CARACAS - The 75-hectare Parque del Este (East Park), a green area in the middle of the Venezuelan capital, will become smoke-free before the end of the year, announced Parks Institute spokeswoman Carolina Albarrán.

"In the areas where we see highest consumption of cigarettes -- a habit of 22 percent of the 26 million Venezuelans -- we are promoting agreements and ordinances to create ever more spaces free of tobacco smoke," Rose Melkon, of the Health Ministry's anti-tobacco program, told Tierramérica.

The program already includes the Parque del Oeste (West Park), also in Caracas, and the Parks Institute says it is studying an extension of the initiative to all areas under its authority.

HAVANA - Experts at the Cuban Institute of Meteorology's forecast center have designed a system -- still in the experimental stages -- for predicting local severe storms, which cause serious damage in this Caribbean island nation.

The scientists have already studied all cases of such local atmospheric phenomena reported between 1980 and 2003, and have defined five major patterns associated with storm formation.

The aim is to create an early warning system similar to the one that allows prediction of hurricanes, Orfilio Peláez, of the Cuban Meteorological Society, told Tierramérica.

Local severe storms tend to be accompanied by tornadoes, hail, marine downpours, lightning and strong winds and rain. The speed with which they form makes it difficult to forecast them, worsening their destructive power.

RIO DE JANEIRO - The "catadores" (informal garbage collectors) of Belo Horizonte, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, will launch their fifth Festival of Garbage and Citizenship.

"We are fighting for recognition of the service we provide the cities, producing environmental, economic and social benefits," Luis Henrique da Silva, head of the festival promoter, the Belo Horizonte Association of Collectors of Reusable Material, told Tierramérica.

One objective of the event is to connect Brazilian catadores with their counterparts in the rest of Latin America, and their movement with the government, experts and activists. Some 50,000 people are expected to take part in the festival.

Experiences of garbage collectors in Brazil, Colombia, Egypt and India; solid waste management; and people on the streets will be topics of debate.

GUATEMALA CITY - The Friends of the Forest Association, in the Guatemalan municipality of Coatepeque, is promoting a conservation program for sea turtles along the southwestern beaches of Tilapa and Ocós, on the Pacific coast.

Gatherers collect eggs from the turtle nests for this project, which runs from July to November.

"From each person we ask for 20 percent of the total collected in order to sell on the local market or other points in the country," association president Ligia de León told Tierramérica. "We have already carried out several egg harvests, and with the first hatching, we released the baby turtles to the sea," she added.

The program also includes environmental education workshops for fishing communities and turtle egg gatherers.

There are six types of sea turtles found along the Guatemalan coast. The most endangered is the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriaceae), according to official statistics.

SANTIAGO - The medical board of the Chilean city of Nuble, 500 km south of the capital, has issued a warning about the potential harmful effects of the imminent opening of the Nueva Aldea Industrial Forestry Complex of the CELCO company.

The association of physicians believes that the waste discharge from the pulp plant will be a strong and irreversible threat to the health of more than 45,000 people who use the water of the Itata River for their own consumption, for fishing or for crop irrigation.

The regional president of the board, Carlos Rojas, told Tierramérica that the substances produced in the bleaching process, such as resins and organochlorides, can lead to cancer and genetic malformations.

The board also warns that dumping the waste into the ocean, as has been announced, will not resolve the problem.