News from Around the Hemisphere, Jan 15, 2014 (reposted from original location)

article from January 15, 2014
By Jamie Douglas

First off, an apology to my readers: I have not been writing as often as I would like, as I am not well... but not ill enough to refrain from occasionally spouting my opinions and pointing out interesting facts.

Mexico’s continuing problems

Poor Mexico! After the recent elections, there was hope that the violence would subside somewhat, but it is only getting worse in the states that have been flashpoints in the unfortunate war on drugs, which has cost over 100,000 lives over the past few years – one of which is the state of Michoacán, where I used to reside until I went to buy the newspaper for my morning coffee at Pátzcuaro restaurant where expats, artists and criminals alike would mingle.

Since that morning eight years ago, when I was shocked to see photos of 22 mutilated corpses on the back pages of La Voz de Michoacán, things have gotten progressively worse. In a recent article in Proceso [spanish], it is revealed that the Knights Templar, successors to the Zeta crime syndicate, have now entered politics on behalf of the PRI, the hyper-corrupt Mexican political party that bled the country dry for generations. After a brief respite, the PRI is back in power, with a little help from their usual election fraud along with the Knights Templar, who have become an economic force to contend with, as they have made hundreds of millions of dollars running the port of Lázaro Cárdenas and illegally mining iron ore.

As a result of long-standing collusion between the local, state and federal government and the cartels, Michoacán has come close to being an ungovernable failed state, and the neighboring states up and down the Pacific coast may follow.

When will the powers that be realize that the unfortunate war on drugs had the same results as the prohibition in the United States did? It enabled criminal elements to take over the country with diluted and dangerous unregulated alcohol, corrupting most major police forces by flooding them with money.

Panama and Nicaragua race for a wider canal across the isthmus

In 2006, Panama’s then-president Martin Torrijos announced a plan to expand the Panama Canal so it could accommodate today’s VLCCs. He boldly stated that this project would turn Panama into a first-world country. Perhaps he did not anticipate all of the corruption that would inevitably follow this proposal. Perhaps he underestimated the larceny of the Martinelli administration. But one thing is glaringly obvious: The conglomerate that bid on the work grossly underestimated the cost and time for building this ambitious project – and therein lies the current problem. The Panama Canal Authority is refusing to pay for the cost overruns and has threatened to take over the project by force mejeure.

Regardless of what will happen in this chapter of Panama Canal history, Panama will not be a first-world nation until it rids itself of all the scams that are at home there, including the banking and real estate sectors, much of which is run by American and Canadian expats, con men and women and convicted criminals trying to sell anything they can think of.

Meanwhile, a Chinese investor has put together a consortium of wealthy business people from China to build a canal clear across the isthmus in Nicaragua. This project is slated to begin in December of this year; and if successfully completed, it will be quite a thorn in the side of the Panama Canal Authority. But with the enormous nature of the project, one should not hold their breath. China may be riding high at the moment, but nothing lasts forever. The Chinese economy is already feeling the pain of the costs of their armed forces and high-speed rail networks.

I wonder why Mexico has not pursued the logical choice of building a trans-isthmus canal from Tehuantepec to the Caribbean. Perhaps the cost and logistics are too prohibitive, along with the opposition of the indigenous people.

Venezuela and crime

Venezuela’s sweetheart, actress and former Miss Universe Monica Spear, and her husband, Thomas Berry, were brutally murdered a few days ago when their car broke down. Their little 5-year-old daughter was also shot but survived.

Venezuela is a spectacular nation, blessed with abundant natural resources and stunning beauty. From Angel Falls to the Caribbean islands, nature has blessed this nation with abundant and fertile lands, not to mention the crude oil reserves in Lake Maracaibo and the gold in the ground.

Unfortunately, the riches of the nation have been distributed unequally to the point of forcing many into a life of serious crime. The homicide rate is near the top of world statistics, and the prisons are overflowing. The staggering amount and wide distribution of serious crimes is affecting everyone from the very poor to the very rich. Ironically, Monica Spear and her family moved to Miami out of fear for their safety. Nearing the end of a holiday vacation, fate caught up with them.

If there is one good thing that can be said about it, it is the fact that thousands of people came to her funeral and thousands more protested the senseless violence the Bolivarian nation is confronting.

And now the weather

After an early spring followed by another cold front, the Southern Cone countries of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina have been hit with several waves of severe weather, which included some of the most intense lightning and thunder this observer has ever witnessed.

