Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Indians Fight Sale of Reserve

Wichí Indians in northern Argentina last week filed a legal petition in Salta provincial courts to stop the sale of 16,000 hectares that, until two months ago, were part of a nature reserve.

Ecobreves – PERU: Peasants Ready to Cut Pipeline

Peasant farmers from the Convención Valley, in the southeastern Peruvian department of Cuzco, threaten to destroy one kilometer of the Camisea-Lima natural gas pipeline if the construction companies Techint, Plus Petrol and TGP do not agree to compensate them with 20 million dollars for environmental damages to the area.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Ozone-Depleting Substances Eliminated

Two Colombian companies based in the northern city of Barranquilla are implementing technology friendly to the Earth's ozone layer, thanks to a donation of 1.4 million dollars from the Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol on Ozone-Depleting Substances.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Fomenting Clean Production

- The Honduran Business Council for Sustainable Development, with backing from the United Nations, will begin a program in July to promote alternative energy sources and sustainable waste management in the industrial zones along the northern coast.

FROM ICELAND: TEN PROPOSALS FOR PEACE

On June 26, Iceland will hold presidential elections, with candidate Thor Magnusson running on a peace platform. If he wins, he could do a lot -- for Iceland and for the world, write Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and Director of TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network, and Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the European University Centre for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria and Co-Director of TRANSCEND. In this column, authors present ten proposals for what the president of a small country could do for peace. Today, a peace president could invite all of the governments in the Middle East to a modern \'\'Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation\'\' to explore the creation of a six-state Middle East Community, comprised of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and a fully-recognised Palestine, modelled after the European Community. Why not build on successes rather than heading for new failures with the misguided US \'\'road map\'\'? A peace president could be the first to introduce peace education in all schools with a focus on non-violent alternatives. A study of TV violence shows that damage is done less by the viewing of violent acts than by the absence of non-violent alternatives and attention to the grief and trauma of the bereaved. Iceland can also provide a model for developing countries. To its traditional economy based on agriculture and fishing it has added electronics and pharmaceuticals, bypassing heavy industry.

EUROPEAN UNION: THE BIGGER, THE MORE CONSERVATIVE

The profoundly conservative nature of European politics, the EU institutions, and individual member states is worrying, particularly as manifested in EU economic and social policy, writes Emma Bonino, deputy in the European Parliament and a nleader of the Transnational Radical Party. In this article, Bonino writes that current debates about the size of the EU budget are beside the point as long as almost half of these funds will go to finance the Common Agricultural Policy, which imposes a huge cost on EU consumers while ruining the hopes of hundreds of millions of farmers in developing countries. Another troubling example of conservatism was the decision by almost all of the fifteen old member countries to put off until 2011 complete freedom of movement for workers of the ten countries that just joined the EU. Then there is the continuous postponement of the initiation of serious negotiations on admitting Turkey. While the reasons for such prudence are comprehensible, the EU cannot lose this historic occasion to create a deep and stable connection between a large Islamic country and the liberal and democratic West.

COLUMN DEDICATED TO INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL DAY CELEBRATED ON JUNE 5: ONE WORLD, ONE OCEAN. AND IT IS TIME TO SAVE IT

The rich and poor worlds are linked as never before - by economics, trade, migration, and by one body of water that covers 70% of the earth\'s surface, and on which our survival depends. As there is only one World, there is also one Ocean. But the world\'s Ocean is dying, writes Ian Johnson, Vice President of the World Bank. But there is reason to hope. The 2002 Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable, called for ambitious but achievable goals such as restoring degraded fish stocks to sustainable levels by 2015. Now it is time to move forward and developed countries must lead the way. As with agriculture, rich countries must lead the way in eliminating the harmful subsidies and other protectionist policies that lead to over-fishing. These policies need to end to avoid continuing the depletion of the Ocean\'s living resources.

HOW ASEAN CAN HELP BRING DEMOCRACY TO BURMA

ASEAN made history with its recent public remarks about Burma and its military government, calling upon them to release popular national leader Suu Kyi from house arrest and to take action to settle the country\'s long-running civil and political wars, writes Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Laureate and East Timor\'s Minister of Foreign Affairs. In this article, Ramos-Horta writes that this reflected the mounting alarm of ASEAN leaders of Burma\'s right to assume the chairmanship of the group in 2006. If there is no change, in 2006 ASEAN will be led by a military government that keeps over 1,300 political prisoners, relies on forced labour for public works, and has left over one million people internally displaced, ASEAN must encourage and expect Burma to seriously engage with its own people, especially Suu Kyi, her party, and the political leaders of the ethnic nationalities. We must encourage and expect Burma to engage with its neighbours, with ASEAN, and with the United Nations, to effect political and economic change. And we must encourage and expect the SPDC to demonstrate their leadership bona fides by rising to these challenges.

