MEXICO CITY - The environmental watchdog Greenpeace at the end of the year will release the results of a survey on the use of genetically modified organisms by food companies in Mexico.

So far, out of around 50 companies, fewer than 20 responded timely to the group's questionnaire, others took their time, and a few expressed their displeasure.

"There is a category of executive who is unaccustomed to being questioned and informing the public about the company's products, but some alrady responded or will do so soon, because they know that this benefits their trademark and the consumers," Areli Carreon, head of Greenpeace’s consumers campaign in Mexico, told Tierramérica.

The survey is part of the campaign "Transgenics on my table? No!", which the group hopes will discourage consumption of foods containing genetically modified products.

RIO DE JANEIRO - A drought is taking a toll on the Mato Grosso Pantanal, a 210,000-square-km floodplain in central-western Brazil, while the Amazon, to the north, is struggling to overcome five months of lack of rainfall.

A traditional measure of the Paraguay River, in Ladario, near the Bolivian border, has already dropped to 88 cm, lower than the previous drought, of 2001. And it will continue to decline, as rainfall has failed to materialize along the river’s tributaries.

Sergio Galdino, hydrologist with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Agency, told Tierramérica that he fears a new long-term drought is beginning, like that of 1964-1973, when the waters fell below the point at which the Ladario measuring stick has been installed since 1900.

The low waters of the Paraguay River, whose watershed includes the Pantanal, affects water transport and promotes over-fishing, but favors farming, freeing up fertile lands that were previously flooded.

BOGOTA - Cormagdalena, the regional environmental agency of the Magdalen River, signed an agreement with the Colombian government’s hydrology, meteorology and environmental studies institute to measure contamination along this main water route.

Horacio Arroyave, director of Cormagdalena, told Tierramérica that the study aims to collect statistical information about the river’s pollution in order to draw up strategies for clean up.

At a forum earlier this month in Barranquilla, in northern Colombia, the official said that "many talk about the Magdalena River as the country’s giant sewer, but we don’t have reliable information about its water quality."

Cormagdalena is a state-run enterprise whose mission is to preserve the environment and fish resources of this river, which runs 1,540 km south to north across Colombia, flowing into the Caribbean Sea.

TARIJA - The municipal government of Sucre needs 1.5 million dollars to conserve and protect Cal Orko, the world’s largest bed of dinosaur tracks.

A tectonic fault, rain, wind, erosion and the activity of Bolivia’s largest cement facotry threaten the 1.2 km wall of rock, 100 meters high, that holds the impressions of more than 5,000 footprints of 294 dinosaurs.

Roxana Acosta, Sucre’s municipal tourism director, told Tierramérica that the city government began negotiations with Bolivian and international organizations to collect funds to begin a conservation project this year for the wall dating back to the Cretaceous period.

The international science team that certified and is studying the discovery is headed by Swiss paleontologist Christian Meyer.

TEGUCIGALPA - The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is promoting a program for food security, appropriate technology, and environmentally friendly management in the 24 most impoverished municipalities of the Honduran interior.

The food security program, PESA, responsible for carrying out the project, aims to ensure the economic and social well being of some 4,500 families directly, and around 22,500 people indirectly.

Roger Argueta, PESA’s communications officer, told Tierramérica that the project will begin a second four-year phase in Honduras, given the excellent results of the first phase.

FAO representative in Honduras Compton Paul said the efforts through PESA are part of "a broad strategy... to help erradicate hunger and malnutrition in the country."

SAO PAULO - Some 200 presenters will participate in Biofach Latin America, Nov. 16-18 in Rio de Janeiro, one of the continent’s largest organic agriculture fairs.

Companies from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Europe plan to attend the fair in Brazil, where the market for products produced without pesticides or chemical additives moves 150 million dollars a year.

"It is a veyr important fair for the state of Rio, which has enormous potential due to the quality of production. We are working with the farmers in converting from the commercial farming model to organics, which has wide acceptance on the international market," Heliana Marinho, land development manager for the Brazilian small company support service (SEBRAE), told Tierramérica.

Biofach will include seminars on the carbon market, aimed at curbing climate change, and renewable energies, among other topics.