SOUTH AMERICA ESTH NEWS, NUMBER 79

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 11 BRASILIA 001618

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT PASS USAID TO LAC/RSD, LAC/SAM, G/ENV, PPC/ENV
TREASURY FOR USED IBRD AND IDB AND INTL/MDB
USDA FOR FOREST SERVICE: LIZ MAHEW
INTERIOR FOR DIR INT AFFAIRS: K WASHBURN
INTERIOR FOR FWS: TOM RILEY
INTERIOR PASS USGS FOR INTERNATIONAL: J WEAVER
JUSTICE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES: JWEBB
EPA FOR INTERNATIONAL: CAM HILL-MACON
USDA FOR ARS/INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH: G FLANLEY
NSF FOR INTERNATIONAL: HAROLD STOLBERG

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SENV EAGR EAID TBIO ECON SOCI XR BR
SUBJECT: SOUTH AMERICA ESTH NEWS, NUMBER 79


1. The following is the seventy-ninth in a series of newsletters,
published by the Brasilia Regional Environmental Hub, covering
environment, science and technology, and health news in South
America. The information below was gathered from news sources from
across the region, and the views expressed do not necessarily
reflect those of the Hub office or our constituent posts.
Addressees who would like to receive a user-friendly email version
of this newsletter should contact Larissa Stoner at
stonerla@state.gov. The e-mail version also contains a calendar of
upcoming ESTH events in the region.


2. Table of Contents

Agriculture
--(3)Cultivation of Coca Exacts Rising Environmental Cost
--(4)Colombia: Turn To Transgenics Spurs GM-Free Zones
--(5)Soybean Boycott in the Amazon Region

Health
--(6)A hard look at HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean
--(7)Brazil: Copaiba as Anti-Inflammatory
--(8)Transgenic Mosquitoes Enlisted in Fight Against Malaria

Protected Areas
--(9)Chile, Argentina Agree To Create Cross-Border Nature Reserve
--(10)Colombia: Fire Devastates Nature Reserve
--(11)Colombia: Malpelo Island Declared a UNESCO World Heritage
Site

Science & Technology
--(12)Brazil's Innovation Law: Lessons for Latin America
--(13)Peru Launches National Plan for S&T
--(14)Fifth Space Conference of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador
--(15)Brazilian Researchers Call for Stronger Science Dissemination
--(16) Peru Approves Biotech Law

Climate Change
--(17)Bill Clinton Launches City Climate Change Partnership
--(18)Caribbean: MOU to Help Low-Lying States Adapt to Climate
Change

Pollution
--(19)Colombia: Border Closed to Toxic Waste
--(20)Opening of Chilean Pulp Mill Generates Opposition
--(21)Argentine Water Supply Faces Uranium Threat

Energy
--(22)Chile Wind Farms Help Promote Energy Independence
--(23)Brazil: The Vegetable Oil Revolution - From the Kitchen to the
Car

General
--(24)Call for Ecological Integration in Mercosur
--(25)In Chile, Mapuche score Supreme Court win
--(26)Brazil: Selective Garbage Collection Expands
--(27)Brazil: Another Highway Threatens the Amazon

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--(28)Argentina: A Warning on Dune Disappearance

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Agriculture
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3. Cultivation of Coca Exacts Rising Environmental Cost

JULY 2006 - Coca, the raw material for cocaine, continued to spread
throughout Colombia in 2005, penetrating into the heart of some of
the world's most fragile and biodiverse ecosystems, according to
reports released by two drug control agencies. Despite the aerial
fumigation of nearly 346,000 acres (140,000 has),a record high, the
area covered by coca crops expanded 26 percent in Colombia last
year, according to a report released in March by the U.S. State
Department's Office of National Drug Control Policy. A second
report, released last month by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC),estimates the increase at 8 percent. Drug experts
described as especially worrisome the spread of coca in the
northwestern state of Choco, the southeastern department of Vichada
and the southern department of Amazonas-richly biodiverse regions
vulnerable to the slash-and-burn techniques of coca growers.

