RIO DE JANEIRO - Of the 204 exotic land species recorded to date in Brazil, 130 have become invasive, spreading rapidly because they had no predators, and destroying the local biodiversity.

The diagnosis was presented by the Brazilian Horus Institute and the international Nature Conservancy at the first Brazilian Symposium of Invasive Exotic Species, a gathering of 500 experts in Brasilia, Oct. 4-7.

The golden mussel, of Asian origin, which has already invaded many of Brazil's watersheds, the giant snail and molasses grass from Africa, a European hare, wild boar and pines are some of the invaders that cause most harm to the environment and agriculture in Brazil.

The symposium aims to contribute to a national program to fight these pests, said Paulo Kageyama, director of biodiversity conservation at the Ministry of Environment.

SANTIAGO - Four computer science students at the Federico Santa María Technical University in Valparaíso, 120 km west of the Chilean capital, have developed the "Smart Traffic" program, which will modernize the coordination of traffic signals along urban vehicle circulation routes.

This "constitutes a great innovation that will help rationalize the use of roads and reduce environmental contamination and the emissions of climate changing gases," urban transit planning expert Roberto Figueroa told Tierramérica.

The program uses video cameras for constant analysis of the flow of traffic, and orders immediate changes, if necessary, in the timing of the traffic signals to prevent traffic jams, according to creators Andrea Guzmán, Eduardo Solís, Miguel Brintrup and Víctor Peña y Lillo.

CARACAS - Hundreds of workers at recycling companies protested Oct. 3 outside the Venezuelan Parliament against a government decree that banned the export of ferrous and non-ferrous scrap.

This "affects more than a thousand small companies, which employ 16,000 people," said Jorge Morales, spokesman for their umbrella association, Remefynof.

Another 70,000 people, especially informal collectors of metallic waste, make their living indirectly from the exports, Morales said in a Tierramérica interview.

The government ban, in force since Sep. 13, "in addition to economically hurting the recycling sector, is harmful to the environment, because it notably increases the garbage left in the streets."

In 2002 Venezuela generated 18,600 tons of waste daily, of which only 20 percent was recycled, according to the non-governmental group Vitalis.

HAVANA - Declared Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations in 1982, the historic center of Havana in 10 years generated 160 million dollars in tourism, services and taxes, most of which was reinvested in rehabilitating the district itself.

Forty-five percent of the revenues are earmarked for productive and building projects, 30 percent for social programs, and the rest goes to the government reserves, or to rehabilitation efforts in other areas of the capital.

The sustainable development model of Old Havana stems from "taking into account the population that inhabits it," Patricia Rodríguez, director of the plan for the City of Havana's Office of History, told Tierramérica.

"Today we have one-third of the territory rehabilitated or in the process," she added.

TEGUCIGALPA - The indigenous Misquito peoples of Honduras and Nicaragua have expressed their doubts about the World Bank's Mesoamerican Corazon Biosphere project, saying it is exclusive and an attack on the preservation of their population and culture.

The project is an attempt to preserve the national systems of protected areas that are part of the Mesoamerican corridor -- 3.4 million hectares that hold the region's most representative habitat and ecosystems. At a cost of 12 million dollars, the project is to last six years beginning in 2006.

Edgardo Benítez, a Honduran Misquito leader, told Tierramérica that the MUIHKA ("brother" in the Misquito language) Binational Coordinator is suspicious of the plan because "they aren't also considering preserving the human and cultural heritage, which is us."

These lands "are ours, and should be legalized" as such, he said, adding that the Misquitos are not against preserving the ecological reserves, but that "it should be done with the active participation (of his community), not excluding it."

SAO PAULO - By the end of the year the Brazilian government will deliver most of the 335 machines used for recycling the gases used in the air conditioning units of cars, trucks and other vehicles.

The gases will be collected, recycled by the machines, and reinjected, all within a few minutes, into the units. The effort is part of the Brazilian Program for the Elimination of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are a leading culprit in the destruction of the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer.

"The first machines were delivered in September to Sao Paulo, the state where there is highest consumption," Marcio Marques Perrut told Tierramérica. He is the director of the ozone unit at the Ministry of Environment, and noted that they are working with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Since CFC production was eliminated in Brazil in 1999, consumption and use of those gases has fallen 82.8 percent.