TEGUCIGALPA, Apr 23 (Tierramérica) - The Honduran Congress is debating a bill to halt the deterioration suffered by the northern Lake Yojoa, an area which holds great biodiversity.

Lawmaker Alfredo Saavedra, Secretary of Congress, told Tierramérica that the situation, stemming from waste dumped into the lake, "has pushed it to the verge of extinction, within the next 10 years."

The unicameral Congress is expected to pass the proposed law in a month, creating a regulatory body with the task of making sure that area businesses don't continue to pollute the lake, said Saavedra.

A two-hour drive from Tegucigalpa, Yojoa's surroundings are home to 169 species of fern, 46 kinds of orchid, 15 endemic plants and an array of fauna, such as the howler monkey, spider monkey, and jaguar.

SANTIAGO, Apr 23 (Tierramérica) - Buried at the Altonorte foundry, near the northern Chilean city of Antofagasta, are 150,000 tons of waste minerals, with 30 percent arsenic, charges the region's medical association.

Association president Hugo Benítez told Tierramérica that the waste could be dangerous for the population if heavy rains wash the chemicals into area groundwater.

The Swiss company Xstrata Cooper, current owner of the foundry, alerted the medical association and assured it would present a waste treatment plan to the government's environmental impact evaluation system.

Benítez has urged the health and environmental authorities to give quick approval to the Xstrata plan. "We issue this call because we don't trust the authorities because they are not confronting pollution in the region like they should," he said.

HAVANA, Apr 23 (Tierramérica) - Cuba hopes to plant trees on 67,000 hectares per year until 2015, with the goal of increasing its forest cover from its current 24.5 percent to 29 percent, said experts at a Havana conference last week.

Reforestation was particularly beneficial for the semiarid southern coastline of Guantánamo province.

Teodosio Hernández, entrusted with the fruit and lumber tree species repopulation program there, told Tierramérica that the residents of the area towns are involved in the endeavor, and planting trees in their own yards.

Small farmers are also key to caring for a newly planted field of neem trees (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) in the Guantánamo community of Baitiquiri, carried out with support from the Global Environment Facility.

CARACAS, Apr 23 (Tierramérica) - The non-governmental South American Water Association, which met here last week, has called on the region's government's to take part in a forum this September in Peru.

"We are sponsoring a gathering of civil society and government to elaborate water resources management plans, with an eye to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to access to water and basic sanitation," Yazenia Frontado, of the association's Venezuelan committee, told Tierramérica.

One of the MDGs, adopted by the United Nations in 2000, is to halve the proportion of the population who lack access to clean water and sanitation services by 2015.