Source - EcoAmericas (please contact Larissa Stoner for complete
article)


4. Colombia: Turn To Transgenics Spurs GM-Free Zones

JULY 2006 - When leaders from the Zenu Indian tribe, from northern
Colombia, discovered last year that a government research institute
was testing genetically modified (GM) corn just 60 miles (100 kms)
from their reserve, they moved fast. In August of last year, they
dispatched tribal representatives to Mexico to consult with Indian
and peasant leaders about the effects of transgenic corn there.
Then, in October, they gathered in Colombia and announced they would
prohibit cultivation of gene-modified crops in their 54,000-acre
(22,000-ha) reserve, which spans the northern Colombian states of
Cordoba and Sucre and is home to 17,000 people. Wearing straw hats
and holding palm-fiber bags in an open coliseum surrounded by corn
fields, 300 Zenu leaders also called on authorities to ensure
gene-altered foods are not transported through Zenu territory or
introduced through food-aid projects. They vowed to protect native
plant varieties and traditional farming techniques. But for the Zenu
and other Indian and peasant groups in Argentina, Costa Rica and
Mexico that have banned transgenic crops, larger issues are at
stake. Latin America is a center of origin and of biological
diversity for vital plants including corn, potatoes, yucca, beans,
tomatoes and cotton. Maintaining this biodiversity not only guards
against future crop failures, it also preserves a low-cost form of
chemical-free farming that for centuries has allowed indigenous
communities to sustain themselves without harming the environment.

Source - EcoAmericas (please contact Larissa Stoner for complete
article)


5. Soybean Boycott in the Amazon Region

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JULY 28, 2006 - Multinational soy traders agreed to a two-year
moratorium on the purchase of soybeans from newly deforested land
starting in the 2006-07 crop season. A remarkable feature is that
even soybeans grown on land legally cleared during this period on
farms in the Amazon forest zone will not be purchased by these
traders. The agreement followed a Greenpeace report claiming that
the grain's cultivation is responsible for the deforestation of new
lands in the Amazon. U.S. distributors Cargill, Archer Daniels
Midland Co. and Bunge Ltd., as well as France's Dreyfus and
Brazilian-owned Amaggi are all taking part in the boycott.

Source - BRASILIA 1514


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Health
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6. A hard look at HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean

JULY 28, 2006 - The devastation the HIV virus is causing in Latin
America and the Caribbean grabs a fraction of the attention paid to
HIV/AIDS epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. But by 2015 the
region is expected to have nearly 3.5 million people living with
HIV. Shared factors such as poverty, migration and homophobia are
threatening to send these numbers spiralling upwards. In this
special set of articles in Science, Jon Cohen describes the
commonalities and key differences in what is driving the epidemic in
Latin American and the Caribbean, and how countries there are
fighting back


7. Brazil: Copaiba as Anti-Inflammatory

JULY 29, 2006 - A study conducted by University of Sao Paulo's
Ribeirao Preto science department has certified the
anti-inflammatory properties of the copaiba plant (Copaifera
officinalis). In testing on mice, this tree native to the tropical
regions of Latin America and Western Africa presented
anti-inflammation properties twice as strong as diclofenac sodium, a
synthetic medication. To date, copaiba has been used in scents and
varnishes, but traditional medicine has used it to prevent scarring
and as an anti-inflammatory.

Source - Tierramerica


8. Transgenic Mosquitoes Enlisted in Fight Against Malaria

JULY 15, 2006 - Brazil's Rene Rachou Research Center has genetically
modified a mosquito to remove its ability to transmit the parasite
that causes malaria. If this mosquito can reproduce in nature, and
replace the original disease-carrying mosquito, it would help
control a disease that affects 300 to 500 million people each year
-- 90 percent in Africa -- and claiming one million lives annually.
Luciano Andrade Moreira, head of the research that began in 2003 at
the Rachou Center, learned the technique when he studied for his

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doctorate degree in the United States, and applied it to Brazilian
mosquito species -- the first project of its kind in a developing
country. But this will not be the definitive solution to the
malaria problem, which requires a combination of different
strategies, including the conventional ones, like improved medical
assistance and sanitation, and a reduction in the number of
mosquitoes, he admitted. Similar studies are under way at the
University of Sao Paulo, but focus on dengue -- another
mosquito-borne disease.

