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More LAC Nations Covered by Forest Carbon Partnership Facility
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Temas Note: When the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility was first officially announced by the World Bank a few months ago, only five Latin American nations (Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Mexico, Panama) were to participate. Because of strong interest in the Facility, it has been decided recently to expand its developing country participants, and as [...]
First Destination for UNEP’s Green Passport Program: Brazil
Monday, October 13th, 2008The international community is about to launch a “Green Passport” program to promote “sustainable holidays,” and guess where the concept is being field tested first: a small colonial era town in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro (RJ) state, Paraty.
The Green Passport is a project of the International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development (ITF-STD) created under [...]
Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria / Criterios Globales de Turismo Sostenible
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008Temas Observation: I was favorably inclined toward this exercise because of the involvement of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Conservation International (CI) and secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), but was less impressed that Ted Turner endorsed it, still unsure what to think about the Rainforest Alliance’s efforts [...]
Red de Consumo y Producción Sustentables para América Latina y Caribe
Monday, August 25th, 2008Synopsis in English: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the State Environment Secretary of São Paulo (SMA) and the Environmental Sanitation Technology Company (CETESB) (São Paulo’s technical environment agency) recently signed a cooperation agreement aimed at launching the Network of Information and Training in Sustainable Consumption and Production for Latin America and the Caribbean (Red [...]
Uruguay Gets Its GEO
Friday, July 25th, 2008Earlier this month Uruguay’s GEO was finally unveiled with much fanfare by top Uruguayan environment officials and the local representative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
What’s a GEO? It’s probably the best known type of comprehensive environmental diagnosis available. “GEO” was the acronym for “Global Environment Outlook” first prepared by the [...]
The World’s Most Sustainable Bank?
Friday, July 11th, 2008When the Financial Times and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) recently announced the winners of their annual Sustainable Banking Awards, guess who won at the global level, beating out competitors such as Citi, HSBC and Standard Chartered?
Brazil’s Banco Real.*
Who won the award for the Emerging Markets segment?
Brazil’s Banco Real. [They won this particular award in [...]
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 [...]
Why is LAC Slow to Tap Carbon Funds?
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008The Dominican Republic’s Environment Secretariat (SEMARENA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) recently co-hosted an event in Santo Domingo designed to prompt Dominicans into tapping the many international funding opportunities for projects related, directly or directly, to climate change (”carbon markets”).
And well they should! For some [...]
Finding Eco-Diagnoses for LAC
Friday, June 20th, 2008In a prior post on the Temas library of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) legal texts for download, I promised to highlight other changes and additions to the updated site.
The biggest addition to the site has been the Temas Tools Section, a collection of references and tools that help in understanding, shaping and managing policy [...]
Past as Prologue for Caribbean Reefs?
Friday, June 13th, 2008Earlier this year the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published a report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) assessing the state of the Caribbean’s coral reefs after their toughest year in recent history, 2005. The IOC is the lead international entity assessing [...]
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