BUENOS AIRES - Laws to protect the 'huemul' are not enforced as they should be, pushing this deer species from the mountainous region shared by Argentina and Chile closer to extinction, warn university experts and environmental organizations.

Illegal hunting and the introduction of exotic species - such as the European hare, the wild boar and the red deer -, which compete with the huemul for food and spread disease, have reduced this native deer species to just 700 in Argentina.

Even this small number is important, as there are just 2,000 huemul left on earth.

The 'Fundación Vida Silvestre,' an associate office of the World Wildlife Fund, and experts from Argentina's National University of Comahue stress that the huemul, which the country declared a ''natural national monument'' in 1996, is also threatened by the expansion of pasturelands for cattle.

QUITO - The Cofán indigenous group, in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, destroyed an access bridge to an oil well after getting the company that owned it to leave their territory.

The Cofán mobilization against oil exploitation on their lands began the second week of September and led the Lumbaqui Oil Company to pull up stakes and leave.

Once the last Lumbaqui truck had departed, Cofán activists exploded the bridge they had occupied for four days, cutting off all communication with the Ruby 1 oil well.

''We are celebrating! Take back life, brothers of the jungle!'' shouted Toribio Aguinda, president of the Cofán community, after Lumbaqui abandoned the region, located near the Colombian border.

The indigenous group will prevent all oil corporations ''from continuing to destroy the jungle and the little that is left for us: languid rivers, without any fish,'' declared Aguinda.

HAVANA - Orchid growers around the world will soon be able to appreciate the flowers created 'in vitro' by Cuban researchers who are attempting to preserve native varieties that are in danger of extinction.

The 'in vitro' creation of orchids performed in Soroa, in the western province of Pinar del Río, allows thousands of flowers to come from just one plant, in addition to achieving blossoms at any time of year.

The Soroa garden holds some 25,000 plants of more than 700 orchid varieties and is considered one of the most complete collections in the world.

These laboratory-produced plants will be on exhibition in November at an international workshop as experts exchange experiences in the conservation, cultivation and management of orchids.

MEXICO CITY - The pine forests of northern Mexico, already weakened by fire and drought, are succumbing to a plague of hungry beetles - and experts cannot find a way to control or cure the problem.

Bite by bite, the insects have occupied more than 1,000 hectares of forest in Nuevo León state that were hard hit by fires and lack of rain over the last three years.

With this sort of plague, the only thing to be done is to cut down the trees in order to save as much wood as possible, according to the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Fishing.

The ''bark-stripper,'' the name the Ministry has given the beetle, could perhaps be eradicated by a worm being used for similar purposes in Colombia, but it is not yet proven to be a safe solution, according to the authorities.

*Fuente: Inter Press Service.