We need your help to let the Brazilian government know the Madeira River and its unique that this is a matter of concern to the international community – please sign-on the enclosed letter to Brazil´s Foreign Relations Minister – Send your sign-on to Glenn Switkes at International Rivers Network ( glenn@irn.org ), preferably by Monday, September 16th –

With the objective to develop analyses about the possible impacts of the infrastructure and the biocombustibles in the Amazônia, 16 organizations of Brazil, Europe and United States had been congregated in the June end, in Manaus, to define agenda, strategies and ordinary shares. Analyses of specific workmanships had been considered and the proposals of the Program of Acceleration of Growth (PAC in portuguese) and the Initiative of Integration of Infrastructure South American Regional (IIRSA), with emphasis in the local and regional impacts and in the results for global climatic changes.

* Por Lester R. Brown

In recent weeks, the Brazilian government has turned to the difficult task of building giant hydroelectric dams in the Amazon River. The project presents President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with a major contradiction—between his ambitious economic development plan based on large-scale infrastructure, and the enormous social and environmental costs of the dams.

As temperature influences the toxic effects of chemicals, so does chemical exposure influence the temperature tolerance of an organism. The consequences of this harmful reciprocal relationship on four freshwater fish are explored in a new study published in the latest issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

With all eyes on Wolfowitz, few are looking deeper at the true scandal about the World Bank – that the governance of the world’s leading development agency is shrouded in secrecy and fundamentally undemocratic.

Authorities in Suriname gave the go ahead on Friday for asphalting a road to the Canawaima Ferry terminal connecting Suriname and its neighbouring Guyana.

The World Bank is an institution in crisis. Recentevents highlight the failures of Paul Wolfowitz; sleadership and are a result of more fundamental and systemic governance flawsat the institution.

O projeto de construção das usinas Santo Antonio e Jirau, no Rio Madeira, também é alvo de outras críticas, além dos aspectos ambientais. O valor das obras, de cerca de R$ 20 bilhões e o fato de não terem incluído as linhas de transmissão no estudo de impacto ambiental são alvo dos questionamentos dos defensores do meio ambiente.

A Brazilian government plan set to go into effect this year will bring large-scale logging deep into the heart of the Amazon rain forest for the first time, in a calculated gamble that new monitoring efforts can offset any danger of increased devastation.

The Manta-Manaus port connection project is a priority for Ecuador's government and will be carried out by 2011, Ecuador's president-elect, Rafael Correa.

Rubber tappers, fishermen and Indians in western Brazil have joined environmental groups in battling a planned $9 billion hydroelectric project that will flood one of the Amazon's main tributaries.

Rubber tappers, fishermen and Indians in western Brazil have joined environmental groups in battling a planned $9 billion hydroelectric project that will flood one of the Amazon's main tributaries.