BUENOS AIRES - Scientists from 40 countries met in December in Mar del Plata, a city 400 km south of the Argentine capital, to compare studies about the effects of rising ultraviolet radiation on plants, animals and humans.

The national conference on stratospheric processes and their influence on climate furthered knowledge about the dynamic of the sun's ultraviolet rays and their impact on the earth's areas that are most exposed as a result of the diminishing of the ozone layer, especially in the Southern Hemisphere.

Slovenian physicist Sasha Madronic, member of the US-based Center for Atmospheric Studies, warned that for every five-percent increase in ultraviolet radiation there as a 10 percent rise in the incidence of skin cancer.

HAVANA - The Cuban government's official drive to expand eco-tourism could reach the island's network of national parks, which, say experts, have the necessary conditions to attract a great number of visitors.

Eco-tourism will involve some 50 million travelers in the world in the next 10 years, according to international market studies cited by the Cuban national center for protected areas.

The center mentions the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park as one of the most promising sites for eco-tourism in Cuba. The park covers 70,000 hectares of mountains, mesas, plains, bays and coral reefs.

There, future tourists may enjoy the Toa River, one of six biosphere reserves in the Caribbean designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

QUITO - Ecuadorian indigenous peoples have reported the smuggling of plants out of the country from the Omaere Ethno-Botanic Park, in the Amazon, and have called on the site's managers to take charge of the matter.

For the last 10 years the private Omaere Foundation has run the park, and was to turn it over to the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza (OPIP) province in 1999, but the handover never took place.

OPIP argues that the agreed management transfer is necessary if Ecuador is to put an end to the illegal bio-prospecting and bio-piracy occurring in the region.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's federal government must intervene in the dispute between peasant farmers and indigenous peoples over the Chimalapas jungle, a conflict that threatens to destroy an area that is unique in the world, warns the non-governmental group 'Maderas del Pueblo' (Woods of the People).

Indigenous people have held titles of community ownership since 1687, but farmers arriving after 1970 are now laying claim to the Chimalapas, a largely undisturbed 1,705 square km jungle, points out Miguel García, the local 'Maderas' coordinator.

The peasant farmers refuse to recognize the community property rights of the natives, and cut down the trees and burn vegetation in order to farm the land, using methods that are environmentally unsustainable, García said.

Indigenous groups maintain that the land is part of the state of Oaxaca, but the farmers argue that it is part of Chiapas.

Chimalapas receives 35 percent of the rain that falls in Mexico, according to several studies, and it is home to the source of the country's four most important rivers.


*Source: Inter Press Service.