Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Flamingos Enjoy Good Health

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

CARACAS, Nov 11 2006 (IPS) - – So far in 2006, in the northwestern Venezuelan marsh of Los Olivitos alone, 6,700 Caribbean flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber ruber) have hatched, reports Betsabey Motta, from the Environment Ministry's office of biodiversity. The flamingo population in northern Venezuela has grown continuously over the past 10 years, said Motta.

Flamingos “are an overprotected species in Venezuela, as they require a simple habitat, even with scant vegetation, but salt mining continues to threaten all of the flora in marshes like Los Olivitos, to the detriment of other bird species,” Jorge Hinestroza, professor of ecology at the University of Zulia, told Tierramérica.

The rainy season — longer and more intense this year — helped in the production of more plants as food, sought by migratory birds like the flamingo in the southern extension of the Caribbean Basin.

CHILE. Air Pollution Online

SANTIAGO – The levels of air pollution recorded each hour by the seven monitoring stations in the Chilean capital are published in real time on the web page of the Metropolitan Region's health authority (http://www.asrm.cl), which previously only reported the daily average.

The regional health ministry decided to make the data available after three citizen organizations sued the agency for access to public information. The ministry had refused over the course of three months to respond to several requests.

Moisés Sánchez, director of the Pro-Access Foundation, one of the plaintiffs, told Tierramérica that the publication of the data (begun Oct. 31) helps Santiago residents to protect themselves, and will serve to improve the existing plans to curb air pollution.

In Santiago, a city hemmed in by mountains, the worst air pollution is recorded between April and September. In 2005 there were seven environmental alerts and two pre-emergencies declared by the authorities.