Torrential rains in Brazil took their toll in human lives, and Uruguay also had several casualties, including a police officer who was killed in downtown Montevideo when hit by a swinging door he was trying to secure during one of the storms, which packed winds of up to 100 km/h.

Argentina also suffered one of the worst heat waves in their recorded history that was compounded by the failure of the electric grid in Buenos Aires, causing brownouts, blackouts and several heat-related casualties. The worst incident happened in the small beach town of Villa Gesell, where four youngsters were killed on the beach by lightning and another 22 injured. The tragedy happened so quickly that the victims never had a chance to escape.

I will not opine on the cause of all this severe weather, from the polar vortex to the unseasonably severe cold in Antarctica that caused an Australian tour boat to get stuck in the pack ice, forcing other important scientific programs to be interrupted when several additional ships had to be sent to their rescue. The Australian organizer of the trip defended his expedition as having valid scientific value by explaining that the lay observers on the ship were qualified to make observations of the current conditions in the region.

Antarctica, being the last frontier on this planet, has been exploited for high-end tourism for several years, and this latest problem is no different from any other for-profit organized tour.

Jamie Douglas

At large in Uruguay

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

The Wonders of Iguazu Falls

article from July 20, 2012

by Julie R Butler

Located at the edge of the farthest reaches of northeastern Argentina, they are called Cataratas do Iguaçu in Portuguese, Cataratas del Iguazú in Spanish, and Iguazu Falls in English. In the indigenous Tupí-Guaraní language, the name Yguasu means “big water.” Whatever you call them, they are magnificent, worthy of being named one of the “New 7 Wonders of Nature” as well as being a double UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to the existence of separate national parks on the Brazilian and the Argentinean sides of the river.

The Iguazu River begins far to the east of the falls, near the city of Curitiba on the western slope of the coastal mountains called Serra do Mar. It makes its way over 800 miles through dense, semitropical forest across the basalt plateau that was formed by a lava flow, over the edge of which the falls cascade so dramatically.

Rather than spanning straight across the river, this ledge stretches for 1.4 miles, bending and curving across a river that, helped by the numerous islands just above the drop-off, spreads itself out in a wide bend, providing for many waterfalls and cascades, to spectacular effect.

Devil’s Throat, so-named because it is in the form of a narrow chasm that channels an impressive half of the river’s flow, is the highlight for anyone who comes to experience this wonder of the natural world. Visitors to Argentina’s Iguazu National Park can ride the tourist train to the farthest station and then follow the catwalk that crosses the placid upper waters from island to island to reach the viewing platform at the very edge of the chasm. As one draws near, the sight of spray rising in a beckoning fog quickens the heart with anticipation. Upon arrival, the initial up-close encounter with the power of so much water plummeting at the chokepoint is breathtaking. Not only is the cascading water mesmerizing, but the misty spray, the tenacity of the tufts of green clinging to life on the precipices, and the grandeur of it all cause the visitor to linger, basking in the amazing energy of this inimitable setting.

The other train stop, named the Catarata Station, is the access point for viewing more of the falls via two walking circuits: the Upper Trail and the Lower Trail. If time or ailing knees are a concern, the upper path is the one to go with. It offers many views of the long line of cascades from the tops of waterfalls such as Adam and Eve that reveal its vast scope – complete with stunning rainbows, a veritable Garden of Eden (minus the apples, as it’s too hot here).

For the good-of-knee, the lower of the two trails is well worth the effort, bringing the visitor to the base of several cascades to experience the thrill of the water’s pounding arrival at the termination of its fall. This more extensive circuit also leads to a different part of the river, affording unforgettable panoramic viewpoints of the falls. Those who have scheduled plenty of time at the park can hop on a launch and head over to explore the wonders San Martin Island for a couple of hours.

Hikers who are interested in encountering some of the unique wildlife in the park may prefer to forego the train ride from the Visitors Center to the Catarata Station by taking the 15-minute walk along the Green Trail. For a much more intimate encounter with the natural setting, the off-the-beaten-path Macuco Nature Trail leads through the jungle to an isolated waterfall, requiring at least three hours to come and go.

Also available are excursions with Iguazu Jungle Explorer. The Great Adventure is a thrilling one-hour tour that combines a photo safari on an open 4x4 through the forest with a ride on a double-engine inflatable boat heading upriver through rapids to the mouth of Devil’s Throat, while the Nautical Adventure takes passengers along the shores of San Martin Island right up to the base of several falls. Both of these tours feature bilingual guides.

