The Uruguayan Tourism Ministry is exploring ways of mitigating the effects of traffic blockades across an international bridge linking the country with neighbouring Argentina, which were renewed this week as a result of a World Bank decision to help finance a controversial pulp mill.

The project will further the physical integration of the southern border departments of Nariño, Putumayo and Amazonas with each other, the rest of Colombia and the neighboring countries of Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.

Environmental experts are sharply criticizing Brazil's government for failing to assess the impact of two dams proposed for construction in the Amazon rain forest, as regulators on Tuesday announced new public hearings on the projects.

Water cascading from Peru's Andes mountains toward the Amazon could be harnessed into electricity for power-hungry Brazil, freeing Latin America's largest nation from dependence on natural gas producers, Peruvian President Alan Garcia said Friday.

The National Commission in Defense of Water and Life (CNDAV) and REDES- Friends of the Earth Uruguay sent a letter to the World Bank expressing the reasons why the Bank should not grant a loan to Botnia corporation to install a pulp mill in Uruguay. They also requested the delay of the meeting to discuss the project in order to be able to contemplate the questions raised by the organizations that have been exposing the impacts of the forestry model in the region for years.

Infrastructure development in the name of regional economic integration poses one of the greatest challenges to environmental sustainability and social justice today. The initiative for Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) is a striking example of this new trend. IIRSA proposes a series of large-scale, high-risk and debt-heavy mega-projects that would result in extensive alterations to landscapes and livelihoods in the region. In this development framework, mountains, forests, and wetlands are seen as barriers to economic development and rivers become the means for extracting natural resources.

The Odebrecht company, which includes construction and chemicals divisions, is highly decentralized, with entrepreneurial partners in each subsidiary making decisions on opening new offices, investing in new companies and participating in projects.

 

With ethanol and biodiesel as a springboard, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aims to turn his country into an energy superpower -- in contrast to the 1970s when the Brazilian economy was thrashed by its dependence on oil imports and its dramatic price hikes.

By Ram K. Shrestha*, Andrew F. Seidl** and Andre S. Moraes***

By Andrew F. Seidl*, Andre Steffens Moraes**

By Andrew F. Seidl*, Andre Steffens Moraes**

This meeting is focused on the Paraguay-Parana Wetland System, which is one of the world’s largest freshwater reservoirs, enclosing Brazil , Bolivia , Paraguay , Argentina and Uruguay .

Over the course of a three-year study led by Ruth DeFries of the University of Maryland in the United States, clearing for cropland accounted for nearly one fifth of deforestation in one state of the Brazilian Amazon.

Both ENDS to create this is an informal quarterly newsletter for organizations working on the issue of soy.

Participation fees are at a mere 150,00 Euro and accommodation at modest rate can be arranged on request.

The prosecutor stated that environmental crimes are being committed daily on the Indians land and that the government's negligence is threatening the Arara people with extinction.

Royal Dutch Shell, the world's top marketer of biofuels, considers using food crops to make biofuels "morally inappropriate" as long as there are people in the world who are starving, an executive said on Thursday.