A Unique GEO for MEROSUR
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Last month a GEO for the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR or MERCOSUL) was finally unveiled with much fanfare by representatives of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the meeting of MERCOSUR Environment Ministers. What’s a GEO? It’s probably the best known type of comprehensive environmental diagnosis available. “GEO” was the acronym for “Global […]
Putting a Value on Belize’s Reefs and Mangroves
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008In a recent post I applauded efforts to estimate the true economic value of the mangroves along the coast of Mexico’s Baja California. Last month the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) released a report that estimates the economic value of Belize’s coral reefs and mangroves that I similarly applaud — in […]
State of the North American Environment
Saturday, June 21st, 2008The North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has just released a “state of the environment” (SOE) report entitled The North American Mosiac (English, Spanish, French). The CEC is the main vehicle for environmental cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the US, and as I stated in a prior post, like it or not, Mexico has […]
Coral Reef Protection, Part II: The Current Situation
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006In the first part of my primer series on coral reefs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), I examined why it is important to protect coral reef systems, what sort of things threaten their survival. Here in Part II, I look at what coral reefs LAC has, what condition they are in currently, and a brief overview of what currently […]
The Need for Better Reef Protection, Part I: Why Should I Care?
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006Although my snorkeling experience is limited, and I’m only just now learning to scuba dive, and I have never worked on reef protection issues in my job, even I had some idea of the beauty and value of coral reefs and the pressures facing them. But in the process of preparing a blog series on […]