Spanish speakers will benefit from the intimate knowledge shared by the guides on the Ecological Tour, which navigates gently through the jungle on rowboats down a thread of the Upper Iguazu River. This tour through nature at its purest highlights the fact that the falls are not the only attraction of the park, and the farther away from the commotion of human activities one can get, the more likely they are spot an elusive puma, jaguar, or tapir.

Avid bird-watchers also flock to Iguazu Falls, as the multitude of birds that are known to live in the park represents almost half of the species that exist in Argentina, the eighth-largest country on the planet. The amazing Great Dusky Swift that nests on the sheer cliffs behind the falls is among the most intriguing of the feathered friends to be found at the falls.

  

And let’s not forget the romantics... Full moon tours offer either viewings of the moonrise over Devil’s Throat or full-moon-lit nighttime visits to the falls, each with dinner and a cocktail included, of course.

Additionally, the Yvyrá Retá Interpretive Center provides information about the Interior Atlantic Rainforest setting of the falls (and how fragile it is), as well as about the various cultures that have lived here throughout history. Visitors can even help the impoverished local indigenous community by purchasing unique Guaraní handicrafts in the park.

Photos by Jamie Douglas and Julie R Butler:

Julie R Butler is a writer, journalist, editor, and author of several books, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger To Strange Lands (click here for more info). She is a contributor to Speakout at Truthout.org, and her current blog is Connectively Speaking.

email: julierbutler [at] yahoo [dot] com, Twitter: @JulieRButler

South America News Roundup May 11, 2012: Dignified Death in Argentina, Quinoa in the Andes, Floods in Paraguay, Water Cannons in Chile

article from May 11, 2012

by Julie R Butler

Argentina: Dignified death law

The Argentine Senate has approved a “dignified death” law by a vote of 55-0, with 17 abstentions. The law was already passed in the Lower House last year. It eliminates the need for family members to find a judge who would sign a court order to refuse treatment or put an end to life-support.

Medical ethicists assure that removing feeding tubes is more humane than force-feeding the dying because the human body naturally shuts down its systems and can even induce feelings of euphoria that make the passing more calm and comfortable. Euthanasia is expressly prohibited by the new law, and the patient or representative must have signed document stating their wishes before a notary and two witnesses.

The Andes: Quinoa exports soar

Quinoa, a grain-like member of the spinach family, has been grown for food in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia for thousands of years. It is high in protein and has an excellent amino acid profile and good amounts of calcium, iron, and phosphorous. Like many indigenous foods, it was once looked down upon as “Indian food,” fit only for the poorest of the poor. But now, it has become a profitable cash crop for Peru and Bolivia, with a growing market in industrialized nations.

While this is good news for the farmers of these countries, it also raises several concerns. Suitable land is scarce in regions of Bolivia, causing violence over land claims. Another issue is that all of this nutritious food will be exported, leaving none left for the poorest of the poor.

Paraguay: Widespread flooding

Devastating floods began to hit the Chaco region of western Paraguay in mid-April. Some areas could not even accommodate emergency helicopters because of a lack of dry land.

The Paraguayan Chaco is nicknamed “Infierno Verde” (Green Hell), due to its extreme weather. The heat in the summer is intense, and the agriculture in the region has been plagued by extended droughts in recent years.

Heavy rains there continued through the end of the month, causing the affected area to spread to the capital city of Asunción, the latest region to have been declared a “state of emergency” due to flooding along the banks of the Río Paraguay.

As of April 29, 1,000 people had to be evacuated in Asunción and about 500 in Concepción, 570 km from the capital, while some 70,000 have been displaced in the Chaco.

Chile: Piñera, polls, and police

Recent news out of Chile serves as the perfect follow-up to the point I made recently in my article about the "Red Diaper Baby."

First, there is the recent polling that has Piñera’s approval rating dipping lower than it has ever been since he became president of Chile in 2010. This, despite the healthy economy, as food and fuel prices have fallen over the past few weeks. Political scientist Jose Viacava says that Chileans want more than good economic indicators; they are pushing for deeper reform in the country’s political and economic model. At least the president can take solace in the fact that the Concertación, the center-left opposition party, fares even worse in the polls. Perhaps part of the reason for so much discontent is that the carabineros spent US$6.7 million on 10 new riot control vehicles equipped with water cannons, feeding directly into the point that education reform activist, Camila Vallejo, was making in her response, as reported by The New York Times, to Piñera’s comment that “nothing in life is free. Someone has to pay”:

“Obviously someone has to pay, but there’s no reason why it must be families financing between 80 and 100 percent of it.” Why not the state — through taxes on large corporations, the nationalization of resources, a reduction in financing for the military? When yet another march ended in violence, Vallejo and her fellow students collected hundreds of tear-gas shells and brought them to La Moneda. “Here are more than 50 million pesos worth of tear-gas bombs,” announced Vallejo, money, she said, that could have been spent on education. Students formed the shells into a peace sign on the plaza, and Vallejo crouched in the center. The resulting image was published all over the world.

