifications, which were to have been approved Sep. 20, focus on halting open-pit mining, prohibiting new exploration in more than 30 percent of Honduran territory (112,412 square km), hiking mining taxes and requiring mitigation measures in areas affected environmentally by mining activities.

	BRAZIL
	Sugarcane Expansion Rejected

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 12 (Tierramérica).- The population of the Brazilian town of Uberaba, in the eastern state of Minas Gerais, has mobilized against the expansion of sugarcane fields.

Residents of this municipality of 290,000 rejected a plan from the mayor's office that would authorize planting sugarcane in up to 30 percent of the municipality.

A previous law imposed a limit of 10 percent -- which has already been surpassed by three percentage points -- and the proposal would expand sugarcane plantations up to 45 percent of cultivable land, journalist Carlos Pérez, leader of the campaign, told Tierramérica.

In the past two weeks, activists collected signatures for the attorney general's office to apply the legal ban on monoculture within the urban perimeter. Also under discussion is a referendum for citizens to decide if they want sugarcane grown in the municipality or not.

	ARGENTINA
	50 Projects for Achieving the MDGs

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 12 (Tierramérica).- Some 50 projects of public policy and of civil society actions aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Argentina were presented at a course for promoting the goals, adopted in 2000 by the United Nations.

The course, organized by the Pro-UN Association of Argentina, began in August and concluded Nov. 8. "Sociologists and social workers participated, but also anthropologists, dentists, lawyers, police commissaries and academics," Lucía Alberti, president of the Association, told Tierramérica.

Alberti cited as an example a proposal for a "quality of life" observatory in the municipality of Azul, in Buenos Aires province.

The MDGs are a platform for drastically reducing poverty, hunger and inequality, and promoting sustainable development worldwide, with a deadline of 2015.

	MEXICO
	Mangroves in Danger

MEXICO CITY, Nov 12 (Tierramérica).- Before year end, Mexican lawmakers could pass a bill that would dismantle protection of mangrove forests, a type of ecosystem that today covers a total of 650,000 hectares -- 306,000 less than in 1993.

"A bill by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), generated by pressure from real estate developers, seeks to loosen one of the few legal tools that protect the mangroves," Juan Carlos Cantú, of the non-governmental organization Defenders of Wildlife, told Tierramérica.

If approved, the bill "will open the way to aggressive destruction," but "the Environment Ministry shows no sign of interest" in the problem, he added.

The set of legal protections for these ecosystems has since 2003 been targeted for changes and challenges to some of its chapters, sought by members of the tourism industry.

Mangroves act as natural barriers along coasts and serve as reproductive sites for numerous species. Their disappearance is a result of real estate and tourism development, aquiculture, and contamination from herbicides, among other causes.

*Source: Inter Press Service.