GUATEMALA CITY - El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras will draft a transnational operations manual in the next four months for fighting the trafficking of animals in danger of extinction.

The goal will be "to halt the smuggling of flora and fauna amongst the three countries," said Fátima Vanegas, Guatemalan delegate of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor project.

The authorities in each country will train the border officials so that when they find contraband species they will return them as soon as possible to their natural habitat.

Omar Molina, technical director of the National Council of Protected Areas, explained that with the new policy they will be able to protect species like the jaguar (Panthera onca), the scarlet macaw (Ara macao) and the Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum) -- all endangered species.

MEXICO CITY - Environmentalists and other activists celebrated April 1 in eight Mexican cities the first World Day Against Transgenics, another name for genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

"It will be an important date for talking about transgenics, but especially for showing that there are other alternatives of production and consumption of organic food without risks," Areli Carreón, an activist with the watchdog group Greenpeace in Mexico, told Tierramérica ahead of the event.

The initiative, which involves 300 cities in 40 countries and in many cases entailed fairs offering organically grown food, was originally promoted by activists in France.

In Mexico, peasants, artists, intellectuals and organic farmers planned to participate in the activities, said Carreón.

CARACAS - The Venezuelan government will compensate around 3,500 poor families who were affected by the expansion of Lake Valencia that occurred in 2005, but hundreds more complain about the lack of assistance.

Watershed official Luisa Arteaga told Tierramérica that "cleaning up the lake -- for which 70 million dollars was invested -- could take six years, after sewage ponds are built to collect the discharge from industry and neighboring populations, and it is transferred to treatment plants."

To prevent the overflow of the lake, which covers 340 square km, some of its 17 feeder rivers will be rerouted and local residents will be involved in a clean-up campaign.

On World Water Day, Mar. 22, residents, including children, picked up garbage along the lakeshore.