CARACAS - The Venezuelan Environment Ministry is testing vehicles traveling on one of the main access routes to Caracas to assess the emissions of contaminating gases.

''In this educational phase, we randomly select 400 vehicles of individuals, public and cargo transport, which use gasoline or diesel. With a portable laboratory that measures emissions, we have found that 45 percent of the vehicles evaluated do not meet environmental standards,'' Washington Sánchez, director of the ministry's environmental supervision unit, told Tierramérica.

The ''lower Tazón'', a stretch of highway that connects the capital with the western part of the country, was chosen to carry out the controls because 70,000 vehicles travel that route each day.

The current educational period, in which drivers of the inspected vehicles receive informational pamphlets, will be followed by one in which drivers or the company owning the vehicles are fined for violating emissions standards.

RIO DE JANEIRO - The Cerrado, a type of savannah that is the second largest Brazilian biome, surpassed only by the Amazon, has finally become the center of attention of concerned government officials and environmentalists.

The national capital, Brasilia, sits in the middle of the vast Cerrado ecosystem, which covers a quarter of Brazilian territory in the central and western region: around two million square kilometers, half of which has been altered by human activities.

The seventh international forest congress, to be held in Brasilia Sep. 27-30, will focus special attention on the plight of the Cerrado.

The conferences on forests are promoted by the non-governmental Biosphere Environmental Institute, and this year's meeting will include presentations on new projects, technologies, products and services. In the first six such meetings, 6,270 researchers, environmentalists and entrepreneurs participated, presenting 1,512 studies.

SANTIAGO - Small sculptures made of clay and silicone, representing deformed fetuses inside glass jars, have caused a stir in Chile. They are part of a unique protest of the effects of indiscriminate use of pesticides on crops.

The exhibit of the works by artist Luis Verdejo opened this month at the Ecological Council of Melipilla, a municipality of 100,000 people west of Santiago. Forty percent are rural inhabitants.

Speaking at the inauguration of the exhibition, Carolina Céspedes, a pregnant farm worker exposed to pesticides, told of how her daughter Angelina would not survive because she has developed without a brain, according to medical tests. Céspedes made an appeal for stricter legislation and for regulation of the use of agrochemicals.

The fetus sculptures by Verdejo show hydrocephaly, the lack of limbs or a brain, spinal bifida and other deformities attributed to exposure to pesticides.

HAVANA - The 'marabú' (Dichrostachys cinarea), a weed that has proved difficult to eradicate from fields in Cuba, could become the raw material for generating electricity, through a project that is the brainchild of experts from the University of Camagüey.

The researchers say that a harvester specially designed for this purpose could obtain enough marabú biomass to produce 5,640 megawatts/hour.

This process may partially substitute the current use of more polluting sources of energy, and would also reduce harm to the environment caused by fighting marabú by burning, which harms the habitat of numerous species.

This weed currently affects more than 30 percent of the livestock grazing areas in Cuba.

GUATEMALA CITY - Environmental organizations, led by the international watchdog Greenpeace, denounced that Guatemala would vote in favor of reducing protection of whales, especially the hunting of minke whales.

Cecilia Chapa, of Greenpeace International, told a press conference that there are plans to reconsider whale protections in October, during the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, to be held in Thailand.

''There is evidence that on previous occasions Japan also pressured developing countries like Nicaragua, Belize and Cote D'Ivoire,'' to vote to lift protections for whales, she told Tierramérica.

''Members of Guatemala's National Council for Protected Areas have asked for a vote to reduce the degree of protection for minke whales,'' said Carlos Albacete, an activist with the environmental group Trópico Verde. Officials from the Council declined to comment to Tierramérica on the matter.

Japan, with long history of whale hunting, claims that it captures the little-studied minke for scientific purposes.

TEGUCIGALPA - In the Marcala region, in the central Honduran department of La Paz, a group of women is preparing to export biological pesticides to other Central American countries and to Europe.

With German development aid, exports are slated to begin before the end of the year, Carlos Carranza, spokesman for the Honduran association of organic fertilizer and bio-pesticide producers and distributors.

Of the 15 projects supported by German cooperation for the use of bio-pesticides in Honduras, this promises to be one of the most effective, he said.

Bio-pesticides are less harmful to human health and the environment, and are cheaper, explained Carranza.

Honduras takes in an average of 500,000 dollars ever three months for exports of bio-pesticides and organic fertilizer, and trends indicate an increase for 2005. There is growing interest for these products on the domestic market, particularly for fighting a disease that afflicts the country's coffee plantations.