Ecobreves – CHILE: Don't Rule Out Aysén Volcano

Tremors recorded since Jan. 22 in the southern Chilean city of Aysén are being caused by magma under the sea floor pressing for release, say experts, who are not ruling out the possibility of a volcanic eruption.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Fire Destroys Plain

A fire that started Feb. 2 on La Negra high plain, 600 km southwest of the capital, consumed more than 1,000 hectares of vegetation, Yuri Bermúdez, commander of the local firefighting team, told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Energy for Amazon's Frontiers

Oil from the inaja palm, or great Brazilian palm (Maximiliana regia), will be used to fuel small electrical plants for isolated communities in the Amazonian frontier.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Contamination from Mine Confirmed

Contamination of the main source of potable water for the Honduran town of Valle de Angeles, 20 minutes from the capital, is the result of waste found at the mouth of a mine that was shut down 50 years ago, according to CESSCO, a contamination control and research center.

Climate Change, Yes – But How Fast?

For some, it is a realistic assessment -- for others, it is too conservative. Experts consulted by Tierramérica react to the fourth report by the global panel of climate change experts, which predicts an average global temperature increase of 1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Sustainable Buildings on the Rise

To promote construction of sustainable residential and commercial buildings -- a still-emerging sector in North America -- government officials, architects, engineers and other experts from Mexico, United States and Canada are meeting here this month.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Sport Hunting a Boost for Puma Trafficking

Fourteen pumas (Felis concolor), being kept illegally, were rescued by the Natural Resources Directorate of the central Argentine province of La Pampa in operations on Jan. 26 and Jan. 31.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: At the Gates of the Carbon Market

The Honduran government announced that in the next two months it will launch a reforestation effort in the northern mountains of Pico Bonito, a pilot project for selling carbon credits to national and foreign investors.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Nuts for Energy

The shell of the Brazil nut (Bertholettia excelsa), normally thrown out as waste, is a better source of energy than the best plant-based charcoal used in Brazil's steel industry, says the National Institute of Amazonian Research.

THE WARNED

Human beings have never been as thoroughly warned about the gravity of their actions against nature as today. Hair-raising data, apocalyptic predictions, frightening evidence follow us each day to announce that disaster is drawing closer and close, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, the author writes that never before has the thinking species had the responsibility to fight for its own survival on the planet where the miracle of life was made real. Humanity has come to a crossroads with its awareness that it is even possible to calculate how much time is left for action in this third act. Intelligence has been the hallmark of this species capable of lifting itself above the others. Today only its extraordinary capacity of thought and reason can save it, although at the rate things are going, with so few world leaders and individuals willing not only to think but to take drastic action, everything seems to indicate that the bells will ring and we will not be able to ask for whom: they ring for all of us, for our children and theirs.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: FROM WORDS TO ACTION

Seven World Social Forums (WSF) have been enough for the dynamic of civil society to complete a cycle and initiate a stage of profound change -- in contrast to the World Economic Forum (WEF), which has been held 37 times, writes Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of IPS and a member of the WSF International Committee. In this analysis, Savio writes that Nairobi was the last forum in keeping with the original conception of the WSF. The entrance of more radical forces into the WSF International Council in recent years has caused a very important change of direction. As a result, next year the forum will not be an occasion for meeting and debate but rather a mobilisation. During the days the WEF will be held in Davos, local events will be staged throughout the world by participating organisations, including marches and demonstrations. Even the WSF International Council has decided to meet in Germany on the occasion of demonstrations against the G8, which will happen in Berlin in June. This is a new path, one that is closer to that of the social movements that are becoming the driving forces of Global Civil Society.

NEPAL: WAR OVER BUT PEACE NOT YET AT HAND

If all goes well, in the next few weeks Nepal\'s Maoist insurgents will join the government of Prime Minister GP Koirala, writes Kunda Dixit, editor and publisher of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. In this analysis, Dixit writes that with the restoration of democracy, it was as if the lid came off and all pent-up grievances and demands of groups that had been marginalised or excluded from decision-making wanted their say. The latest complication is an eruption of demands for fair representation and self-rule from many of Nepal\'s 103 ethnic and caste groups. Despite the peace process, Nepal is in ferment. There are strikes, shutdowns, and highways blockades every day by various groups. The unrest has caused a crippling shortage of fuel. The government has held several rounds of negotiations with representatives of these groups, but has not been able to stem the agitation. As the first anniversary of the victory of People Power approaches in Nepal, there is no doubt that a compromise has to be reached and quickly before another fire ignites from the embers of ten years of war.

EUROPE MUST REACT

The world remains dangerous and exasperating in this first phase of 2007. Violence in its many manifestations continues to dominate daily life on every continent, as consumerism, even in extremely poor and disadvantaged countries, is expanding, and with it irresponsibility, the loss of values, corruption at every level, and a mode of life in the mere present, without reference to the past or a path forward into the future, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal. In this analysis Soares writes that global public opinion, the universal awareness of the threats that hang over our planet, and the international disorder that has taken root and proliferated before our very eyes, are beginning to seriously worry the people on every continent. The war in Iraq, which sharply divided the conscience of the world, finally dealt an irreversible shock to US public opinion. President Bush, now on the defensive on the domestic front, seems intent on driving forward with the war in Iraq and hopes to send more troops. Nothing has changed in his belligerent stance towards Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is to be hoped that the US Congress, responsive to American opinion, will be able to block his plans and set out a new foreign policy to restore the lost credibility of the US in the world.

