MEXICO CITY - Thousands of people in Latin America will take part in clean-up and repair campaigns for parks, streets and beaches Sep. 16-18.

"We expect massive participation, especially among children and youth," Rody Oñate, communications officer for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Latin America and the Caribbean, told Tierramérica.

UNEP is one of the engines behind "Clean the World", sponsored by the foundation of the same name and by the Australian government.

The 13-year-old campaign will take place in 110 countries, with a mobilization of an estimated 35 million people, under the slogan: Green cities, green communities.

Activities are planned in 17 countries of the region. In Brazil, volunteers will clean up Rio de Janeiro's beaches, in Cuba they will plant trees in a national park, and in Peru and Mexico there will be communications efforts on how to take care of the environment.

SANTIAGO - The regulations for drag net fishing for merluza (Merlucius hubbsi), which take effect in Chile on Sep. 15 to protect the smaller fish of this species, are a positive step but insufficient, says the environmental group Oceana.

"Finally they are aware of a very sensitive issue for the conservation of fishing resources like drag net fishing," Oceana attorney Matías Guiloff said in a conversation with Tierramérica.

The new regulations require the openings in the net to be 120 millimeters so that "the immature portion of this resource" can escape being caught, said the fishing division of the Agricultural Ministry.

But "the measure that will really permit the protection of marine biodiversity is the elimination of drag nets in fishing for resources in serious danger, like the common merluza," according to the ministry.

The use of nets that "sweep" from the sea's surface to the floor has reduced the merluza population 80 percent in recent years.

HAVANA - The coastal management office of the Cuban resort city of Varadero is promoting a Latin American network for the exchange of information on positive experiences in protecting the region's beaches.

Although it is still in its organizational phase, "the Pro-Beach Network already has 14 groups from eight countries," Alfredo Cabrera, director of the Varadero office, told Tierramérica.

According to a proposal to launch the network in 2006, the region's beaches are under intensive recreational and tourism pressure, with rapid changes that lead to physical-environmental degradation.

"The coastal management and certification programs applied to beaches are not very developed, and there are great insufficiencies among the few experiences in development."

In addition to the Cuban office, the network has support from entities in Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica. Initial contacts have also been made with groups from Argentina, Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador

RIO DE JANEIRO - Involving national leaders, politicians, diplomats and civil society leaders in the search for solutions is the aim of the "Greenmeeting of the Americas", which has its fifth edition Sep 20-22 in Belo Horizonte, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.

Former president of Brazil Jose Sarney (1985-1990), who created the Brazilian Institute of Environment during his term in office, and the secretary-general of the Organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty and former vice-president of Ecuador Rosalía Arteaga, will receive the Green Prize, alongside other stand-out individuals and institutions that have contributed to sustainable development.

Greenmeeting has the support of the Organization of American States, governments and international bodies. Its goal is to democratize the debate on socio-environmental matters, promote sustainable environmental management and creative solutions, says Ademar Soares, general coordinator of the event.

GUATEMALA CITY - A Guatemalan subsidiary of the Canadian Skye Resources will pick up on nickel mining in the northeast of this Central American country.

Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel (CGN) bought the rights and properties from Exploraciones y Explotaciones Mineras de Izabal, which paralyzed its operations in the 1980s as a result of the decline in nickel prices and the growing protests of local residents against the environmental damages.

"We are in an exploratory phase to determine the existence of the nickel reserves. Then we will begin reconstruction of the processing plant," said Arnoldo García, CGN general manager. A mining permit will be sought to begin extraction in 2008, with an investment of 539 million dollars, García told Tierramérica.

With the mining activity, "we will lose environmental goods like water sources, rock and trees. That great destruction has no reparation," said Magaly Rey Rosa, an activist with the environmental Madreselva Collective.

Since last year, the Guatemalan government has issued 221 permits for exploration and exploitation of gold, silver and other minerals.

CARACAS - Venezuela initiated a program for the recovery in eight years of up to 400,000 hectares of forest in the areas to the north of the Orinoco River, with the planting of 92 million trees, announced Environment Minister Jacqueline Faría.

The project begins this year with the creation of 40 tree nurseries with the capacity to grow 11 million seedlings, and the expansion of 46 existing nurseries, Faría said.

"We aren't doing much with reforestation of 50 to 150,000 hectares a year, while we are tolerating the deforestation of up to a million hectares a year," Miguel Ortega, an environmentalist and agronomy professor at the Central University, told Tierramérica.

More than half of Venezuela is forested area, but the vast majority is south of the Orinoco, and faces deforestation at a rate of 500,000 to one million hectares annually.

SAO PAULO - A team of scientists from the chemistry institute at the University of Sao Paulo is researching cheaper and more efficient ways to make use of the decontaminating property of iron.

Using the metal to break down contaminating compounds "is still a technique that is very little studied in Brazil," the study's leader, Renato Sanches Freire, told Tierramérica.

"Our hope is to achieve some technical advances, like the superficial modification of that material, re-use of different sources of iron, as well as reaction mechanisms that permit a more efficient and definitive removal of the contaminants," he said.

Studies show that iron is quite effective when applied to organochloride compounds (found in pesticides and various chemical, pharmaceutical and agricultural inputs) and nitrogenates (found in colorants, pesticides and explosives). It is also possible to treat some types of heavy metals in a water medium.

According to Freire, using iron waste coming from the metallurgy industry for this type of application represents a great economic and environmental benefit, because normally this industry has to pay for appropriate disposal of its waste.