Source - Tierramerica

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Protected Areas
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9. Chile, Argentina Agree To Create Cross-Border Nature Reserve

July 27, 2006 - The governments of Chile and Argentina signed an
agreement to create a 4.7-million-hectare cross-border nature
reserve to be known as the Andean-North Patagonian Biosphere
Reserve. The signatories were from Chile's 10th Region, Argentina's
Chubut and Rio Negro Regions, Argentina's National Parks
Administration, and its National Agricultural Technology Agency.
Argentina will contribute 2.37 million hectares of territory to the
reserve, while Chile will provide 2.29 million hectares, all of
which has already been designated as park or reserve land. The
Argentine Parks Authority will present an appeal to the United
Nations Education Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) in March
2007 for recognition of the area as a world nature reserve.

Source - Xinhua News Agency. Kindly shared by US Embassy Santiago.


10. Colombia: Fire Devastates Nature Reserve

JULY 15, 2006 - Colombia's environmental authorities have declared
an ecological disaster as a result of the fires in the
central-western nature park of Los Nevados that destroyed some 5,000
of the park's 58,000 hectares. Former environment minister Juan
Mayr told Tierramerica that the case is worrisome because the park
acts as a big water plant in the central Andes mountains, where
rivers are formed that are essential to the main coffee-growing
areas of Colombia. "We will look at all formulas of access to the
international community -- economic and scientific -- to accelerate
the recovery of these areas," said the current minister of
environment, Juan Lozano. Lozano noted that it could take at least
50 years to fully recuperate the areas destroyed by the fire.

Source - Tierramerica


11. Colombia: Malpelo Island Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site

JULY 12, 2006 - The Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary, located in
the Colombian Pacific Ocean, 506 km to the west of Buenaventura, has
been declares a Natural World Heritage Site. The decision was made
unanimously by the 21 member countries of the World Heritage

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Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO). The island of Malpelo is now the second
protected area in the country with this prestigious title, with Los
Katios National Park as the first declared in 1994. One of
Malpelo's most outstanding aspects is that it is one of the two
places in the world with confirmed sightings of the sandtiger shark
(Odontaspis feroz),a deepwater shark locally known as "the
monster." Additionally, large aggregations of pelagic species,
including the large aggregations of more than 200 hammerhead sharks
(Sphyrna lewini),more than 1,000 silky sharks (Carcharhinus
falciformis),whale sharks (Rhincodon typus),and tuna (Thunnus
spp.) have been observed around the island.

Source - UNESCO

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Science & Technology
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12. Brazil's Innovation Law: Lessons for Latin America

AUG. 03, 2006 - Innovation is now widely acknowledged as an
essential tool for development. Other nations would do well to
learn from the political challenges that Brazil's new legislation
has unearthed. Last week, the five member countries (and five
associate members) of the Latin American trade pact Mercosur agreed
to work closely to boost trade, create jobs and reduce poverty. In
doing so, they injected new life into an organization that was
created as the Latin American equivalent of the European Union, but
has since struggled to get off the ground. Closer technological
cooperation and a common desire to boost innovation are seen as
central to this bid for regional integration. It is expected that
Mercosur countries - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela
and their associates - Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru -
will set up a program for science, technology and innovation. This
would promote links between research institutions and private
companies.

