MEXICO CITY - With a full schedule of films, exhibitions of paintings and caricatures, Mexico is gearing up to celebrate World Environment Day, Jun. 5.

Films and videos that were shown at the International Environmental Film Festival in Goias, Brazil, will be shown at the National Center for the Arts in the Mexican capital May 28 through Jun. 1. Also on exhibit will be prize-winning environmentally themed posters.

The cultural portion of the celebration is sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and will also feature caricatures and cartoons by renowned Latin American artists Roberto Fontanarrosa (Argentina), Hernán Vidal (Chile), Jo Oliveira and Miguel Paiva (Brazil), and Gonzalo Rocha and Fabricio Van Den Broeck (Mexico).

CARTAGENA - Some 400 young people from Colombia's Caribbean coast have made a pledge to work for the benefit of the environment and to prevent the irreparable harm that human activities often cause in nature.

"We must learn to live in a simpler way, in harmony with nature," said the participants in the Regional Youth Forum for the Environment and Peace, held May 13 at the Altair secondary school in the historic northern city of Cartagena.

Although there is greater awareness, today's youth must continue to be motivated to seek a world that is more environmentally friendly, says Adriana Valenzuela, United Nations Colombian coordinator for environmental issues.

LIMA - The cold Humboldt current, which flows parallel to the South American Pacific coast from the south to the northern Peruvian coast, contributes to mitigating global warming, says a new study by Peru's Institute of the Sea (IMARPE).

Large quantities of carbon dioxide, generated by the burning of fossil fuels in automotive transport and industry and one of the gases that cause the so-called greenhouse effect, are absorbed by the ecosystem created by the Humboldt current, says IMARPE.

IMARPE will develop the Greater Humboldt Current Ecosystem Integrated Management Project over the next three years, alongside the Fisheries Development Institute of Chile, and with resources from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

"Through this binational effort, effective monitoring systems will be established, as well as mechanisms for identification and analysis of processes in the global ecosystem originating in the Humboldt current," said IMARPE president Hugo Arévalo.

TEGUCIGALPA - An agreement aimed at regulating operations of sugarmills in Honduras in order to prevent pollution entered into force this month.

The Environment Ministry and the Sugar Producers Association are thus seeking to eliminate discharge of solid waste into the rivers around the sugarcane plantations and to control burnings in order to reduce smoke, following a month of intense haze and air contamination in the country.

The accord includes the application of clean, healthy and safe technology at all stages of sugar processing, Environment Minister Patricia Panting told Tierramérica. Honduras produces six million sacks of sugar annually, of which four million are exported.

Burnings of sugarcane plantations are among the main causes of pollution in Honduras, alongside forest fires, the emission of gases from vehicles and industry, and the accumulation of solid waste in rivers.

GUATEMALA CITY - The United States has suggested that five Central American countries should include in the provisions of the free trade agreement under negotiation economic penalties for companies that pollute.

"In the environmental chapter, the United States talks about financial sanctions, which means punishing a company that is responsible for contaminating the environment," chief Guatemalan negotiator Salomón Cohen told Tierramérica.

"The proposal proposes that the resources generated by the fines would go to a common fund of the Central American countries to be used to repair the harm caused by environmental contamination," he added.

Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica support Washington's idea in principle. Once finalized, it will be part of the agreements to be wrapped up by the end of this year.

PANAMA CITY - The environmental protection bill that for the fourth consecutive year is attempting to make it through the Panamanian parliament has watered-down penalties for violators so much that it is meaningless, say environmental groups.

The changes in the draft legislation aimed at punishing those who harm Panama's ecosystems have undermined the intent of the original bill, spokespersons from the Association for Promoting New Alternatives for Development (APRONAD) told Tierramérica.

The latest draft of the bill reduces the penalties and eliminates burning of forests as a crime, even though fires this year have wiped out 21,600 hectares of forest this year.

The original version of the legislation now up for debate in the Legislative Assembly was put together by non-governmental groups and adopted by the government of Mireya Moscoso.