GUATEMALA CITY - A major effort is under way in Guatemala to boost visits to the country's Maya ruins. This includes renovation of the international airport in Santa Elena, in the northern department of Petén.

Construction will last one year and cost around 2.5 million dollars. The remodel aims to turn the Mundo Maya airport -- Guatemala's second largest, with more than 150,000 passengers a year -- into the main access point to the ancient Maya archeological sites.

Petén, on the border with Mexico and Belize, was a center of the millennia-old Maya culture, and is home to one of the most important settlements discovered so far, such as Tikal.

Daniel Mooney, director of the Guatemalan Tourism Institute, told Tierramérica that the airport update entails ''a modern design, with Maya spirit and tropical exuberance.''

It is a real possibility that the airport could become a ''transcontinental'' terminal, given its ''privileged'' location in the Mesoamerican region, said Guatemala's President Oscar Berger.

BUENOS AIRES - A small town in Argentina's southern Patagonia region has set up a laboratory for the production of clean fuel produced with clean energy.

The project is being developed in Koluel Kalke, in Santa Cruz province, near the town of Pico Truncado, where a hydrogen plant operates.

Hydrogen is obtained by taking apart water molecules through an electrical process, using energy generated by the wind.

Juan Bolcich, head of the Argentine Hydrogen Association, told Tierramérica that the project ''is an example of using clean and renewable energies for Argentina and the world.''

The program, which will supply clean fuel to the Koluel Kalke population, is part of a broader United Nations project for the use of renewable energy on all the world's continents.

COCHABAMBA - The project Water for All, being developed in the outskirts of the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba to provide potable water to the poorest population, could soon receive fresh financing after winning the SEED award on Apr. 22.

''Thanks to the award we have made contact with institutions in the global arena with great potential for consolidating sources of financing and assistance,'' project director Gustavo Heredia told Tierramérica.

The SEED (Supporting Entrepreneurs in Environment and Development) prize entails promotion of the winning projects amongst cooperation agencies, NGOs and governments to seek additional funding. It is sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program and the United Nations Development Program.

Water for All, launched this year and with a mandate through 2009, is headed by the private company Programa Agua Tuya (Your Water Program), in alliance with the Cochabamba municipal agency SEMAPA and the Bolivian Pro Habitat Foundation.

The project ensures that water service rates remain affordable by building secondary networks and household connections linked to the main network run by SEMAPA.

The residents benefiting from the project so far number 3,000, and pay 30 cents on the dollar per cubic meter of water, instead of the 2.5 dollars per cubic meter they had to pay for water delivered by tanker trucks.

MEXICO CITY - Pressure from environmental groups was key in winning the quick release of activist Araceli Domínguez, imprisoned for denouncing the deaths of dolphins in the Mexican resort of Cancún.

''National and international pressure ensured appropriate treatment and quick processing of the arrested woman,'' Patricio Martin, a spokesman for the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law, which closely followed the activist's case, told Tierramérica.

Domínguez, president of the Mayab Ecologist Group, which is active in the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancún is located, was arrested Apr. 23 on charges of defamation brought by dolphin owners.

The activist, who had denounced the illegal importation of dolphins from the Salomon Islands and the deaths of some of these marine mammals, was released Apr. 27, after the accusers withdrew the charges.

Environmental groups threatened to boycott Cancún tourism and threatened to denounce Mexico's President Vicente Fox before the North American Environmental Commission, putting the authorities and the accusers in a tight spot, which ultimately led to Domínguez's release, says Martin.

BOGOTA - The Colombian rural development institute, INCODER, is banning from May 1 to 30 the fishing, storage, sale and transport of the tiger shovelnose catfish (Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum) in the Magdalena River basin, which crosses national territory from north to south.

A second ban period for protecting this fish population is slated for Sep. 15 to Oct. 15.

INCODER general manager Arturo Vega told Tierramérica the catfish bans are one of the options the government has for protecting the species' reproductive period, thus allowing the normal development of the fish and maintain the population.

LIMA - With the backing of non-governmental organizations and of most of the municipal leaders, neighborhood groups in Chilca, a small Peruvian city 64 km south of Lima, announced mobilizations against the planned construction of a thermoelectric plant just 500 meters from the town's limits.

Chilca has lagoons whose water and mud are said to have curative properties, and residents argue that the thermoelectric plant would hurt the local ecosystem.

The project, which has the support of the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the mayor of Chilca, would use natural gas to generate 520 megawatts at a plant that would suction 587,000 liters of seawater per minute to cool its turbines.

''The water would be dumped back in the sea a few degrees warmer, and that would alter the marine life. Furthermore, emissions of smoke and electromagnetic radiation would threaten the environment,'' Carlos Franco, coordinator of the NGO Foro Ecológico, told Tierramérica.

TEGUCIGALPA - The Honduran Environmental Prosecutor is investigating the state-run electrical energy company and a forestry company for the massive logging of the Guacerique River basin.

The Guacerique flows into Los Laureles reservoir, which provides a third of the potable water supply to the capital. The reservoir level has fallen sharply as a result of the deforestation, forcing authorities to ration water supplies.

Environmental prosecutor Aldo Santos told Tierramérica that in December authorization was given to cut down 2,100 trees in the area, but around 3,600 pines were cut, and that ''there signs of irregularity in the authorization.''

The river basin is a nature reserve area where it is prohibited to cut down pines. ''Irreversible environmental damage has occurred. Our investigations indicate that it all took place without obtaining an environmental license. It is essential to make the responsible parties pay,'' Santos said.