Source - SciDev


13. Peru Launches National Plan for S&T

JULY 25, 2006 - The GOP announced its plan for science, technology,
and innovation until 2021. Scientific issues of interest are:
biotechnology, genomics, materials science, environmental science,
and information and communications technology for small and medium
business enterprises. The budget for the national plan is USD36
million, of which USD25 will come from the Interamerican Development
Bank. According to the press report, half of this budget will be
spent on aquaculture, textile industry, and agricultural industry.
The final goal of the plan is to increase investment in innovation
and development from 0.1 percent of the country's GDP to 0.7 percent
by 2021.

Source - SciDev


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14. Fifth Space Conference of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador

JULY 24, 2006 - The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) participated in the
Fifth Space Conference of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador, July
24-28. According to the report, Brazil aims to strengthen
partnerships with other Latin American countries, especially
Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela. Brazil has already made
images from its CBERS satellites available, at no cost, for all
Latin American countries and is in the process of discussing
cooperation with other countries in sharing its Laboratory for
Integration and Tests (LIT/Inpe),which is used for building
satellites.

Source - Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology


15. Brazilian Researchers Call for Stronger Science Dissemination

JULY 23, 2006 - During the 58th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian
Society for Science Advancement, scientists called for long term
advances in the dissemination of science issues in the country.
According to the report, the Ministry of Science and Technology
allocated USD3.6 million for projects that disseminate scientific
issues. Nearly 20,000 people were at the meeting, which was held in
Florianopolis July 16-21.

Source - SciDev


16. Peru Approves Biotech Law

JULY 17, 2006 - The Congress of Peru approved July 11 a Law of
Modern Biotechnology. The new legislation intends to improve
science and development training in universities, institutions, and
business entities in Peru as well as promote education on modern
biotechnology. The law was criticized by some sectors of society
for not involving enough public debate during its formulation.

Source - SciDev

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Climate Change
--------------


17. Bill Clinton Launches City Climate Change Partnership

AUG. 03, 2006 - The world's largest cities will work together to
tackle climate change under a new partnership spearheaded by former
US president Bill Clinton. The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI),
launched on 1 August in Los Angeles, United States, will collaborate
with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group chaired by the mayor
of London, Ken Livingstone. The partnership aims to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency through a
business-oriented approach - providing advice and technical
assistance to 22 of the world's largest cities, including Buenos
Aires, Cairo, Caracas, Delhi, Dhaka, Johannesburg, Mexico City and
Sao Paulo.


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Source - SciDev


18. Caribbean: MOU to Help Low-Lying States Adapt to Climate Change

Aug. 06, 2006 - A memorandum of under-standing (MOU) has been signed
between the Caribbean Community (Caricom) secretariat and the
Climate Change Centre in the region to help small islands and
low-lying coastal states adapt to climate change. Mainstreaming
Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) is a USD10.9M project financed
by the Global Environment Facility (GEF),Caricom member sates, the
Government of Canada, and the Government of the United States
through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Guyana
and 11 other countries are participating, namely, Antigua and
Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica,
St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and
Trinidad and Tobago.

Source - Stabroek News. Kindly shared by US Embassy Georgetown

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Pollution
--------------


19. Colombia: Border Closed to Toxic Waste

JULY 29, 2006 - Colombia will not import toxic or nuclear waste,
according to a resolution by the Environment Ministry. Environment
chief Juan Lozano said the measure adopted July 21 "confirms that
Colombia will not be able to import any type of dangerous waste,
unless there is assurance of an industrial treatment process that
mitigates all threat to the life and health of Colombians."
Ecologist Carlos Escobar, adviser to the Environmental Corporation
of the Atlantic, stated that the measure will help resolve a problem
whose true scope has not yet been realized. Citing the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and reports from the
Attorney General, Escobar said that in Colombia there are at least
5,400 tons of toxic waste buried or poorly stored -- equivalent to
nearly half the total for all of Latin America.

