Brazil Will Not Sign Global Anti-Deforestation Initiative
Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira stated yesterday that Brazil will not sign a global anti-deforestation initiative that will be announced at the United Nations Climate Summit today. Teixeira affirmed that the UN failed to confer with Brazil on the matter and instead simply gave the country a copy of the document and requested that they … Read more
Brazil’s Marina Silva Calls For a New Vision of Development
From the age of 10, Marina Silva would wake up before dawn to prepare food for her father, so that he could set off through the dense jungle before the heat of the tropical sun made it impossible for him to keep working. In Silva’s community of rubber tappers in Brazil’s northwestern state of Acre, … Read more
Monday Memo: Colombian Legislature – Argentine Debt – Peruvian Environmental Law – Deaths in Nicaragua – Bolivian Child Labor
This week’s likely top stories: Colombia inaugurates a new legislature; Argentina must pay its debt by July 30; Reforms to Peru’s environmental agency are criticized; Five Nicaraguans are killed after a Sandinista anniversary celebration; Bolivia allows those as young as 10 to work. Colombia installs new legislature: As Colombia’s new legislature was sworn in on … Read more
Montreal’s Davos and the Environment
Following the 2014 World Cup? Read more coverage here. This year represented the twentieth edition of the Conference of Montreal, organized by the International Economic Forum of the Americas. Much like the Davos World Economic Conference held in Switzerland, the Conference of Montreal has become a “go-to” conference. The brain child of founder Gil Rémillard, … Read more
AQ Slideshow: Colombia Preserves San Andrés and Old Providence Archipelago’s Seaflower Marine Protected Area
April 25, 2014 marked the completion of a very successful scientific endeavor undertaken by more than 20 Colombian institutions committed to broadening the knowledge of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve and Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the San Andrés, Old Providence and Santa Catalina Archipelago, in the western Caribbean. View a slideshow of the Seaflower Biosphere … Read more
Additional Reforms Needed in Colombian Mining Sector
Exportation in Colombia has been, and remains, a significant driving factor for large-scale mineral exploration, extraction and production by multinational corporations. According to the Banco de la República, the Colombian mining sector contributed to a record high proportion of the country’s total exports in 2011 and 2012, at 71 percent. Fossil fuels especially constituted an … Read more
Illegal Logging Destroying the Peruvian Amazon, Report Says
According to a newly released report, logging concessions in Peru are causing increasingly widespread illegal logging, which in turn is having a detrimental effect on the environment, biodiversity and hardwood resources of the Amazon. Scientific Reports published the report on Thursday, detailing the geographic and legal violations related with logging violations specific to concessions—contracts for … Read more
Monday Memo: Valparaíso Fires – Fabius in Cuba – Las Bambas Mine – Venezuela – Drummond Shipwreck
This week’s likely top stories: a deadly fire ravages Valparaíso, Chile; French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visits Cuba; Glencore sells Las Bambas mine to Chinese consortium; Venezuela investigates abuses during protests; a shipwreck spills fuel off the coast of Colombia. Fire in Valparaiso, Chile: At least 12 people have died in a disastrous fire in … Read more
Gasping for a Solution to Bogotá’s Air Pollution Problem
In December 2013, Bogotá’s Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad (District Mobility Secretariat) reported that there were 1,447,335 private vehicles registered in the city, representing a 76 percent increase in vehicles in only seven years. Yet the number of vehicles operating in the public service is predicted to decline from 18,482 in 2007 to just 12,333 in … Read more
Monday Memo: Turf Battle in Michoacán — Venezuelan Media — Manaus Stadium Death — Keystone Pipeline — Guatemala Massacre
Knights Templar and Vigilante Groups Clash in Apatzingan, Michoacán: Vigilante self-defense groups drove into the town of Apatzingan, Michoacán on Saturday, bolstered by support from local police and army personnel. The town, previously a command center for the Knights Templar drug cartel, has been caught in a bloody battle since the self-defense groups launched an … Read more
A Tale of Two Cities: Curitiba
View a slideshow of Curitiba below. It’s nine a.m. in the Nossa Senhora de Aparecida vila (shantytown) in Curitiba, Brazil, and dozens of people have formed a line at the top of a small hill. Despite a slight drizzle and the brisk cold of the morning, people stand patiently with filled wheelbarrows and carts. Two … Read more
A Tale of Two Cities: Bogotá
Read a sidebar on affordable housing. View a slideshow of Bogotá below. From his modest home in Ciudad Bolívar, high in the hills of Bogotá’s poor southwestern edge, Alexdy Torres, 41, can see the city of 7.5 million people spread out before him. Far to the north, he can make out the wealthy districts of … Read more
Rethinking Buildings
Read sidebars on public space, governance and energy efficiency. Cities are concentrations of people, buildings and activity. Infrastructure helps knit all of the pieces together and delivers essential services. The traditional infrastructure that supplies many of these services consists of a centralized, fixed-point service facility and a delivery network. Think energy (power plant and transmission … Read more
How Do We Make Sustainable Cities Sustainable Policies?
Read a sidebar on waste and recycling. Several of the region’s high-profile mayors who championed sustainability during their administrations have recently left—or will soon leave—office. This raises an important question: what will happen to the policies and programs they left behind? Incoming mayors have their own agendas and policy preferences, and sustainability initiatives—unlike crime or … Read more
National to City, Diagnosis to Funding
For too long, Latin America’s urbanization has been haphazard and chaotic. As a result, the world’s most urbanized region (with over 80 percent of its population living in cities) became associated with sprawl, waste, inefficiency, pollution, and increasing vulnerability to climate change. But a new approach to this challenge emerged on the sidelines of the … Read more