The Challenge of Land Degradation / El desafio de la degradación del suelo
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008I must admit that, just as was the case with deforestation, in the past I paid very little attention to the issue of land degradation. I won’t bore you with the explanations and excuses as to why, just suffice it to say that it was not high enough on my list of priority environment issues. […]
Improvements in HIV/AIDS Treatment in LAC
Friday, July 4th, 2008This is a few weeks delayed in being posted, but frankly folks, I only have so many hours in my day… Everyone takes away something different from Towards Universal Access: Scaling Up Priority HIV/AIDS Interventions in the Health Sector – Progress Report 2008, the report released last month jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO), […]
LAC Health Stats, Trends and Trivia
Saturday, June 21st, 2008Which Latin American or Caribbean nation smokes or drinks the most? In which are you more likely to die from cancer than infectious diseases such as malaria or dengue? Which has the highest percentage of obese people? Which spends the most on the health of their citizens? If you you’ve ever wondered about such questions, […]
LAC Environmental Trivia, Revisited
Thursday, June 19th, 2008The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) recently published the latest edition (covering up to 2007) of its annual statistical yearbook for the region. As in recent years, one section covers natural resources and the environment. If you are seeking a basic set of comparative environmental data for the region, […]
CARICOM To Enter Environmental Policy Arena
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008One of the downsides of being so long away from regular blogging is the tremendous backlog of things I wish to cover. This is one. The meeting referred to in the press release below happened in the latter half of April, but given its potential significance, I still wish to highlight and discuss it even […]
Malaria in the Americas: Still Formidible / Malaria en las Américas: formidable todavia
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007The short status report to PAHO's governing body, the Pan American Sanitary Conference, mentioned in the releases reproduced below, is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. As the report shows, fighting malaria in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) remains a formidable challenge. While there has been a decrease in reported cases overall for LAC, […]
Gold Mining in Guyana (Re)visited
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007In an earlier post I examined a diagnosis of the environmental and health problems posed by current practice in small- and medium-scale gold mining in Guyana and the recommendations for addressing those problems and improving the policing of mining practices. Guyana’s official news service, GINA, reports that last week Cabinet members ventured out to see […]
An Agreement to Promote Caribbean Renewable Energy Projects
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007Temas Observation: While the parties to this agreement say it’s about all renewable energy sources — not just bioenergy — and energy efficiency, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that this is mostly about bioenergy and that energy efficiency, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and wave power will get short shrift. Bioenergy clearly is the main […]
Country Profiles of Environmental Burden of Disease for LAC
Friday, August 3rd, 2007Several weeks ago the World Health Organization (WHO) released what it billed as "the first ever country-by-country analysis of the impact environmental factors have on health." It phrased it that way ("country-by-country") because it released a more global analysis of the issue last year — in fact, that report was the subject of one of […]
Guyana Joins Ranks of LAC Nations Ratifying POPs Convention
Sunday, July 29th, 2007The Guyanese Government announced this week that it will ratify the Stockholm Convention on Pesistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The Stockholm Convention (text: English, Spanish) commits Contracting Parties (CPs) to eliminate, severely restrict and/or minimize the production, use and trade of 12 POPs — nine pesticides, three byproducts of industrial processes and of combustion (dioxins, furans […]
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