SANTIAGO - A group of neighbors in the Chilean capital won the international prize for protection of cultural heritage, a 10,000-dollar award given by the Andrés Bello Foundation, for their defense of the historic Bellavista district, located on the banks of the Mapocho River.

The neighbors worked with civil society organizations to fight the construction of a highway that was originally designed to pass through Bellavista, one of Santiago's oldest and most typical neighborhoods.

Under the new design, the seven-km tract of the highway will follow the Mapocho River instead of crossing the residential district.

HAVANA - Waste dumped by a sugarmill in Guantánamo, on the eastern extreme of Cuba, caused a fish-kill in the Guaso River, which forms part of one of the country's eight main river basins.

Due to "operational negligence," the factory dumped sugarcane must into the river, in which 17 contamination sites have been recorded. The mill received a fine equivalent to just 200 dollars.

Meanwhile, experts have yet to determine what caused a similar fish-kill in mid-February in the Havana river of Almendares.

CARACAS - The Ministry of Environment, the FUDENA organization and the residents of the coastal state of Falcón, in northwest Venezuela, have drawn up an environmental management plan to recover the Cuare-Morrocoy region.

The area suffers environmental problems, despite the demarcations of the Cuare Wildlife Refuge and the Morrocoy National Park, due to poor solid waste management and the lack of an integrated system to process sewage.

The three-year plan covers those two problems and includes initiatives to develop tourism, clean up the urban settlements in protected areas, and track the environmental impacts on the Tocuyo River watershed.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Bankers, representatives from multilateral institutions and environmentalists from dozens of countries are to meet in Rio de Janeiro Mar 14-15 to discuss the role of the financial world in sustainable development.

The event is organized by the Financial Institutions Initiative, which, under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program, since 1992 has mobilized 275 large institutions to sign commitments aimed at reducing pollution and taking environmental issues into account when making loan and investment decisions.

The recommendation of the roundtable discussion will be presented at the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, Mexico, Mar 18-22) and at the World Conference on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 26-Sep 4). For more information, connect yourself to: www.unepfi.net/rio.