BUENOS AIRES - The environmental Protect Argentina Foundation warns that floods like those that brought tragedy recently to the northeastern city of Santa Fe will be more frequent in that region and will hit other cities, which must begin to take preventive measures.

The cities of Clorinda, in Formosa province, Posadas, in Misiones province, Goya, in Corrientes, and the low-lying areas of Entre Ríos are vulnerable to flooding from the Paraná River, says the Foundation's director, Jorge Cappato, national coordinator of the Friends of the Earth network.

"It is preferable to evacuate 100,000 people as a preventive step than to have to count fatalities," he commented.

Sante Fe suffered flooding of the Salado River in April, and many neighborhoods continue under water. At least 24 people died and some 50,000 were left homeless.

LIMA - The documentary film "Choropampa: The Price of Gold" prompted the health commission of the Peruvian Congress to approve a bill this week that regulates the transport of dangerous mining materials and waste, and entrusts control to local governments.

In July 2000 a truck belonging to the Ransa company spilled 151 kg of mercury on the Choropampa highway in the northern Peruvian sierra. The toxic metal affected some 900 local residents, and many still suffer neurological damage. Ransa has refused to compensate the victims.

But Canadian journalist Stephanie Boyd and Peruvian cameraman Ernesto Cabellos produced a 75-minute documentary on the spill, achieving the public's support in denouncing the event. The film has been shown in many international festivals and is now being distributed among civil society groups, environmental organizations and universities.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Deciphering the genetic map of the Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus bacteria, which helps sugar cane to grow and to fix nitrogen from the air, would allow Brazilian farmers to save on nitrogen-based fertilizer and reduce agro-chemical contamination in soils and rivers.

These are the goals of a Rio-based network of seven research laboratories that are studying the genes identified for improving the bacteria's nitrogen-fixing capacity.

This would reduce the need for fertilizer on sugar cane plantations by up to 60 percent, predicts Paulo Ferreira, who is coordinating the study. Even if only half of that target is achieved, it would mean savings of 33 million dollars in Brazil's sugar cane industry.

Farmers in this giant South American nation spend a total of 1.8 billion dollars on nitrogen-based fertilizers annually.

TEGUCIGALPA - The residents and mayors of four municipalities in the northeastern Honduran department of Olancho have joined forces to prevent the pillaging of their forests, which have suffered unregulated and illegal logging.

In Salamá, Jano, Gualaco and La Unión, a six-year ban on logging has been decreed. Now marches to Tegucigalpa are being organized to press the national Congress to impose a similar ban for all of Olancho.

The department is one of the country's largest and suffers severe ecological degradation, manifest in the destruction of forests, say activists.

"In those areas there are no more forests. It has all been devoured by logging companies and fires. So the people of four municipalities decided to unite to prohibit the plundering of their trees," Leonel Casco, of the North Olancho Environmental Front (FANO), told Tierramérica.

Honduras loses some 100,000 hectares of forest each year to illegal logging activity and to forest fires.

GUATEMALA CITY - Some 80 experts from Latin America and the Caribbean, Canada and the United States are meeting in Antigua, Guatemala, this week to draw up a hemispheric stance on early warning systems for natural disasters, and will present their resolution to an international meeting in October in Germany.

"Under discussion are the warning systems based on applied public policies from Chile to Canada," Wolfgang Stiebens, of the GTZ, which organized the meet and oversees technical cooperation from the German government, told Tierramérica.

"The aim is to have guidelines and testimonies that can be presented as a continental contribution to the Bonn conference," he added.

The meeting is also sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry, United Nations, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.

MANAGUA - Spanish and Nicaraguan archeologists will begin excavation in February 2004 of the Cascal de Flor de Pino, where the ancient ruins of a previously unknown civilization were found on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast.

Nicaraguan archeologist Leonardo Lechado, part of a team led by Ermengol Gassiot from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, told Tierramérica that the next phase of investigation will take place from February to April next year.

Those studies will determine whether a set of at least 10 large platforms found in the southern Nicaraguan forest were used as a ceremonial site, said Lechado. Topographic studies show that the ruins were residential areas and date back more than 2,000 years.

The experts have already begun the arduous task of analyzing arrowheads, hatchets, ceramic pieces and various tools and utensils found in the area.