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 …
Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America is to introduce permanent restrictions on the use of cars in an attempt to alleviate the city's growing transport problems and curb pollution. Residents have been banned from using their cars during peak hours in the morning and early evening once a …
The smoke coming out of the south-eastern corner of the Amazon has badly affected the region, causing nosebleeds and forcing airports to close for days. The countless fires in the Amazon rain forest are conducted to make way for cattle pasture. Environmentalists say the fires are a part of increasing …
The Brazilian government is opening its timber reserves in the Amazon rain forest to commercial loggers. Unable to stop the rampant illegal logging, Brazil hopes to combine economic potential with controlled development. While Brazil has in the past opened reserves to logging, the new concessions are the first that will …
The Brazilian acting minister of justice Milton Seligman denied the allegation that the former minister Nelson Jobim had given the instruction that the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous area be reduced in exchange for votes in favour of the presidential reelection bill. This denial was seen as an attempt to retrieve …
it was like the Tower of Babel. Environment ministers from all over the world and senior officials were talking at cross-purposes. The occasion: the fifth session of the Commission for Sustainable Development, held between April 5-25 in New York. The South mouthing rhetoric in favour of development and poverty eradication, …
Researchers from Brazil have just reported that skin flakes in the hair of children with dandruff provide a comfortable refuge for house-dust mites, which trigger allergic responses that can cause asthma. Charles Naspitz and his colleagues from the paediatrics department of Federal University of Sao Paulo have collected through a …
after waiting for ten years for promised returns, Brazilian peasants who were forced to leave their land to make way for the Itaparica dam in northeastern Brazil, are petitioning the World Bank for the irrigation facilities they were promised. They are asking the Bank's independent inspection panel to investigate the …
an immediate international moratorium on the construction of large dams was unanimously demanded by participants at the first international meeting of dam-affected people held in Curitiba, Brazil from March 11-14. The 'Declaration of Curitiba' said that the moratorium should last until a number of demands, including compensation to millions of …
The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) held a series of meetings at the UN Environment Programme headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, from March 14-19, 1997. The panel comprising experts from all over the world, reviewed the scientific and technical options for the transport sector with …
An ingenious way to disseminate information and awareness about AIDS, the deadly malady, was encountered here recently. To design a costume for a carnival, a Brazilian dancer in Sao Paulo recently used 5,000 condoms apparently donated by the government ministry which is in charge of preventing AIDS in the country. …
large dams have resulted in grave environmental and social repercussions worldwide. Representatives from organisations in 20 countries will meet in Curitiba, Brazil from March 11-14, at the first international conference of people affected by large dams. They will discuss alternatives to large dams and other destructive river infrastructure projects and …
World Bank (wb) representatives recently asked the government of the state of Rondonia to check accusations of invasion of the indigenous area of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau tribe and the Guajara-Mirim state park where the wb is funding the agriculture/livestock and forest recovery plan of Rondonia, called Planafloro. In November 1996, the …
Woodcutters operating in the Apyterewa indigenous area in the Para state are luring local Parakana Indians into facilitating smuggling mahogany. Carlos Fausto, an expert from the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, said that the crisis has been denied by the ministry of justice which has done nothing to mitigate …
A 400-strong group took part in a demonstration to remove miners and woodcutters from the Sarare indegenous area in the state of Mato Grosso on January 11. The demonstration was supported by the federal, military and forest police, the national mineral research department and the Brazilian institute for the environment …
persecution of Indian communities in the country took a new turn with the Brazilian minister for justice, Nelson Jobim calling for a reduction of Raposa/Serra do Sol area, a 1.6 million ha region in the state of Roraima. Effectively, this means that ranchers and gold miners who have made several …
The assault on hapless Indians trying to safeguard their homeland from avaricious miners and loggers continues. Recently, a group of loggers and miners went on a rampage in the Sarare reserve in Mato Grosso injuring about 14 Katitaulhu Indians, damaging a health post and school and looting tools and vehicles …
THE Amazon region in SouthAmerica is being invaded inhordes by huge Asian loggingcompaniesscaring environmentalists and local loggingoutfits. ProceedingfromMyanmarIndonesiaMalaysiaPhilippines and Korea -where they have already devastated more than 50 per cent ofthe original wood areas -these companies are said tohave bought at least 1.5 million ha of forest lands in theBrazilian …
In an attempt to check the degradation of the Amazonian rainforests, Brazil's Chamber of Commerce will soon begin a nine-month investigation into various Asian logging companies operating there. Brazilian greens have for long maintained that logging has increased manifold and was primarily financed by companies which had poor environmental records. …
