Environment

• Saturday, August 28th 2010 - 06:16 UTC

  Unusually low temperatures empties Bolivian rivers of fish

  

  With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country's tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

• Friday, August 27th 2010 - 08:28 UTC

  Timerman flies to Montevideo and will announce scientists for joint-river monitoring

  

  Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister Héctor Timerman informed via Twitter that he will fly to Montevideo next Monday to meet his Uruguayan counterpart, Luis Almagro in the framework of the recent agreement regarding the dispute over the UPM/Botnia pulp-mill.

• Friday, August 27th 2010 - 07:33 UTC

  Lula da Silva signs contract for controversial dam in the Amazon basin

  

  Brazilian President Lula da Silva signed Thursday the contracts for the Norte Energia consortium to start construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam in the Amazon basin.

• Thursday, August 26th 2010 - 03:10 UTC

  Uruguay has a million hectares of planted forests, according to FAO survey

  

  Uruguay has 1.7 million hectares of forests of which almost a million hectares have been planted to feed the growing pulp industry while the rest are so called native forests, according to primary data from an inventory compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture with support from United Nations.

• Wednesday, August 25th 2010 - 04:09 UTC

  Chilean trapped miners families file lawsuit against the state and mining company

  

  Families of 24 of the 33 Chilean trapped miners in the San José mine have filed a lawsuit against the state and the mining company, seeking compensation and justice.

• Tuesday, August 24th 2010 - 03:32 UTC

  Chilean Patagonia controversial dam project faces serious PR challenge

  

  Daniel Fernandez, the new top executive for the controversial 3.2 billion US dollars HidroAysen dam project proposed for Chilean Patagonia, confirmed Sunday that the effort to convince Chileans about the project’s importance has not gone well and that the company is consulting five PR firms to help improve their marketing effort.

• Sunday, August 22nd 2010 - 04:24 UTC

  Plastic debris in the Atlantic Ocean seems to have peaked, say US scientists

  

  A study has measured the amount of plastic debris found in a region of the Atlantic Ocean over a 22-year period. US researchers, writing in Science, suggest the volume of plastic appeared to have peaked in recent years.

• Sunday, August 22nd 2010 - 04:23 UTC

  Massive loss of pilot whales stranded on New Zealand beach

  

  Only nine of the 63 pilot whales which were found stranded on a beach of New Zealand’s northern island on Friday are believed to have survived. Thirteen whales were re-floated Saturday but four of them got back into difficulty and NZ Department of Conservation staff made the tough decision to euthanize them.

• Friday, August 20th 2010 - 02:44 UTC

  Giant “Terror Birds” Used Their Heads Like Hatchets

  

  Phorusrhacids have been extinct for millions of years, yet the so-called terror birds just got a bit more frightening. The flightless birds stood up to three meters tall and had hook-beaked heads the size of horse heads. Now a new study has apparently deciphered how the birds used those fearsome skulls—employing a fighting style like that of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.

• Thursday, August 19th 2010 - 06:00 UTC

  National Geographic wants to protect Chilean pristine marine life Island

  

  Chile’s Salas y Gómez Island has caught the attention of The National Geographic Society as one of the most pristine marine sites in the world.