In a world of higher electricity demand growth, clean electricity is stepping up to the challenge. Spearheaded by exponential solar expansion, clean power is set to grow faster than demand, marking the start of a permanent decline in fossil generation. 2024 both clarified and consolidated the shape of the global …
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, recently signed decrees to expand the Amazon National Park and also create seven new protected areas in the western part of the state of Para. The decrees bring the total protected area in Para to 6.4 million hectares. The protected areas would …
Allegations of sugarcane workers being worked to death in appalling conditions have diluted Brazil's euphoria over the boom in its sugarcane and ethanol industry. Working over 10 hours, on productivity-based pay, meaning low wages, inadequate food, these workers aren't getting much out of the boom. Safety equipment are not always …
Environmentalists and the Brazilian government are lobbying hard for a new draft law on the management of public forests. The draft would allow concession of public areas to private enterprises, ngos and local communities for sustainable production for up to 40 years. The Chamber of Deputies has already approved the …
A round 29 people including the former state governor and a former top policeman have been accused of genocide of an uncontacted Rio Pardo Indian tribe. Brazilian tv has recently shown the first known images of these Indians. No outsider knows who they are or what language they speak. But …
If Kamal Nath, India's Union minister for commerce and industry, is to be believed, the Hong Kong ministerial of the World Trade Organization (wto) was a big success for developing nations. His claims rest on the fact that the talks succeeded in getting developed countries to agree on a time-frame …
the latest round of the World Trade Organization's ministerialist talks in Hong Kong have gone the eminently predictable way with the developed world walking all over the developing countries. That they got more than just a modicum of help from what we can only describe as Trojan horses in the …
This publication takes a broad look at several dimensions of carbon trading. It analyses the problems arising from the emerging global carbon market pertaining to the environment, social justice and human rights, and investigates climate mitigation alternatives. It provides a short history of carbon trading and discusses a number of …
According to officials at the Santa Casa hospital, Francisco Anselmo de Barros, 65, set himself on fire and died of burns to protest a proposed sugarcane alcohol plant in the environmentally fragile region. He wrapped himself in an alcohol-soaked blanket and set it on fire during a protest in Campo …
Brazilian police recently arrested a gang of 35 people who forged thousands of logging permits and sold them to transport millions of dollars worth of hardwood timber in the Amazon. This operation is the fifth such operation since 2003. Brazil's government claims that checks on illegal logging and tighter law …
bacco off the shelf: Thailand has taken a strong step against tobacco sales in the country. They ordered vendors in September to remove all cigarettes from display or risk a US $50,000 fine. Activists say cigarette packets are also effectively an advertisement and so should be hidden from view. sa …
On August 26, 2005, Brazil announced a sharp decline in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest area within its territory, and the government lost no time in taking credit for the feat. Between August 2004 and July 2005, 9,103 square kilometres (sq km) of the rainforests were destroyed, against the previous …
a team of biotechnologists in Canada has chanced upon a new use for the skin secretions of a rainforest frog: protecting potatoes against pathogens. Endemic to Brazilian and Peruvian forests, the Giant Waxy Monkey Tree Frog (Phyllomedusa bicolour) secretes chemicals called dermaseptins (most potent being the one called b1) from …
On August 4, 2005, the Indian Oil Corporation (ioc), on behalf of all state-owned oil companies, signed an agreement with the Indian Sugar Mills Association (isma) for sustained supply of ethanol. The compound is to be blended in petrol to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, under the …
The Brazilian government is considering banning logging it the country's forests for a period of six months to one year to save the Amazon rainforests. This was announced by Brazil's environment minister Marina Silva on July 15, 2005. "What is being discussed in the government is what we call a
The Amazon basin countries recently launched a new initiative to help the region's inhabitants manage water, forests and wildlife more efficiently. Water will be the focus area of the project, announced at the Global Environment Facility's (gef's) Third Biennial International Waters Conference in Brazil. The basin accounts for 20 per …
cancer risk among rural workers exposed to pesticides is almost twice as high as that for non-exposed workers, according to a Brazilian study published in the journal Environment International (July, Vol 31, No 5). Brazil is the world's seventh largest pesticide consumer. Researchers Illona Maria de Brito S
a debate over documentation caused a deadlock at the recently held annual meeting of parties to the Cartagena Protocol of Biosafety (cpb), which regulates the cross-border transfer of Living Modified Organisms (lmos). Parties to the cpb met during the second conference of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (cop …
Illegal logging has reached the hitherto uncontacted Jururei tribe in the Amazon forests of Brazil. The tribe has only eight to 10 members. It is the second "uncontacted' indigenous group in the area that has suffered increased threat from loggers after a recent court order permitted felling in a part …
• Conservationists have slammed media mogul Disney for its plans to serve shark's fin soup, sea cucumber and abalone in restaurants at its new theme park in Hong Kong in September. "Promoting these marine species is not responsible because they are not sustainably harvested. Disney should promote responsible consumption,' said …