EURO-PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS IN EUROPE: PAY ATTENTION

This week-end\'s elections to the European Parliament may seem like yet another of those \'\'old Europe\'\' oddities --like the welfare state, long paid vacations, and constitutional monarchies-- but its importance should not be underestimated, writes Joaquin Roy is university professor \'Jean Monnet\' and director of the Centre of the European Union of the University of Miami. The European Parliament is the largest directly-elected democratic legislature in the world: with 732 members, it represents 350 million citizens from 25 countries. Yet to judge from press coverage and the projected rate of voter turnout (less than 50 percent) both foreigners and Europeans seem to share a certain scepticism about the role of institution. What the citizens who stay away from the polls apparently do not know is that their daily existence depends more and more on the decisions taken by the Euro-parliament, which passes community laws each week. More than eighty percent of European legislation originates from the EU institutional process.

PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE: A PROVEN IDEA FOR A TUMULTUOUS WORLD

The principle of peaceful co-existence has just turned fifty, and while the pessimists feel that it is out of fashion, the optimists believe that it is more important than ever, writes Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary General of the UN from 1992-1996. On 29 April 1954, the China and India signed an Agreement on Trade and Communications between the Tibet region of China and India based on five principles: mutual respect for each other\'s territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in each other\'s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit; peaceful co-existence. In his article, the author writes that pessimists hold the five principles have lost their force because they are linked with the UN, marginalised since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a single superpower. To apply the five principles there is no need to wait for an overhaul of the UN system, since the basic concepts are already in the Charter. They can be made more effective by taking into consideration the drastic technical changes brought about during the post-Cold War period, globalisation, the increasing gap between rich and poor countries, the multiplicity of internal wars, and the unilateralism of the lonely superpower\'s policy.

INCREASED TRADE NO PANACEA FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

In the 40 years since the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was founded, the international environment has been radically transformed by globalisation, and the problems experienced by developing countries today require innovative approaches, writes Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The eleventh quadrennial UNCTAD conference will be held in Sao Paulo, June 13-18. In this article for IPS, Ricupero writes that the conference will define the type of national and multilateral measures that are needed to ensure that integration into the world economy yields real development gains for developing countries. Open trade regimes and financial markets alone are not enough. The author notes that in many developing countries, conventional, market-based policies have not lived up to expectations for sustainable development and poverty reduction, arguing that trade policies should be complemented by redistributive policies, primarily through taxes, as UNCTAD proposes.

“If I am freed, I will continue to fight logging”

NGOs are waging an international campaign for the release of Isidro Baldenegro, a Mexican Indian who has fought illegal logging and deforestation. From prison, where he has been held for more than a year, Baldenegro spoke with Tierramérica.

The Fantasy and Reality of a Film

The new movie "The Day After Tomorrow" may be fiction, but its central theme -- global climate change -- is not, writes the United Nation's environment chief in this column for Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Anti-Coal Coalition Launched

"No to Coal!" is the slogan of a coalition of two-dozen environmental groups formalized last week to demand a ban in Brazil on this energy source. Their priority is to prevent the construction of five coal-fired electrical plants in southern Brazil, where the country's coal deposits are located.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Getting Rid of Pesticides

Venezuela will invest 4.2 million dollars on destroying a thousand tons of pesticides, including DDT (dichloro dyphenil trychloroethane), toxaphene, lead arsenate and methyl bromide.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Dive-Fishing to End in 2005

The government of Honduras announced that beginning next year it will work to eliminate dive-fishing for lobster in the Caribbean department of La Mosquitia, a fishing technique that has left at least 4,200 indigenous divers injured.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Protecting Rivers

Guatemala's Ministry of Agriculture is set to protect the Xayá and Pixcayá rivers in the western department of Chimaltenango, which supply 38 percent of the potable water consumed in the capital.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Saving a Natural Pool

A canal to begin curbing the severe contamination of Los Cangilones del Río Máximo, a natural pool set 550 km east of the Cuban capital, is nearly ready to begin operating.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Eco-Activists Disappointed in President's Message

The annual report to Congress by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, presented May 21, shows that "the government has not complied nor does it aim to comply with its promises" on environmental issues, said Sara Larraín, coordinator of the Sustainable Chile Program.

Water Lentils on the Offensive

A weed species is posing a major threat to Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo, the biggest lake in South America. With rakes and poles, fisherfolk are fighting to eliminate this "intruder" that is a danger to many types of fish.

Children from Latin America

Children from Latin America share their visions as the planet celebrates World Environment Day, June 5. In this Tierramérica exclusive, they respond to the question: What is the environmental problem that most worries you, and how should it be solved?