Julie R Butler is a writer, journalist, editor, and author of several books, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger To Strange Lands (click here for more info). She is a contributor to Speakout at Truthout.org, and her current blog is Connectively Speaking.

email: julierbutler [at] yahoo [dot] com, Twitter: @JulieRButler

Central America News Roundup Dec 15, 2011: Costa Rica Rains and Trade Relations, Panama Expat Murderers

article from December 15, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

Costa Rica: Rains and trade relations

Good news for our Tico friends: While you may get the impression that it’s raining all over the world, it is not raining here in Argentina; and regardless of your present dilemma, the rains will stop soon. But it is true that this last rainy season has eaten well into your current verano. If things go as they have in the rest of the world, you can expect a very dry, dry season. Keep your rubber boots and umbrellas handy for the time being, especially if you live over on the Caribbean side.

Even in regard Costa Rica, the United States is losing its hold on trade. With the US having treated the region like a giant backyard banana plantation for years without giving any respect to the area’s inhabitants, China has entered the Latin American market with gusto. After establishing itself successfully in the developing nations of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil and Argentina, China is now courting smaller countries like Costa Rica with massive loans on favorable terms to improve their infrastructure. The Asian Giant has just concluded negotiations to assist the small Central American nation with an upgrade of the Recope refinery in the Caribbean Port of Moín, offering US$900 million to finance the upgrade from a capacity of 20,000-25,000 barrels per day to 60,000 barrels. And as an additional insult to the gringos who built the original facility, the construction work is to be carried out by an Australian company. Total expenditures are estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.25 billion.

If it were not so tragic for American workers, it would be ironic. The Chinese are going all over the world, spending all the US dollars they acquired in trade with the US, looking like the benefactors of the developing world, when in fact they are just the latest reincarnation of economic assassins as they get these nations into incredible debt, for which China will receive valuable licenses to extract minerals as well as creating huge plots of monoculture soy plantations, all for export to feed their hungry masses.

Maybe these countries should look instead at the USA to grant some of their generous aid, perhaps transferring some of their transfer-acquired technology north to the land of the unemployed and starving masses. You know, the richest nation in the world, where one in seven residents is receiving what used to be food stamps. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the politicians who are responsible for this mess, and I mean all of them.

Panama: Expat murderers

Some of you living in Panama may have heard about that nice steroid-pumped neighbor in Bocas del Toro, a certain William Holbert, aka “Wild Bill,” and his gangster moll, Laura Reese. The couple admitted to murdering five expats in that small community without anyone there getting particularly curious about what happened to their neighbors. They were apprehended while migrating north to Nicaragua, where they planned on settling in San Juan del Sur.

Now, it turns out that there is another victim to their reign of terror, a US business owner by the name of Jeffrey Klein who, according to the prosecutor general in Chiriquí Province in Panama, was also murdered by the infamous criminals.

I have written about the dangers new expats face from established crooks who prey on newcomers, but this is a reverse situation where it was the established nice expats who were murdered by a professional criminal. Watch out for each other.

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Two Top Natural Wonders: Iguazu Falls and the Amazon River

article from November 14, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

The voting stopped on 11/11/11 at 11:11:11 and the results are in! The "New 7 Wonders of Nature" have been selected! And the results give South America two well-deserved winners: the Amazon River and Iguazu Falls, a double whammy for Brazil and a partial one for Argentina, as the falls are shared between the two nations.

The Iguazu Falls are a very impressive series of about 275 separate falls, ranging in height from 200 feet to 270 feet along the 1.7-mile fault line that created them. I think anyone with the means to get there should experience this wonderful ecological area, home to thousands of species of plants and animals. It is a chance to explore a natural environment that has ceased to exist in many areas of Brazil.

Getting there is very simple from Brazil, Paraguay or Argentina. There are frequent flights as well as very comfortable buses serving the area, where an abundance of hotels, restaurants and other tourist-related facilities ensure that visitors will be taken care of for the recommended stay of at least a couple of days to really be able to enjoy the majesty of the falls.

