Environment

• Wednesday, December 19th 2012 - 06:32 UTC

  Chilean Antarctic bases expect to host 250 scientists and over 50 projects

  

  An estimated 250 scientists from several countries will be working at Chile’s Antarctic bases during the austral summer (December 21/March 21) in different projects such as global warming and climate change, reported the Chilean Antarctic Institute, INACH, based in Punta Arenas.

• Tuesday, December 18th 2012 - 23:36 UTC

  EU Fisheries committee pledges sustainability by 2015 and an end to discards

  

  Tuesday’s vote by the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee to amend CFP reforms have been greeted with enthusiasm by a number of environmental NGOs including ClientEarth, Greenpeace, WWF, the Pew Foundation and OCEAN 2012.

• Tuesday, December 18th 2012 - 22:18 UTC

  UK names southern part of British Antarctic Territory “Queen Elizabeth Land”

  

  The Foreign Secretary announced on Tuesday that the southern part of British Antarctic Territory has been named Queen Elizabeth Land.

• Monday, December 17th 2012 - 06:20 UTC

  China quarantines Argentine corn because of unapproved genetically modified strains

  

  Chinese authorities quarantined two containers holding corn from Argentina, after detecting genetically modified strains that had not been approved beforehand, alleged the Chinese buyer.

• Saturday, December 15th 2012 - 09:20 UTC

  Highly invasive, voracious and dangerous African snail found in Paraguay

  

  The giant East African snail, (Achatina fúlica), listed among the world’s top 100 invasive species, extremely voracious and which can transmit deadly diseases to humans has been found in empty lots in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, next to Brazil.

• Friday, December 14th 2012 - 04:55 UTC

  World’s largest pulp and forestry complex begins operation in south Brazil

  

  Brazilian group JBS-Friboi, a leading global exporter of meat products, has inaugurated an industrial complex for pulp production with an investment of 6.2 billion Reais (approx 3 billion dollars).

• Thursday, December 6th 2012 - 22:52 UTC

  Terrible Thursday for Buenos Aires: toxic gas cloud scare and flash floods

  

  Terrible Thursday for the city of Buenos Aires: toxic gas scare in the morning with almost panic situations and flooding mid afternoon by the same rains that helped clear the cloud hovering over residents with sore throats and irritated eyes.

• Wednesday, December 5th 2012 - 19:50 UTC

  Polar ice sheets melting have added 11mm to global sea levels since 1992

  

  Nearly two dozen research teams collaborated to study polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and discovered definitively that they have added 11mm to global sea levels since 1992, melting ever more quickly.

• Wednesday, December 5th 2012 - 18:50 UTC

  OAS and Peru will discuss how to address socio-environment conflict in mining areas

  

  The Organization of American States (OAS) will hold, on December 6 and 7 in Lima, Peru, the Meeting of Government Experts on the Management of Socio-Environmental Conflict for the countries of Central America and the Andean Region.

• Wednesday, December 5th 2012 - 18:32 UTC

  WHO sponsored research helps identify heavy lead contaminated areas in Peru

  

  Countries – especially those with a long mining history -- can substantially reduce lead poisoning in children by mapping contamination levels in the soil to identify high-risk areas and by taking measures to keep children away from those areas, according to a study published this month in the public health journal, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.