Death Blow for Kyoto?

Delegates to the ninth conference on climate change in Italy are discussing alternatives in case the Kyoto Protocol is done in by a “no” from Russia, which would doom 11 years of efforts.

Use of Biogas Expands in Cuba

Tierramérica visits a biogas plant in the Cuban province of Pinar del Río. Some 100 biogas installations on the island are using the renewable fuel obtained from organic waste like manure or vegetable waste.

First Truly “Green-Friendly” Refrigerator

A new kind of refrigerator is being built in Argentina that will replace ozone-depleting refrigerants with non-polluting hydrocarbon gases. The clean technology, which originated in Europe, is being used in South America for the first time.

Environmental Rights

More than half a century since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is celebrated on Dec. 10, the struggle for the right to a healthy environment is growing fast.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Protesting Against the Central American Free Trade Area

Local farmers and ranchers are asking the Guatemalan government to exclude them from the free trade agreement that five Central American countries are negotiating with the United States.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Cuban Flicker Changes Habits

The bird known as Fernandina’s or Cuban Flicker (Colaptes fernandinae) no longer pecks holes in tree trunks to make its nests, which is accentuating the risk that the species will go extinct, say researchers.

Ecobreves – NICARAGUA: TV Campaign to Protect Natural Beauty

Nicaragua’s Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Arturo Harding, announced a televised campaign aimed at preserving and publicizing the natural beauty and biodiversity of the Biological Corridor of the Atlantic (CBA).

Ecobreves – CHILE: Farming Community Fights Construction of Thermoelectric Plant

The rural community of San Francisco de Mostazal, 70 kms south of Santiago, filed a legal motion in court to block the construction of a thermoelectric plant that would hurt farm activity in the region and pollute the environment.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Peasant Farmers Occupy Yacambú Park

Sixty landless peasant families have occupied part of the Yacambú Park, 300 kms west of Caracas. The park is the heart of the Yacambú River basin, which is to feed the Yacambú-Quíbor irrigation project.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Collecting and Storing Rainwater

There is a growing focus on converting rainwater into a source of water for use by the population of Brazil, a country with enormous hydric resources, which are, however, poorly distributed. Experts are recommending, for example, the construction of underground dams to prevent evaporation, and the plowing of furrows with no inclination, to keep the rainwater from running off.

WILL LULA MAKE LAND REFORM A PRIORITY?

On November 21, Brazilian president Lula announced a programme of agrarian reform that will settle 400,000 peasant families by the end of his term in 2006, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the Landless Peasant Movement (MST) and Via Campesina-Brazil and member of the organising committee of the World Social Forum. The government did not consider a more ambitious plan that would have settled a million families in the same period. However, Stedile argues in this article, the definition of goals and numbers it is less important than knowing whether the government will make agrarian reform a priority. We believe that the Lula administration should redefine its priorities: first, it should cease it preoccupation with making interest payments on the national debt and generating a budget surplus. Instead its priority must be to use public funds to solve social problems. If it doesn\'t the people will begin to protest and mobilise against the administration. There is a limit to patience, especially when people are hungry. Now it is Lula\'s turn. The President knows all too well that if he doesn\'t implement a broad programme of agrarian reform, his government will founder.

FOR A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC IRAQ

Certain that they had won the war in Iraq almost without fighting, the Americans now seem to be mired in a \'\'peace\'\' for which they clearly failed to devise a strategy or a plan, writes Emma Bonino, Emma Bonino, member of the Transnational Radical Party and deputy in the European Parliament. In this article Bonino writes asks, Is it really wrong to have gone in to and remain in Iraq? Today, to be \'\'pacifist\'\' is to pursue the cynical, wait-and-see policy of those who say, \'\'After all, the Americans got what they were looking for.\'\' Many have raised the spectre of the Vietnam syndrome, but today the greatest risk is not \'\'Vietnam syndrome\'\' but the \'\'get-out-of-Vietnam syndrome\'\'. We must do everything possible, whatever our past positions might have been, to make sure that the efforts now underway in Iraq are successful. If the current state of affairs is to be corrected, everyone, beginning with the European countries, must put aside the wait-and- see politics and do everything possible to make Arab countries participate in the reconstruction, whose populations, regardless of the rhetoric of the ruling class, are finally beginning to ask themselves the right questions about terrorism, particularly after the attacks in Riyadh, Casablanca, and Istanbul.

THE CHURCH IN THE NEW CENTURY

While inter-church relations have changed for the better, trends that see the ecumenical movement as threatening are gaining momentum, writes Konrad Raiser, member of the Evangelical Church of Germany and general secretary of the World Council of Churches through 2003. Such fears are linked to the breakdown and fragmentation of religious identity, secularisation, and the growing relativism at the heart of our society, Raiser writes in this article. Fears linked to the identity or integrity of each community - among Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, or Orthodox - are increasing. Religious renewal in former Communist countries is impressive but their terms of reference remain to some extent involved in the distinction between \'\'enemies\'\' and \'\'friends\'\'. In addition, today there is an indigenous, a black, and an Asian Christianity, a profusion of charismatic, Pentecostal, and prophetic communities This is the background against which the question of a new configuration of the ecumenical movement is being posed. If there is no structure of reference, nor any discipline regarding participation, we may encourage the rise of a militant, populist, and fundamentalist Christianity.