Source - Tierramerica


20. Opening of Chilean Pulp Mill Generates Opposition

JULY 2006 - Wine growers, farmers, fishermen and thousands of other
residents in Chile's Itata Valley, located in south-central Chile
near the city of Chillan, are protesting the expected start-up next
month of one of the world's largest pulp mills. The Nueva Aldea
pulp project also is drawing fire from green groups. Last month,
Greenpeace organized a road blockade to protest the USD1.5 billion
mill, prompting Chilean Interior Minister Andres Zaldivar to
threaten the expulsion from Chile of Argentine, Brazilian and
Uruguayan activists involved. Itata residents fear the mill will
pollute their valley's air as well as the waters of the Itata River,
threatening their livelihoods and health. In part, their concerns
arise from the sheer volume of output expected from the facility.
Owned by the Chilean company Celulosa Arauco (Celco),the mill is

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designed to produce 856 million tons of pulp a year. Opponents cite
the record of another pulp mill owned by Celco near the southern
Chilean city of Valdivia. Authorities closed the Valdivia mill
temporarily last year-just 15 months after it had opened-when they
determined its discharges had contaminated a wetland reserve and
caused a die-off and exodus of rare black-necked swans.

Source - EcoAmericas (please contact Larissa Stoner for complete
article)


21. Argentine Water Supply Faces Uranium Threat

JULY 29, 2006 - Water intended for human consumption may have been
contaminated by the Ezeiza Atomic Center. Experts from the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Health Organization
and local authorities will conduct a new assessment. Argentine
judicial authorities are investigating cases of uranium
contamination around the Ezeiza Atomic Center, in Buenos Aires
province. The first complaint reached the judicial branch in 2000,
when residents of the area sounded the alert about possible
"poisoning" of the water supply with uranium, and blamed the nuclear
facility for the potential health consequences for the nearby
population. The center admitted to uranium contamination in two
areas -- Campo 5 and Trincheras -- but assured that steps were taken
to remedy the situation in one case, and that it is in the process
of resolving the other. The area alleged to be affected involves
three districts of Buenos Aires province: Ezeiza, Esteban Echeverria
and La Matanza -- with a combined population of 1.6 million people.

Source - Tierramerica

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Energy
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22. Chile Wind Farms Help Promote Energy Independence

AUG. 02, 2006 - Even though [president] Bachelet's announcement that
Chile will aspire to be completely energy independent within two
years did not focus specifically on the wind energy alternative,
groundwork has already been laid by private and university groups
who will most certainly lobby to make wind energy an important part
of Chile's energy independence effort. The town of Coyhaique in
southern Chile, for example, could provide a glimpse into what an
energy independent future would be like. There, three immense wind
generators provide for the energy needs of 19,000 families in Region
XI. "Alto Baguales" is the only industrial scale wind farm in
Chile, but that number may multiply as businesses and researchers
scope out new sites from Arica to Puente Arenas. Juan Walker, a
representative of the Danish company Vestas that manufactured the
three generators, is optimistic about Chile's wind energy future:
"Chile has the potential to produce 5,000 megawatts of wind energy
within a timeframe of ten to twenty years," he said. Vestas plans
to set up 50-megawatt wind farms in Regions IV and VII beginning

2008. Still, in comparison with countries like Germany, where
16,500 wind farms produce five percent of the country's energy,

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these wind farms will not do much to significantly address the
nation's energy needs.

NOTE: US Embassy Santiago has kindly shared a series of article
related to a recent FAO conference on agroenergy and biofuels, held
in Santiago July 26-28. If you are interested in reading them,
please contact Larissa Stoner.

Source - Santiago Times (no link)


23. Brazil: The Vegetable Oil Revolution - From the Kitchen to the
Car

JULY 24, 2006 - Brazilian energy parastatal Petrobras recently
publicized the development of a new diesel fuel, H-Bio, further
bolstering Brazil's already prominent position in the world of
biofuels. A hydrogenated synthesis of petroleum and vegetable oil,
Petrobras is touting the social, environmental and economic benefits
of the fuel as well as its capacity to reinforce Brazil's energy
independence. Industrial tests of H-Bio began on June 20, and the
company expects commercial/industrial production to commence by the
end of 2006. While certain obstacles still merit attention, H-Bio
fits into Petrobras' long-term emphasis on green fuel development.

