BOGOTA - The demand for Colombian organic products expanded last year 20 percent, says a report from the Foreign Trade Ministry.

Of the nearly 10 billion dollars in exports in 2001, 5.3 million dollars represented "green" products, most of which (4.5 million dollars) were organically produced aromatic herbs, said Foreign Trade Minister Angela Orozco.

Organic farming is based on traditional techniques in planting, fertilizing and harvest, and does not require chemical fertilizers or pesticides. "The eyes of the world are on the demand for sustainably produced products," and Colombia has great possibilities in that sector, said Orozco.

The country is home to 6,000 plant species with known medicinal effects and nearly 120 aromatic species with major export potential.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Federal Environmental Protection Prosecutor will attempt this year to implement protection this year for eight of the 100 areas in the country undergoing intense deforestation, and will boost forestry inspections 38 percent, in an attempt to halt the annual average loss of 1.1 million hectares of woodlands.

Seven million cubic meters of timber, nearly half of Mexico's total yearly output, is marketed illegally.

Forested areas, which now cover approximately 55 million hectares, will disappear in five or six decades if the current pace of destruction continues, warns the government's Environmental Secretariat.

Environmental groups applaud the Federal Prosecutor's decision, but say it is still not enough to confront the magnitude of the problem.

In 2001, the authorities seized 56,000 cubic meters of lumber, arrested 376 people for "environmental crimes" and applied more than 11 million dollars in fines.

LIMA - Urban expansion in the northeastern Peruvian city of Iquitos, the largest of the Peruvian Amazon, threatens the survival of the nearby Alpahuayo Mishana reserve, one of the 200 white sand forests in the world.

Tenant farmers from Iquitos, capital of Loreto department, periodically try to take over and settle areas of the nature reserve, some 20 km from the city. They assert that the protected area "cannot be so close to an urban center."

With an area of 57,600 hectares, Alpahuayo Mishana holds more than 500 unique plant and animal species, more than 500 varieties of trees per hectare, and nearly 100 plant species that are very rare or endemic - which do not exist anywhere else in the world.

According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), some 398 animal and plant species were in danger of extinction n Peru in 2000, a figure that only Brazil surpasses in Latin America, with 609 threatened species.

BUENOS AIRES - The number of people sleeping on the streets in Buenos Aires has nearly tripled in just three months due to Argentina's economic crisis, the lack of jobs, and restrictions on circulating cash, which make even coins for handouts scarce.

Since the beginning of the year, the number of people sleeping in parks, bus and train stations, under bridges, or simply on the sidewalk has jumped from 1,200 to 3,500.

Men, entire families, and even the elderly come to the city from the provinces or outskirts in search of some sort of work, such as watching over parked cars, in exchange for some coins. They often decide to sleep in the city to save the transportation fare back home.

Non-governmental organizations are distributing small rations of bread and milk to feed the homeless.