Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Plans Made Against Invading Species

Brazil has identified 543 invasive exotic species, 155 of which directly affect agricultural production and 97 affect human health, according to a study published earlier this month by the Ministry of Environment as a first step towards a broader plan of combat against this problem nationwide.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Garbage Collectors Recycle Too

The Argentine capital inaugurated on May 2 its first recycling plant, for separating out recyclable materials, employing former informal garbage collectors in the city.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Expanded Market for Ecological Goods

Small producers in 17 associations from Colombia's Andean region will be able to market their ecological merchandise through a chain of supermarkets in the capital, thanks to an agreement established under the Ministry of Environment's National Plan for Green Markets.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: A Space Agency Is Born

The creation of a space agency in Mexico, approved by the Chamber of Deputies in April, is a laudable goal, but difficult to achieve in the short term, say experts.

BIOMASS: A WIN-WIN ENERGY SOURCE

Fully developed, biomass could reduce reliance on hydrocarbons of all kinds, foreign and domestic, not only as fuel for light-duty vehicles but as a raw material for biodegradable manufactured plastics. At the same time, rightly utilised, biomass could be harvested not from food crops but from the stalks and stover of grains that would otherwise go to waste. In the process, it could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fuel a rebirth of long languishing rural regions worldwide. Unlike oil, coal, uranium and other conventional fuels, the processes that produce biofuels are not intensely toxic to humans or the natural environment. Moreover, unlike fossil fuel and nuclear plants, biorefineries are most efficiently run when they are small-scale, decentralised, and locally-managed, with raw materials drawn from as little as a thirty-mile radius of the plant. One of the benefits of biofuels is that they offer the possibility of returning the sources of energy, income and political power to each locale. In an era when centralised power is revealing itself to be ever more inefficient and untrustworthy, an energy system of distributed power driven by biology rather than mineralogy might provide not only heat and light but, as a beneficial byproduct, a greater measure of democracy.

THE POLITICS OF MONEY

The word is out that economics, never a science, has always been politics in disguise, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Creating Alternative Futures and numerous other books and co-creator of the Calvert Group, the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators. In this article, Henderson writes that civic action with local currencies, barter, community credit, and the more dubious rash of digital cybermoney all reveal the politics of money. Economics is now widely seen as the faulty sourcecode deep in societies\' hard drives, replicating unsustainability: booms, busts, bubbles, recessions, energy crises, resource depletion, poverty, trade wars, pollution, disruption of communities, and the loss of cultural and biodiversity. Citizens all over the world are rejecting this malfunctioning code and its operating systems: the World Bank, the IMF, WTO, and central banks. As local groups and communities created their own local scrip currencies and exchange systems, they learned about economists\' deepest secret: money and information are equivalent -- and neither is scarce! Barter, dismissed in economic textbooks as a primitive relic, went hi-tech. The deconstructing of money systems, and the growth of all the healthy local, real world alternatives is propagating widely.

DEVELOPMENT MUST REMAIN AT TOP OF GLOBAL AGENDA

These are difficult times -- both for the United Nations, and for the world. It is thus all the more imperative to ensure that development remains at the top of the global agenda, writes Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). There are increasing pressures on developing countries to open their markets, with the promise that this is the key to making the biggest gains. Such promises should not be allowed to disguise the fact that there are still serious trade barriers to the key exports of developing countries as a whole --both tariff and non-tariff barriers-- that need to be addressed. Indeed, a worrying trend is the resort to new forms of protection as tariffs and quantitative restrictions have come down.

