Environmental degradation is one of the causes of socio-economic deterioration, says Honduran Catholic cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez, who describes the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development a failure, and blames "the arrogant attitude of the powerful nations."
In its natural state, it looks like what it is: a nut produced by a palm tree. But in the hands of artisans or jewelers, the 'tagua', valued for its qualities of hardness and its color, changes its appearance.
Thousands of tons of pesticides, among other persistent organic pollutants (POPs), continue to be used in the Southern Cone, where few regulations are in place.
Good news: tests show that Costa Rican children have very little lead in their blood, thanks to policies enacted since 1995 to eradicate the heavy metal.
The war to wipe out malaria has made enormous steps since the announcement that the genomes of the most dangerous of the parasites causing the disease and of the mosquito that transmits it had been decoded.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW-www.ifaw.org) today slammed the High North Alliance, a Norwegian pro-whaling group, for boasting that Norway had this year broken its annual record of whales killed. In their statement, the High North Alliance announced that Norwegian whalers killed 634 minke whales in the 2002 whale-hunting season, which are expected to yield 892 tons of meat and 63 tons of blubber for the commercial market.
Children in Latin America can no longer play freely on the ground: industrial waste of heavy metals contaminate their bodies, stunting growth, causing deafness and even mental disabilities.
Cuban scientists discovered that the bark of some varieties of this tropical tree holds a potent antioxidant that can be used to improve the quality of life of people with HIV/AIDS.
Food insecurity affects the poorest residents of the Central American "drought corridor", alerts the World Food Program. They are the victims of natural disasters.
The Earth is both a planet and a woman, and is "scorned for being feminine", says Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler. About the Earth's future, he told Tierramérica that he "would like to believe that the environment will someday be better than it is today."
Lead poisoning among children is a serious environmental health problem, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Although many countries have made major progress in reducing the use of lead in gasoline, the metal continues to be found in many industrial processes.
The annual hurricane season brings with it the fury of nature: a combination of powerful winds, giant ocean waves and torrential rains that almost every year leave their mark somewhere in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico or even farther north along the coast of the United States.
Brazil is considering an agreement to manufacture 100,000 automobiles with fuel-alcohol-driven engines through a 30 million dollar donation from Germany, as part of the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, signed in 1997.
- The Chilean Superintendent's Office for Electricity and Fuel slapped the Concón petroleum refinery, the country's largest, with a 695,000-dollar fine for the contamination caused in four industrial accidents this year.
- A plague of pine beetles (Dentroctonus frontalis) attacked 18,000 hectares of forest in Honduras, causing 30 million dollars in losses over the last three years, reports the Honduran Forest Development Corporation.
The use of the LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system in meteorological applications will be discussed at a meeting in Cuba of scientists from around the world in February.
Contaminated soil, the thunder of bombs dropped during U.S. military exercises and the specter of cancer disturb the dreams of the 9,400 people on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
No country is prepared for war, says the Colombian singer Juanes. Amid the incomprehensible violence of his country's ongoing civil war, music can heal the wounds of the soul, he told Tierramérica.
The world is increasingly asking businesses to stop being mere instruments for pillaging the planet and humanity.
On environmental issues, the nations of the world seem to have a hard time reaching consensus, except in the case of the Montreal Protocol, which has become the symbol of the fact that treaties can be effective in solving problem created by humanity, in this instance, the deterioration of the Earth's atmospheric ozone layer.
The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) resolved to hear the charges of the Tarahumara Indians from the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, who accuse the government of allowing the destruction of their forests by lumber companies and illegal loggers.