COMMUNICATIONS SUMMIT MAY BE DOMINATED BY MULTINATIONALS

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an organisation which defines itself as being \'\'specialised in technologies\'\', has received a mandate from the UN to organise a World Summit on the Information Society without co-organisers that have greater competence in social matters, writes Antonio Pasquali, former Assistant Director General of UNESCO for Communications. In addition to the socio-political inexperience of the host there is another shortcoming to this event: the role in the Summit ceded to the multinationals of this sector, writes Pasquali in this article. If the Summit produces any universally beneficial decision it will be due to, for the first time perhaps, the intelligence and tenacity of the NGOs. As a show of democracy, the ITU has invited governments, companies, and civil society to participate, though the latter were ostracised to such a degree during the three preparatory sessions that some are weighing withdrawing loudly from the Summit.

ILLUSION OF ISOLATION FEEDS TERROR

If the first casualty of the US war on terror was truth, the second was trust, writes Mark Sommer, director of the US-based Mainstream Media Project and host of award-winning syndicated radio programme \'\'A World of Possibilities\'\'. In this article, Sommer writes that telegraphed through the policies and pronouncements of an imperial but increasingly isolated superpower, mistrust is spreading like a virus through the global body politic, infecting not only trade relations, diplomacy, and public life but personal and professional relationships. The decades-long decline in civic participation in democratic countries is both a symptom of this fearful isolation and a boon to authoritarian leaders as it fragments all opposition and undermines confidence in its capacity to reverse the course of history. While in itself this reaching out is a purely personal act, it has enormous political implications, opening up a horizon of shared life and shattering what is in fact the mere illusion of isolation. To say that we are all connected is not a merely a wish or spiritual aspiration but a simple material fact. Recognising this is itself a source of profound reassurance.

HUMAN RIGHTS: A HUMAN DUTY

Modern governments acknowledge that they have a responsibility to work actively to end international poverty, protect humanity from dangerous diseases, provide children with education, preserve the environment for our descendants, and ensure that everyone has access to reasonable housing and clean water, writes Mary Robinson, Executive Director of The Ethical Globalisation Initiative and former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Most recently, all 189 United Nations member states signed the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000, which formally commits them to take practical and co-operative action in these and other areas. Robinson writes that there has never been a greater need for simple and convincing arguments that explain, to governments and people alike, why action to end poverty, illiteracy, oppression and disease is right, is in the interests of everyone - richer and poorer - and requires combined and persistent effort from all parties. Political leaders, in their public capacity, and citizens in their private capacity, act to help others because they believe it is right to do so. Ethical commitment is an essential component of any strategy to make the world a safer and better place for all who live in it. Action to end poverty, illiteracy and oppression will not succeed in the absence of such values.

INFO SOCIETY SUMMIT TO AVOID ISSUE OF MEDIA

The conspicuous absence of any real reference to today\'s media in the draft Declaration or Action Plan of the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society is indicative of the power and impact of the media, writes Seán Ó Siochrú, a founder and spokesperson for the CRIS campaign (Communication Rights in the Information Society) and author of \'\'Global Media Governance: A Beginners Guide\'\'(2002). The features of today\'s media landscape were not predetermined by the nature of new technologies nor by globalisation per se but rather by the systematic application of market principles to media across the globe, the author writes in this analysis. In few places was this force local. Rather, the strategy was pursued by a handful of Northern corporations, strongly backed by their governments, who tailored global governance mechanisms to suit their needs and persuaded national regimes to adopt their ways. The CRIS campaign along with others in civil society have taken up the challenge to broach the issue of the media and its impact at their parallel summit, the World Forum on Communication Rights, which will take place at the same time as the WSIS and focus on issues such as poverty and the media, peace, conflict and communication rights. A people\'s movement is gradually rising to the challenge of initiating this change, on local, national and global levels, and turning our concerns into concrete action.

No Green in Trade Treaty of the Americas

The environment is notably absent from the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The costs of this omission could be enormous, but analysts say there is little chance that effective "green clauses" will be included in the hemisphere-wide treaty.

The Dead Sea Will Not Die

This lake, emblematic of the Middle East and famous for its therapeutic waters, could lose half its area over the next century. But it will never completely disappear, say scientists.

“We are headed for collective suicide”

Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda, author of "Mundo del fin del mundo" (Stories from the End of the World) says that defending the environment is a political concern that underlies all of his work.

Forum of Environment Ministers

Environment ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered Nov. 20-25 in Panama to assess the region's sustainable development agenda.