Source - BRASILIA 1480

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General
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24. Call for Ecological Integration in Mercosur

JULY 29, 2008 - Argentine environmentalists have proposed that the
countries of Mercosur take a regional focus for drafting policies
that involve their shared natural resources. For the first time, a
forum of civil society organizations met in parallel to the Mercosur
Summit, held July 20-21 in the central Argentine city of Cordoba.
"The environment does not understand borders. Natural resources are
shared and so is responsibility for their management," Cecilia
Iglesias, an activist with the Environmental Network, told
Tierramerica. The Network and other environmental groups
participating in the parallel forum also called for regulating the
activities of highly contaminating industries, harmonizing
environmental protection standards amongst the Mercosur members, and
ensuring access to public information on related issues.

Source - Tierramerica


25. In Chile, Mapuche score Supreme Court win

JULY 2006 - The high court ruled that Aguas Araucania, a regional
water company privatized in 2004, violated environmental laws by
failing to conduct an environmental-impact study (EIS) and a public
hearing before starting to build a sewage plant in the Araucania
Region. It ordered the company to stop work on the 80,000-gallon
(302,000-liter) -per-day plant, which is adjacent to Mapuche land,

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until it has an approved impact statement. And it concluded that
the project, still in its early stages, might threaten the Mapuches'
health and right to live in a clean environment, as well as "their
freedom to practice religious ancestral rites..." Though the court
ruling may not be the last word in the case, for Rivera and other of
southern Chile's Mapuche Indians, it marks a step forward in their
cause to combat what they describe as environmental racism.

Source - EcoAmericas (please contact Larissa Stoner for complete
article)


26. Brazil: Selective Garbage Collection Expands

JULY 15, 2006 - The number of Brazilian communities with systems of
selective garbage collection has increased 38 percent, according to
a new study by CEMPRE, a business organization that promotes
recycling. The southeastern cities of Porto Alegre, Curitiba and
Santos are some of the 327 that already have this recycling service
in place, and which reaches 25 million Brazilians. CEMPRE director
Andre Vilhena [believes] the social commitment in Brazil is greater
than in developed countries, so its model for selective collection
of waste materials is being exported to other developing countries.
CEMPRE has been studying collection of recyclable urban waste since
1994, when just one percent of all waste in Brazil was being
recycled.

Source - Tierramerica


27. Brazil: Another Highway Threatens the Amazon

JULY 15, 2006 - Brazil's Ministry of Environment proposes creating
10 conservation areas along the route of highway BR-319, which will
connect the Amazon cities of Porto Velho and Manaus. The aim is to
plan an "organized" occupation of the land, with farm regulation and
a government presence to prevent deforestation, [according to]
Mauricio Mercadante, the ministry's director of protected areas.
The proposal will be discussed at public hearings in six cities of
the region in the next couple weeks. The imminent paving of the
route has environmentalists worried -- they see it as a threat to
Amazonian ecosystems of vast biodiversity. "We will only accept it
if they ensure protection of indigenous lands and small farms, and
benefits for other populations," as well as an environmental impact
study, said Adilson Vieira, coordinator of the Amazon Working Group,
a network of 600 local organizations.

Source - Tierramerica


28. Argentina: A Warning on Dune Disappearance

JULY 15, 2006 - Sixty percent of the sand dunes have been lost in
the last 35 years because of increased human activity in the eastern
Argentine city of Puerto Madryn, on the Atlantic coast, says the
Patagonia Natural Foundation. Gabriela Degorgue, head of the study
presented July 7, stressed that the dunes "give an identity to the
landscape, but they also play a fundamental role in preserving the
beach; they protect the cost from erosion and are habitat for unique

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species." "Without protection measure in the short term, there is a
risk that there won't be any dunes left to protect," she said,
urging an end to construction on the beach, restrictions on heavy
machinery, and installation of special routes to reach the resorts.

Source - Tierramerica

Sobel