INTERVIEW WITH ALAN GARCIA :’I WILL RENEGOTIATE CONTRACTS WITH FOREIGN COMPANIES.”

lan Garcia, who polls show is the favourite in Peru\'s presidential elections, scheduled for June 4, says that his government will not expropriate foreign companies doing business in Peru but rather will negotiate with them --as well as others that have no presence there yet-- so that they will process copper, gold, fish, and food locally. \'\'In short, this is so they will invest more, but in order to spur our development, not so they can extract our raw materials and process them in another country.\'\'

AN AFRICAN PRAYER FOR PEACE

May 5 seemed to be yet another day of good news for our continent, signalling that we were indeed advancing towards the realisation of the goal of Africa\'s renaissance: Sudan took a step forward towards the restoration of peace in Darfur, as the government of Sudan and one faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) signed a peace agreement in Abuja, Nigeria, after a protracted process of negotiations, writes Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa. In this article, Mbeki writes that it is most unfortunate that another faction of the SLM/A, led by Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, as well as the second Darfur rebel movement, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), decided not to sign the peace agreement. The negative impact of the Darfur conflict on inter-state relations, as between Sudan and Chad, as well as Eritrea to the east, which Sudan accuses of supporting the Darfur rebels, must communicate the strong message to the Sudanese negotiators in Abuja that, truly, the resolution of the Darfur crisis and the overall challenges of Sudan, would make an important contribution to the resolution of Africa\'s problems. A just resolution of the conflict in Darfur must indeed be based on the repudiation of any winner-takes-all approach, which makes it impossible to build the inclusive societies that are the only condition for the achievement of peace, stability and national unity and reconciliation in all African countries.

Wave of Opposition Hits Hydroelectric Dams

Local residents are trying in several Latin American countries -- from the Papagayo River in Mexico to the Baker River in southern Chile -- to stop major hydroelectric projects.

Chernobyl's Elusive Bottom Line

No one knows exactly how many more people will die from the effects of the nuclear accident in Ukraine 20 years ago. Some say 4,000 more, but others argue the total could reach 100,000.

Steelmaker's Departure Clouds Bilateral Relations

The withdrawal of the Brazilian company EBX from Bolivia means that thousands of hectares of forests are safe -- but bilateral relations have been hurt.

Ecobreves – CHILE: New Law for Native Forests

The government of President Michelle Bachelet has taken up a proposal from environmental organizations for a law on native forests that frees up a legislative measure, paralyzed for the past 13 years, of a framework law for protecting Chile's rich autochthonous forest resources

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: More Carbon Credits

The Andean development agency CAF, the financial arm of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), finalized an agreement with the Brazilian company Jalles Machado, which produces alcohol from sugarcane, for the purchase of 110,000 tons' worth of carbon credits, as established by international efforts to curb climate change.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Fuel from Sugarcane Juice

Cuba has started manufacturing alcohol from sugarcane juice -- somewhat of a novelty for this island nation, which had focused on producing sugar from the juice, and only used the byproducts to make alcohol.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Soldiers Guard the Forests

For the past three months, some 2,000 soldiers from the Honduran army have been guarding the principal ecological preserve locations around the country to prevent illegal logging. They also have been dismantling illegal sawmills and starting a program of reforestation.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Protection for Flora and Fauna Names

In the next few days Brazil will be sending to foreign patent and trademark offices a list of the traditional names of Brazilian flora and fauna so that they cannot be registered as commercial trademarks.

When Science Inconveniences Bush

Scientists denounce what they see as obsessive attempts by the White House to muzzle them and to eliminate research that it doesn't like.

Proliferation of Motorcycles and Health Risks

In 2005, Brazil manufactured 1.2 million motorcycles. Many consumers prefer them because they are lightweight and fast, but the downside is that they pollute the air and cause thousands of injuries and deaths each year.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Activists Want to Make an Example of Monsanto

The environmental watchdog Greenpeace wants the Mexican government to apply sanctions against Monsanto, to make an example of the agribusiness transnational for planting genetically modified cotton without authorization.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Honey Instead of Coca

A Colombian government project to produce honey instead of planting coca bush in the northern Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta yielded five tons of the sweet stuff in 2005 and is projected to produce 30 tons for export to Europe in 2006.