SANTIAGO - The Chilean government plans to set up a monitoring council to ensure that the Aymara indigenous communities living in the country's extreme north have access to the water of the Loa River.

At 440 km, the Loa is Chile's longest river, though the volume of its flow diminishes as it passes through the Atacama Desert. The Aymara, who live in the high plains, making their living through raising llamas and alpacas and subsistence farming, have had to compete with the big mining companies for access to the river.

Chilean law protects water resources that feed small farming valleys and desert pastures, says the head of the General Directorate of Water, Humberto Peña, who adds that government will coordinate its efforts with the National Indigenous Development Commission.

HAVANA - The fragility of the mountainous systems of South America, Meso-America and the Caribbean in withstanding the onslaught of development will be the central them of the Regional Conference on Mountains, to take place in Cuba, May 29-31.

Mountains hold biological diversity and water resources that are essential to the region. The exploitation of their mineral reserves and the expansion of farming and cities are threatening their delicate balance, say the organizers of the conference, which is sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The conference is planned as part of the International Year of the Mountains, declared by the UN in order to raise global awareness about the state of these ecosystems, which are also home to 500 million people.

SAN JOSE - A special chamber set up by biologists in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle allows Internet explorers to study the life and habitat of hummingbirds up close.

As part of the Cloud Forest Alive project, the service is provided by Monteverde Park, located 150 km from San José and operated by the non-governmental Tropical Science Center, an institution dedicated to research, conservation and protection of natural resources. To observe the life of a hummingbird in real time, connect yourself to: www.cloudforestalive.org

CARACAS - Experts from the University of the Andes have detected the presence of the aggressive and exotic 'rana toro', or bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) in some aquatic ecosystems of the Venezuelan Andes, particularly in the natural and artificial lakes of the northwestern state of Mérida.

Considered one of the 100 worst invasive species, the bullfrog could push other amphibians into extinction because it successfully competes with them for food, feeding on insects, fish, crustaceans, as well as the larvae of other amphibians and even adult toads.