MANAGUA - The World Wildlife Fund is promoting voluntary certification programs in Nicaragua for lumber processors and furniture factories committed to sustainable development of forests.

Of 700,000 hectares of certified forests in Central America, Nicaragua holds at least 20,000, and the WWF considers it a priority to improve the situation, Steve, Gretsinger, the fund's regional forestry director, told Tierramérica.

Certifying products come from properly managed forests is a mechanism for halting deforestation and offers concrete benefits, such as more sales and broader acceptance on the market, he said.

The WWF has set up its second forestry business network in the region, known as Jagwood+, and has already certified four companies that produce or process lumber.

The Nicaraguan government is supporting the initiative through related laws and in the search for markets so that more companies will apply for certification.

CARACAS - Hundreds of pink flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) chicks -- perhaps as many as 1,500 -- have been stolen during the past few weeks from Los Olivitos Marsh wildlife refuge, near the Caribbean and Maracaibo Lake, in northwest Venezuela.
The authorities were tipped off by anonymous reports.

Los Olivitos Marsh covers more than 25,000 hectares and is home to some 20,000 flamingoes, more than half the population of these birds in the country, according to projections based on the censuses conducted in 1996 and 1998.

These colorful, long-legged birds leave the marsh in March and return in July, and "there are still some 2,000 females nesting," says Beatriz Nava, of the environmental group Azul, which is demanding closer monitoring and protection of the area.

Officials searched 95 fishing boats and 22 small cargo vessels without finding any trace of the stolen birds. Experts from governmental Institute of Parks normally places identification rings on the flamingo chicks.

TEGUCIGALPA - The Honduran Environmental Prosecutor and the Secretariat of Natural Resources are to issue a new regulation on Feb. 13 that bans construction near the dams and reservoirs that supply water to the capital.

The problems affecting the potable water system in Tegucigalpa are in part the result of "severe deforestation of its main watersheds, to the point that it is believed that one of them has only five years of useful life left," environmental prosecutor Mario Chinchilla told Tierramérica.

"We are running out of water sources and the city is growing rapidly and uncontrollably. Entire hills have been cleared in order to build homes. We must urgently prohibit construction," he said.

Chinchilla announced that the new regulation would eventually apply to the entire country. Every summer, to attend to the higher demand, Tegucigalpa must ration its potable water six to 10 hours a day.