GUATEMALA, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - The Episcopal Conference of Guatemala (CEG) reported that the Canadian Gold Corp mining company may be polluting the Tzalá river and putting at risk some 5,000 people in the municipality of Sipacapa, on the border with Mexico.

The river water contains 80 times the legal limit of copper, 13 times that of aluminum and 2.5 times that of mangenese, Álvaro Ramazzini, president of the CEG, told Tierramérica.

According to a study carried out by Italian Flaviano Bianchini, of the El Salvador Center for Research on Investment and Trade, there is a process of acid run-off that drains from the mine cut and the waste rock into the river.

But Eduardo Villacorta, Central American executive director for Gold Corp, rejected the study's results because "they were not accompanied by laboratory certificates."

"We have been doing quarterly monitoring analyses since 2002 which say the opposite," he said in a communiqué.

SANTIAGO, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - The Los Lagos Regional Commission for the Use of the Coastal Fringe in Chile has given definitive approval for a 46 square kilometre protected zone in the gulf of Corcovado and the sea surrounding Chiloé Island which is home to the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).

Promoted by the Blue Whale Centre (CBA), the declaration of the Protected Multi-purpose Marine and Coastal Area was approved on Jan. 2. Maximiliano Bello of CBA explained to Tierramérica that the next step is to obtain the approval of the Aysén regional authorities. The entire process could be completed by the end of June.

On Dec. 21, the government awarded the Bicentennial Seal to the project to designate this protected area, for contributing to development in Chile, in anticipation of the national celebrations of 200 years of independence in 2010.

MONTEVIDEO, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - A documentary film criticising activists in the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú, who fear a pulp mill to be installed on the eastern bank of the border river between both countries will cause pollution, was shown for the first time in Uruguay on Jan. 12.

"No a los papelones", directed by Argentine Eduardo Montes Bradley, is being shown in cinemas in Montevideo and Punta del Este.

"It's about ideological falsehood, about a town afraid about something it knows nothing about. And it portrays those in the front line of the demonstrations using emotional arguments, such as that (the area's residents) will have three-headed babies," Pepi Goncalvez, the film's press spokeswoman, told Tierramérica.

"It's not against people who do serious environmental work," she said.

The distributors are not showing the film in Argentina for fear of reprisals.

CARACAS, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - Governments and non-governmental and international organizations are way behind with preparations for the International Year of the Ozone Layer in 2007, Venezuelan environmentalist Erik Quiroga, promoter of this global initiative, told Tierramérica.

"The publicity campaigns are not ready, neither is the awareness-building campaign especially for children, about the impact of the explosion in ultraviolet radiation, which is killing 60,000 people a year," said Quiroga, who spearheaded the process leading up to the United Nations' dedicating this year to the ozone layer.

"The urgency of the campaigns increases with the expansion of the ozone hole, which reached a record 29.5 million square kilometres over Antarctica last October. As a result of ozone depletion, there are two to three million new cases of skin cancer a year, worldwide," he said.

HAVANA, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - A wind turbine park generating 1,650 kilowatts will be opened on Isla de la Juventud within the next few weeks. The news was confirmed to Tierramérica by Armando Rodríguez, adviser to acting Cuban minister of Science, Technology and the Environment Fernando González.

According to experts, when the six generators in the park are working at full capacity they will produce approximately 10 percent of the peak electricity demand of this municipality, the second largest island of the Cuban archipelago, which has a population of over 70,000.

The project is part of Cuba's current program for developing wind power. At the entrance to the resort of Cayo Coco, 434 kilometres from Havana, two wind generators have been installed for several years, although they are for experimental purposes only.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - A new Brazilian regulation requires biotechnology patent applicants to prove that they had legal access to the genetic resources involved in the products and inventions they wish to register.

The requirement, imposed by the Genetic Heritage Management Council and the National Institute of Industrial Property from the beginning of this year, also applies to traditional knowledge used in research.

"It's an important step towards overcoming biopiracy and promoting the distribution of the benefits of biodiversity, as required by the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992)," Fernando Mathias, a lawyer with the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute, told Tierramérica.

However, this pioneering law will need controls to be in place to ensure that patent royalties go to the owners of the genetic resources and the traditional knowledge that formed the basis of the developed product, Mathias added.