Ecobreves – CHILE: Demands to Legalize Mapuche Health System

The Network of Mapuche Health Organizations, made up of nine entities from Chile's most numerous indigenous group, is drafting a proposal so that their health system will be recognized by Chilean law.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Hunting Pushes Bird to Extinction

The scarlet finch, also known as the red siskin (Carduelis cucullata), a small bird native to northern Venezuela, is on the verge of disappearing and is rarely seen in the wild because poachers capture these birds to cross them with canaries in order to produce red offspring.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Award Goes to Bio-Method for Environmental Clean-up

The Santander Science and Innovation Prize was awarded this month in Brazil to a biological method for cleaning up areas contaminated by metals, developed by the University of São Paulo.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Hearings on Forestry Law

The governmental Forest Conservation Institute (ICF) of Honduras announced the beginning of hearings about integrating communities in the protection and conservation of forests.

DECENCY, TRUTH, AND THE ATTACK ON MILAN KUNDERA

The lamentable scandal that broke a few weeks ago about the alleged denunciation by the young Milan Kundera of a seemingly possible \"western\" spy in then Czechoslovakia, can be examined from every angle, but there has been little comment about the ethical component of this probable act of denunciation, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, Padura writes that opportunists abroad and inside the country are waiting for just a glimpse of weakness to release the avalanche of hatred fermented in cowardice, frustration, envy, and mediocrity. Such figures are always lying in wait. But how many of them have asked themselves whether Kundera lived ethically, whether he was a decent man in his thinking and character? This world in crisis -and not only financial- is in desperate need of more decency. To fell great trees for presumed sins and so fan doubt and cause pain involves more mean-spiritedness than political uprightness. There are enough rotten trees that deserve to be chopped down to stoke their fury. Certainly the truth deserves its place. But the truth is that many of those casting the first - and second and third - stones should consider how they would have behaved in similar or even less dire circumstances than 1950s Czechoslovakia. Stones thrown often turn into boomerangs. But unfortunately, this type of zealot usually has no familiarity with the notion of decency. And too often they have little concern with another concept: truth.

DEVELOPMENT FINANCING CONFERENCE: THE INEQUALITY-POVERTY NEXUS

From 29 November to 2 December 2008 in Doha, Qatar, the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development will be reviewed. It should be an opportunity to establish the foundation for a more inclusive and democratic international financial system, write Cecilia Alemany, manager at the Association for Women\'s Rights in Development (AWID) and Anne Schoenstein, a consultant with the Association for Women\'s Rights in Development (AWID). In this article, the author writes that at the Qatar conference there will not be a Declaration of Consensus, only an Outcome document, because among other actors the US has been blocking any substantive commitment or binding obligation on development. Even with the more progressive new US president, the underlying mechanisms of the \"development industry\" or the \"development business\" are still based on a set of hypothesis and principles that undermine the right to development and to self-determination. Changing them will require true political will. For women\'s rights groups and advocates, the Monterrey Consensus did not go far enough, and we may experience the same disappointment with the Doha Review Conference if there is no reference to clear gender equality commitments. We need a new kind of leadership from those groups that were historically marginalised, including women. The new political landscape in the US is an opportunity and an optimistic sign in this sense. Inclusiveness is not just \"politically correct\"; now it is realpolitik.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Observatory of Cosmic Rays

Ten years after laying its cornerstone, the Pierre Auger Observatory, in Argentina, the only one in the southern hemisphere for studying cosmic rays hitting the Earth's atmosphere, will open its doors this month.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Researching a Male Contraceptive

Mexican researchers are developing a pharmaceutical that could be used as a male contraceptive, and which also promises to be an effective method to control populations of rats, dogs and cats.

Hot Days and Nights in Mexico 2090

In 2090, there will be just three or four cool days per year in Mexico, predicts a study by Oxford University, financed by the UNDP.

The Amazon Possible

The Amazon is a privileged space where we can also achieve the invention of a sustainable policy, writes Marina Silva, former environment minister of Brazil, in this exclusive column for Tierramérica.

