RIO DE JANEIRO - The July-November whale watching season has begun in Brazil, a tourist activity that is in its nascent stages but quickly growing. This year the northeastern state of Bahia will increase the number of embarkation points from three to five, in hopes of doubling the number of people going out in boats to see whales like the humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae), which gather there to reproduce.

In the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, the attraction is the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), which can be seen from the beaches, and whose population has been increasing eight percent a year here, says José Truda Palazzo, coordinator of a project to study and protect the species.

Worldwide, ecotourism moves a billion dollars a year, and serves as "a tool for conservation" and environmental education, according to Eduardo Camargo, of the Humpback Whale Institute. Brazil has protective laws, broad public knowledge and a growing whale population to draw many more tourists, he said.

SANTIAGO - The Chilean National Environment Commission, CONAMA, is training the militarized police, known here as Carabineros, to protect the country's biodiversity.

The program is part of an initiative from the police agency's high command, says Macarena Mellado, head of communications for CONAMA in the O'Higgins region, adjacent to the metropolitan region of Santiago, where the project began.

Since last month, police and other officials from the forestry, fishing, farming and livestock sectors, along with experts from the National Office of Emergencies, have been receiving training from CONAMA experts in the importance of biodiversity, international treaties to protect it, and Chile's national strategy, with emphasis on local problems and priorities, Mellado told Tierramérica.

HAVANA - A development plan in the village of Cocodrilo, on the southwestern Cuban Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), aims to draw ecotourists to one of the most important projects for hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) management in the Caribbean.

The sea turtle division at the Cuban Fisheries Research Center will be "one of the leading attractions of this tourist town," architect Robiel Alvarez, one of the project's experts, told Tierramérica.

The sea turtle population in Cuban waters was calculated to be 110,905 adults at the end of the past decade.

Cocodrilo has just 327 residents, who live mainly from fishing, and ecotourism could become an important new source of income for them.

CARACAS - Tests involving 209 informal miners, their spouses and children in El Callao, a mining village in southeast Venezuela, showed that 105 have toxic levels of mercury from vapor inhalation, with symptoms including clumsy movement, diarrhea, vomiting and difficulty speaking.

It is estimated that the water, soil and air in that zone is contaminated each year with around 12 tons of mercury, used to obtain gold from ore. The entire southeastern region takes in 60 tons, in the watersheds of the Yuruari and Caroní rivers.

"Fish, plants and humans are contaminated. With deforestation the sediment increases in the rivers, but despite the evidence the government opened up to mining in the new territory, the Sierra de Imataca forestry reserve, in the far east, where thousands of miners with huge quantities of mercury will work," María Eugenia Gil, of the environmental group Aguaclara (Clearwater), told Tierramérica.

GUATEMALA CITY - In the Guatemalan capital some 2,300 tons arrive each day at one huge central dump, according to a study conducted for the city government by the company Guatemalan Environmental Engineering Services.

Company executive Christian Seleézar told Tierramérica that around 2,500 independent garbage collectors, known as 'guajeros', work in that dump. They "closely examine it to determine what is garbage and what can be recycled or has some value," among the material brought there by 520 trucks. The rubbish is ultimately simply covered up with dirt.

Conrado Deguer, municipal environmental advisor, said studies have been ordered to determine what to do with the dump, which is much criticized for the smells emanating from it, and the contamination it causes, including of the water sources that supply the capital.

TEGUCIGALPA - With no need for iron bars for reinforcement, or cement, women in the village of Campo Cielo, in the outskirts of the Honduran capital, began four months ago to build ecological houses with sand, soil and plastic bottles -- and they are proud of what they have accomplished.

The group, Mujeres Unidas (Women United), decided to use environmentally friendly techniques, although in the beginning "the idea seemed crazy," Bessy Lara said as she showed Tierramérica her organization's new office.

"All the women in the group work in collecting non-returnable plastic containers and filling them with soil or sand," to build houses and water tanks with the capacity of around 25 barrels, she said.

"People believe they can only live in houses of cement and brick, but that's not the case," said Andreas Froese, a consultant with the Irish mission of the Catholic Church (TROCAIRE), which is backing the women's initiative.