SADDAM, YOUTUBE, AND THE CITIZEN SURVEILLANCE EFFECT

The flip side of the ubiquitous spy camera tracking our every movement in department stores, government offices, and corporate headquarters is \'\'inverse surveillance\'\', the private citizen\'s new-found ability to invade the privacy of public figures who have so long and with such impunity invaded their privacy, writes Mark Sommer, who hosts the internationally-syndicated radio programme, \'\'A World of Possibilities\'\' (www.aworldofpossibilities.com) and directs the Mainstream Media Project. In this analysis, Sommer writes that nearly universal access to portable audio and video recording devices can now catch a politician\'s random moment of indiscretion or conspiratorial whisper and disseminate it to a global public to the everlasting embarrassment of the subject of scrutiny. What does this radical transparency do to leadership itself when, taken out of context, almost any act can appear incriminating? On the one hand, micro cameras and recording devices in the hands of ordinary people give them the power of a citizen\'s arrest with a potential impact that extends far beyond throwing someone in jail. In that sense, it is an essential counterweight to ever greater concentration of power and surveillance in the hands of elites, a levelling device that places public figures on notice that they can never be assured that malfeasance will not be discovered and tried in the court of public exposure. It\'s a power whose potency even those wielding it may not yet fully realise.

IS THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM ALREADY OLD NEWS

Despite the success of the seventh World Social Forum (WSF) held last month in Nairobi, media coverage of the massive event continues to wane, in sharp contrast to the prominence the event was given in its first few years, writes Mario Lubetkin, Director-General of the IPS news agency. In this article, the author writes that the decision to hold the next central forum in 2009 and leave 2008 for protest actions in various parts of the planet effectively postpones the work of building an image of a World Forum that generates serious, realistic alternative proposals in response to the major, dangerous problems that affect humanity. The silence that may fall over the forum for such a long period, despite the local and regional forums set for coming months and years, could aggravate this tendency and as a result generate even more disillusionment for many of those who are betting on the forum and its defiant motto: \'\'Another world is possible.\'\'

GREEN TRADE AND THE WTO

Sustainable development should be the cornerstone of our approach to globalisation and of the global governance architecture that we create, writes Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In this article, Lamy writes that the Doha Round of trade negotiations contains a promise to the environment to allow for a more efficient allocation of resources including natural ones on a global scale through a continued reduction of obstacles to trade (tariffs and subsidies). But it also includes a promise to ensure greater harmony between the WTO and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs): a promise to tear down the barriers to trade in clean technologies and services; as well as a promise to reduce the environmentally-harmful agricultural subsidies. The world must forge ahead with these negotiations as fast as it possibly can. Not because the negotiations are going to save the world\'s environment. But because they are the very modest start that the international community has agreed to make to address environmental challenges through the prism of trade. A failure of these negotiations would strengthen the hand of all those who argue that economic growth should proceed unchecked, that economic growth is supreme and need not take account of the environment. Trade, and indeed the WTO, must be made to deliver sustainable development. They are starting to.

FREE TRADE IS OVER (IF THE PEOPLE WANT IT TO BE)

The US and South Korea are working around the clock to sign the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KorUS FTA), which would become the second largest trade deal after NAFTA, writes Christine Ahn, a policy analyst with the Korea Policy Institute and Oakland Institute and a member of the Korean Americans for Fair Trade coalition. In this article, Ahn writes that Wall Street corporations and South Korean chaebols are salivating at the opportunity to increase their portion of 72 billion dollars in business the two countries trade annually. Normally, such a trade deal would breeze through the halls of the US Congress and the Korean National Assembly. But times have changed. The public discourse on free trade is no longer just about the ability of corporations to move their capital freely across borders. It\'s about the anger and frustration of middle and working class people who see their security dwindling to further line the pockets of white-collar business executives. That anger can then express itself during elections, ousting officials mired in the rhetoric of the last century. Free trade is over, and hopefully the social justice movements in the United States will unite with the energising movements in South Korea to stop this antiquated regime.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Protecting Endemic Fish

Children from the Zapata marsh area, one of the Caribbean islands' most important wetlands, are part of a campaign to protect the manjuarí, a fish native to Cuba that is in danger of extinction. On Jun. 5 the children will release in their natural habitat fish they have raised in their schools.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: CFC Production Falls

Venezuela will produce 4,000 tons fewer of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) annually, and 2,900 less in 2008, thanks to the closure of Produven, the leading local manufacturer of these refrigerants that deplete the Earth's atmospheric ozone layer.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Activists Sound Alarm on Transantiago Plan

The Transantiago Plan, which is to take effect Feb. 10 in the Chilean capital, is in the sights of ecologists, who are demanding a clear commitment from government officials to the initiative.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Mining Companies Demand Legal Framework

Representatives from the mining industry in Honduras are calling for a new legal framework to guarantee greater investment in the sector to prevent collapse. But despite social pressures, the industry recorded rising profits in 2006.