HAVANA - Scientists in Pinar del Río, 170 km from the Cuban capital, discovered a new orchid species, the Encyclia cajalbanensis, in the Sierra del Rosario forest, a mountainous zone of this biologically rich western province.

The flower, found by botanists José Lázaro Bocourt and Ernesto Mujica, has spatula-shaped petals measuring 14 millimeters, no perceptible aroma, and a yellow-green color, except for some purple streaks.

The Encyclia cajalbanensis belongs to the Encyclia hook genre, with species distributed throughout an area extending from the southern U.S. state of Florida, through the Antilles, Mexico and Central America, southwards to Paraguay and Argentina.

SANTIAGO - Citizens groups in Chile convinced the nation's Comptroller General to declare illegal the construction of a cemetery in a Santiago area ceded by the Housing Ministry without conducting an environmental impact study.

Two groups, Ecological Action and Defend the city announced Aug. 25 that the official agency had accepted their petitions. Now it is up to the housing minister, Jaime Ravinet, to issue an order to stop construction.

Work on the Canaan Cemetery, owned by an evangelical church, began on a parcel of land measuring 71,000 square meters in Padahuel, west of the capital.

Authorization for the cemetery violated statutes in favor of "unscrupulous entrepreneurs" who could charge high prices for funeral services and sales of burial plots, said Ecological Action coordinator Luis Mariano Rendón.

CARACAS - The municipal government of Libertador, which covers two-thirds of the Venezuelan capital, is taking in debris and solid waste and handing out food in the poor southwestern neighborhoods, inspired by similar programs in the Brazilian city of Curitiba.

"In the first community, we invested 700 dollars in food, and we collected 15 tons of waste," said program director Manuel Molina.

"Once we have been through four districts, we'll assess the program and will launch it for a one-year period. The aim is to clean up 300 dump sites in 187 ravines and eliminate 40 percent of the solid waste that is contaminating the city," he said.

Residents can swap five kilograms of cardboard or paper for a kilo of salt; two kilos of aluminum for a liter of milk; and for 25 kilos of scrap metal or 10 kilos of clothing, a kilo of rice or of corn flour.

SAN SALVADOR - Lawmakers, environmental authorities and municipal officials in El Salvador have set up a commission to draft a plan for sanitary landfills.

Just 23 of the country's 262 municipalities have adequate solid waste treatment systems.

The Ministry of Environment plans to construct eight sanitary landfills, with an investment of 38.5 million dollars, José Leonidas Rivera, general manager of the Salvadoran Municipal Development Institute, told Tierramérica.

According to the environmental laws in force, the landfills must be established by March 2004. But because most municipalities have not yet conducted the necessary preparatory work, parliament extended the deadline another year.

TEGUCIGALPA - Officials and residents in seven of the nine municipalities in the southern Honduran department of Valle have joined forces to reject the presence of foreign mining companies because of the environmental destruction they cause.

Soraya Reyes, governor of Valle, told Tierramérica that the Canadian and U.S. mining firms are interested in reactivating gold and silver exploitation, which in the past caused serious damage to local ecosystems, particularly through open pit mining.

In Valle, some nearly 68,000 hectares hold mining potential, particularly in El Tránsito, where foreigners arrived with gifts "trying to win us over so we wouldn't oppose the mining operations," local resident Isabel Flores said.

GUATEMALA CITY - The recently published "Global View of the Mayan Juridical System" consolidates the principles and values of the millenniums-old Mayan culture, says Santos Mendoza, leader of the Waqxaqi'Noj Indigenous Defense Office.

"Our aim is to show the Guatemalan people how the Mayan system existed, which has specific characteristics, and which are different from the official legal system," Mendoza told Tierramérica.

"Traditional Mayan law has an integral and flexible focus, whose essence is to seek solutions to compensate the victims," he said.

Sixty percent of the more than 11 million Guatemalans are indigenous, and in many native communities trials of Indians, many of whom do not speak Spanish, take place without translators.