Inventory of Mitch's Cultural Destruction

Historians, restoration experts, filmmakers and geographers are researching and documenting the damage caused by Hurricane Mitch a decade ago to the cultural heritage of Honduras.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Decree Authorizes Destruction of Caves

A presidential decree in Brazil published Nov. 10 authorizes the destruction of caves. This country has 4,629 identified caves -- a total which grows 300 each year. Only the caves considered important will be protected.

FINANCING GENDER EQUALITY: A CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE

Today's multiple global crises--of food, fuel and finance-- make clear that the conventional development paradigm is no longer viable. The promotion of market liberalisation and fiscal austerity as the instruments for stimulating economic growth and with it, sustainable development must be revisited, writes Ines Alberdi, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). International agreements, starting with the 2000 Millennium Declaration, and including the outcome of the 2008 High Level Event on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), have endorsed economic policies that move beyond economic growth to embrace more equitable and sustainable development. The Monterrey Consensus referred to financing gender-sensitive, people-centred development as essential for responding to challenges of globalisation. In addition, a growing body of evidence shows that investing in gender equality has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth and that increasing women's economic options is central to achieving the MDGs. As world leaders meet in Doha -from November 29 to December 2- it is urgent that they find ways to advance the Monterrey agenda. It is now widely recognised that women's empowerment and gender equality are key drivers of policies to build food security, reduce poverty, safeguard the environment and enhance development effectiveness. Women are also important agents of economic development and we need policies that both recognise this and actively support ­and finance--gender equality.

THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF HUNGER

In the 1960s about 80 million people suffered from hunger worldwide. In this period global capitalism was peaking and transnational companies were expanding throughout the planet, dominating markets and exploiting cheap labour and the natural resources of peripheral countries, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, a member of the Landless Farmers Movement (MST) and of Via Campesina Brazil. This was the world into which the Green Revolution was born, with its promise to end hunger. Its mentor, Normal Borlaug, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. The real objective was to introduce a new system of agricultural production based on the intensive use of industrial inputs. Productivity per hectare increased and world production quadrupled. And yet the number of people suffering from hunger grew far faster, from 80 to 800 million. Today, prices of agricultural products around the world are no longer tied to production costs or even to supply and demand. Instead, they swing rapidly in response to market speculation and transnational corporations\' control of the international food markets. Meanwhile the number of people suffering from hunger rose in the last two years from 800 to 925 million.

PROTECTIONISM – A FAILSAFE WAY TO DEEPEN THE RECESSION

History teaches that in a period of financial market upheaval and pending economic downturn like the one we\'re experiencing, the resort to protectionism advocated by some can only exacerbate the situation, as it did after the great Wall Street Crash of 1929, writes Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In this article, the author writes that US protectionist measures after the 1929 crash touched off a domino effect of retaliation and counter-retaliation among trading partners which provoked a severe contraction of international trade, depressed growth, and drove up unemployment around the industrial world. In the US the jobless rate soared to 25 percent. The expansion of trade is a powerful instrument in overcoming economic crises. While it is essential that governments resist the siren song of protectionism, it is even more urgent that they conclude the ongoing WTO trade negotiations under the Doha Development Round, initiated in 2001. The objective of the round, shared by the 153 WTO members, is the creation of a more equitable, ambitious, relevant, and development-oriented trading system.

Elusive Right to Land Inflames Indigenous Protest

The right of indigenous peoples to land is consecrated in most Latin American countries, although government compliance is subject to conflicting interpretations of that right.

Science Proves Warming of Antarctica

Since 1950, a temperature increase of as much as three degrees Celsius has been recorded on the Antarctic Peninsula -- one of the largest temperature hikes on Earth.

Haiti Can't Face More Environmental Defeats

Haiti's environmental crisis could be the most desperate on the planet, says a high-ranking United Nations official in this Caribbean country.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: How to Mitigate Climate Threats

Some 30 indigenous Lenca communities from the western Honduran departments of Lempira and Copán will develop projects aimed at preventing their vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Critics Point to Lack of Anti-Desertification Measures

"Desertification is one of Chile's most serious environmental problems, but there is no government policy" to fight it, Lucio Cuenca, of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: New Book Highlights Threatened Animals

The Red Book of Endangered Brazilian Fauna provides detailed data about 627 animal species that could soon disappear from the planet -- three times the number of the previous list, from 1989.