Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Trees Planted in New Transport System

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BOGOTA, Sep 3 2005 (IPS) - Approximately 60,000 trees will be planted along the Integrated Mass Transit System being built in the western Colombian city of Cali to compensate for the trees that have to be removed to make way for the new routes. ARGENTINA: New Air Pollution Controls

BUENOS AIRES – The Argentine capital now has two air quality monitoring stations that will for the first time allow officials to track the city's pollution levels and design policies to fight emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.

The unit at Centenario Park, inaugurated in late August in the middle of Buenos Aires, was the second link in a chain that began with the installation of a base in the residential neighborhood of Palermo, in the city's north. In the next few months two more will be set up in La Boca and in Barracas, in the south.

The aim is to evaluate air quality in four zones in order to have “a complete panorama about the main sources of contamination, and promote preventative policies on climate change,” the government's environmental quality control director, Diego Martínez, told Tierramérica.

In Buenos Aires, located on flatlands swept by winds, live some 12 million people, with more than 3.5 million vehicles.

COLOMBIA: Trees Planted in New Transport System

BOGOTA – Approximately 60,000 trees will be planted along the Integrated Mass Transit System being built in the western Colombian city of Cali to compensate for the trees that have to be removed to make way for the new routes.

Jaime Córdoba, president of the Cali Metropolitan Enterprise and promoter of the project, says the tree planting effort will improve the city's environment.

But Alejandro Sánchez, of the Foundation for the Defense of Animals and the Environment, said in a Tierramérica interview that a special fund is needed to monitor and preserve the species in the area affected by the project, which, he said, is dramatically altering the city's landscape.

The National Council on Economic Policy reported that 2.8 million dollars will be earmarked for the operative and environmental part of the mass transit project.