BUENOS AIRES - The Argentine capital now has two air quality monitoring stations that will for the first time allow officials to track the city's pollution levels and design policies to fight emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.

The unit at Centenario Park, inaugurated in late August in the middle of Buenos Aires, was the second link in a chain that began with the installation of a base in the residential neighborhood of Palermo, in the city's north. In the next few months two more will be set up in La Boca and in Barracas, in the south.

The aim is to evaluate air quality in four zones in order to have "a complete panorama about the main sources of contamination, and promote preventative policies on climate change," the government's environmental quality control director, Diego Martínez, told Tierramérica.

In Buenos Aires, located on flatlands swept by winds, live some 12 million people, with more than 3.5 million vehicles.

BOGOTA - Approximately 60,000 trees will be planted along the Integrated Mass Transit System being built in the western Colombian city of Cali to compensate for the trees that have to be removed to make way for the new routes.

Jaime Córdoba, president of the Cali Metropolitan Enterprise and promoter of the project, says the tree planting effort will improve the city's environment.

But Alejandro Sánchez, of the Foundation for the Defense of Animals and the Environment, said in a Tierramérica interview that a special fund is needed to monitor and preserve the species in the area affected by the project, which, he said, is dramatically altering the city's landscape.

The National Council on Economic Policy reported that 2.8 million dollars will be earmarked for the operative and environmental part of the mass transit project.

LIMA - A law passed recently in Peru states that mining companies will have to submit to rigorous standards for minimizing environmental harm and must present financial backing to ensure that once their operations end they will not leave behind contaminants.

And, beginning in 2006, a satellite monitoring system will assess their compliance with the law.

"Peru is becoming part of the Latin American vanguard when it comes to environmental legislation for mining," César Rodríguez, head of mining at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, told Tierramérica.

The government "will invest approximately 150,000 dollars in (satellite) equipment, and each company will have to contribute 20,000 to 30,000 dollars to install the corresponding monitoring equipment," he added.

In recent months, conflicts have been frequent between the mining companies and the local peasant communities, who are protesting the pollution of the water the use for irrigation.

RIO DE JANEIRO - The deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon saw a sharp reduction this year, but the future is uncertain, and there is no assurance that this positive trend will continue, say environmentalists and researchers.

The data suggest that the decline in deforestation could be maintained, concentrating efforts between June and August, the critical period for the destruction, said Carlos Souza, head of the Institute of Man and the Environment in the Amazon, IMAZON.

Other activists believe the victory is temporary, if the government does not adopt structural measures. The reduced rate of deforestation was a lucky coincidence of factors: low international prices for soybeans and beef, which slowed down the expansion of the agricultural frontier, they say.

The government announced in late August that the area deforested in the 11 months ending in July fell to 9,106 square km, half that of the previous period.

IMAZON, however, estimated total deforestation at 16,000 square km, counting the 12 months ending in July, for a decline of 38 percent. "It remains unacceptable. We have only returned to the average of the 1990s," commented Souza.