BUENOS AIRES - The environmental group Finis Terrae has denounced the "irrational" forest management in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina's southernmost province, and warned that if things continue as they are, there will be no forest left in seven years.

Graciela Ramaciotti, Finis Terrae director, told Tierramérica that the U.S.-based company Trillium -- the largest landonwer in the province, with about 100,000 hectares of forest -- is cutting 800 to 1,000 hectares a year of tree species like the lenga beech (Nothofagus pumilio) and the Antarctic beech (Nothofagus antarctica).

"The forest technicians of the Foresty Directorate say it is recommended not to exploit more than 350 hectares a year, but nobody is monitoring it," says Ramaciotti.

In Tierra del Fuego, private companies can own the land, but the province maintains authority over the forests. Nevertheless, Ramaciotti said the government lacks the political will to regulate the operations of the companies.

GUATEMALA CITY - Geologists from Germany, Guatemala, Switzerland and the United States have just begun environmental studies of Guatemala's Petén Itzá lake, located 510 km north of the capital.

Mark Brenner, head of the month-long study sponsored by the U.S. University of Florida, said the scientists are focusing on lake sediment to study as a means to understand the geological and ecological history of Petén.

"This aquatic body is the only one that meets the conditions we need in Central America, because it is 160 meters deep," Brenner told Tierramérica.

Julián Tezecún, president of the Lake Basin Community Association, called for the study to also determine the causes behind the death of fishes, the degree of contamination of the water and its oxygenation levels. "We send samples to laboratories, but we never get a response," said Tezecún.

BOGOTA - More than 450 service stations in Colombia have sold bio-gasoline -- a mix of 90 percent gasoline with 10 percent carburant alcohol -- to more than 1.5 million drivers since Feb. 1.

The bio-gas effort involves the departments of Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Meta, Casanare and some towns in Boyacá, said Julio César Vera, hydrocarbon director at the Ministry of Mining and Energy.

Vera told Tierramérica that the program, launched in late 2005 in the largest cities of the western departments of Nariño, Cauca and Valle del Cauca, will be extended to the rest of the country as the supplies of carburant alcohol increase.

The arrival of biofuel in central Colombia will counteract the price hikes in gasoline and curb emissions of polluting particulate in the atmosphere, Vera said.

MEXICO CITY - Delegates from more than 100 countries agreed to pass on to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) the formulation of a strategic management plan for the more than 70,000 chemical products existing in global markets.

The agreement, "Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management," is not binding like the chemicals-related UN Conventions of Rotterdam, Stockholm and Basil. But unlike those treaties, which oversee the use and transport of some but not all substances, the new pact will encompass all chemicals.

It was achieved "after arduous negotiations", and now will become a concrete program, UNEP director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ricardo Sánchez, told Tierramérica.

The governments committed to define this plan -- which will include training for developing countries, evaluation of risks, and monitoring -- at the global conference on chemical products management held in United Arab Emirates earlier this month.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Dozens of products deeveloped by indigenous peoples of the Amazon will be presented at the eighth conference of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Mar. 20-31 in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba.

Among them, a mushroom that cures blindness, and three types of medications to counteract the venom of the much-feared pitviper jararaca (Bothrops jararaca).

The pharmaceuticals and cosmetics are produced by indigenous groups of the northeastern Upper Rio Negro, especially the Baniwa tribe, demonstrating "the wealth of the Amazon and of traditional knowledge," Jecinaldo Barbosa, president of the Brazilian Amazon Association of Indigenous Organizations, told Tierramérica.

Awareness of these products will serve as a basis for debate on intellectual property rights and the fair distribution of profits and other benefits, he said.