RIO DE JANEIRO - The frequency of lightning will increase 30 percent over the next 25 years in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, quadrupling the losses to electrical utility infrastructure because of more blackouts, according to the national space research institute, ELAT.

Losses to Sao Paulo state will be equal to those of the entire country today by 2030: 185 million dollars annually.

''Global warming, La Niña climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, and increased heat in cities of more than 500,000 residents will be the factors behind the increase,'' Osmar Pinto Junior, head of the ELAT atmospheric electricity division, told Tierramérica.

The ELAT prediction model is based on ''conservative'' projections, with a temperature increase of just half a degree centigrade and moderate effects from La Niña.

Global warming is likely to affect all tropical regions of South America in a similar way, meaning more lightning strikes across the continent, said Pinto.

HAVANA - The intense drought that has been thrashing Cuba increased the risk of forest fire, which last year burned 11,447 hectares of forest, with losses totaling 16 million dollars.

Official sources report that a blaze lasting 10 days destroyed some 1,500 hectares of forest in late March-early April in the eastern mountain range Pinares de Mayarí.

In Camagüey, 500 km east of Havana, a fire favored by the local drought conditions affected an area of forests and coastal brushland covering nearly 400 hectares.

Sources from the government's National Center for Protected Areas told Tierramérica that the fire danger from drought is aggravated by negligence on the part of poachers, who light campfires in banned areas.

CARACAS - A four-month-old spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatos) in the Sierra Nevada National Park, in the southwest Venezuelan Andes, was rescued earlier this month when a local resident found it and alerted the authorities.

''It's the first time we have had direct information about a Venezuelan bear of this kind. The ones living in the (northwest) state of Lara were donated by other Andean countries,'' Ricardo Babarro, an official with the Environment Ministry, told Tierramérica.

''Guerrero'', as the 3.5-kilo cub has been named, will be moved to the Bararida Zoo, in Lara, which has the most experience in raising this species in captivity, and is home to four other spectacled bears.

The rescued animal will undergo genetic testing as part of efforts to protect the species, unique to South America and in danger of extinction as a result of years of hunting by humans.

TEGUCIGALPA - The Small Grants Program, a component of the Global Environment Facility, promoted by the United Nations, has approved for Honduras a total of 500,000 dollars to carry out 21 environmental and social development projects in poor communities.

Hugo Galeano, the program's coordinator in Honduras, told Tierramérica that the funds will go to grassroots groups in extremely poor communities, and that one of the areas targeted this year is the Mosquitia jungle community on the Atlantic coast to support environmental conservation and ecotourism efforts, and aid for Indian divers who have been injured in their work.

The programs aim to protect biodiversity, mitigate and adapt to climate change, fight persistent organic pollutants, and reduce soil degradation, based on proposals by each community, Galeano said.