The Amazon River, having also been chosen to join in the exclusive company of the other six natural wonders of the world, has recently been determined to be the world’s longest river, after satellite images proved its source to be hundreds of miles further than was previously thought, displacing the Nile as the holder of that honor. Regardless of any claims to length, it is doubtlessly the greatest river in the world, discharging a whopping 20% of the world’s freshwater into the oceans of our planet. Climates from extreme cold in the high Andes, where the Amazon River originates down to the oppressive equatorial heat of the Peruvian and Brazilian jungles are home to over one-third of the world’s flora and fauna so far discovered by scientists.

An amazing storehouse of life in all its forms has been created by the forces of nature. But it is now in danger of being decimated by human activity, such as mining, cattle ranching and soy cultivation. In addition, the energy-hungry nation of Brazil is currently fighting over construction of one of the world’s largest dams in this ecologically sensitive region. It is a battle of progress vs. preservation, a struggle that directly affects thousands of indigenous jungle dwellers in the region as well as the environment of a zone that plays such an enormous role in the planet’s ecology.

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

In the Heart of Malbec Land!   

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Central America News Roundup Sept 21, 2011: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua

article from September 21, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

Guatemala

The elections are headed for a runoff. On Sept 11, a massive 66% of 7.3 million eligible voters went to the polls for the general elections, which were to determine the presidency, the vice presidency, members of Congress and the Central American parliament as well as municipal elections. As usual, there were some shenanigans leading up to the elections, such as the wife of President Álvaro Colom, Sandra Torres, divorcing her husband in order to circumvent Article 186(c) of the constitution, which explicitly forbids relatives of the current president from participating in the presidential election. Nice try; but in the end, she was called out on her little gimmick. (Good thing for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from Argentina that there is no such law on the books there, where the husband-and-wife team was set to rule indefinitely in a laughable presidential relay, had Néstor not suddenly perished before he could take up the baton again.) The runoff will pit the two top vote winners, Otto Pérez Molina from the Patriotic Party (36.02%) and Manuel Baldizón of the renewed Democratic Liberty Party (23.21%), against each other. The runoff will be held November 6, 2011.

El Salvador

El Salvador is dealing with the pesticides used by the large multinationals operating there with impunity, having destroyed and contaminated a large portion of the nation’s water supply. Heavy metals are present in concentrations of more than one million times the norm. The presence of arsenic and other poisons lead to birth defects and a slow wasting away for the victims affected.

Unfortunately, crime is still a major problem in this small country, with every week counting more record-numbers of murders, armed robberies, assaults and rapes. Peace please!

Honduras

Honduras has been in the grip of a crime wave of its own for many years now, and it seems to have spilled over onto the formerly relatively peaceful Bay Islands, where recently, an Australian was shot in his spine for parking his bicycle in the bushes and obviously displeasing someone. Like El Salvador, the police forces are corrupt and incompetent, with the number of crimes solved hovering around 12%. It is the petty crimes that are being solved, while the narco-related murders are committed with impunity. I personally get the creeps every time I have to pass through Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula. To compound the worsening situation, the leading crusader against police corruption, Security Minister Oscar Alvarez, has resigned his portfolio after meeting with President Porfirio Lobo on Sept 10. I feel that his departure was not entirely voluntary, as he has been a source of irritation to the many corrupt police commanders blanketing the country. The good news is that they did not just assassinate him. It is rumored that he was forced to resign because top officials felt their major source of wealth was being threatened.

Nicaragua

Last weekend, Nicaragua celebrated Volks Fest, with over 90 different Volkswagen Beetles cruising the streets of Managua. The parade was made up of 40 Nicaraguan Bugs, as well as another 50 from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica. Many different models were seen, including the old VW camper, the 23-window van, Brazilian-made vans and the ever-popular Cabriolet.

President Daniel Ortega promised credit to a half a million campesinos along with 150,000 land titles during an appearance in Chichigalpa, in a blatant attempt to tilt the outcome of the coming election. Under cloudy skies that turned into a massive downpour, forcing the cancellation of the rest of the event, Ortega, accompanied by a few ministers as well as his wife, children and grandchildren, made the usual pre-election promises politicians all over the world make: A chicken in every pot – and so forth. I am sure all the poor campesinos have heard it all before, but the prospect of having their very own parcel of land will surely have them voting him back into office.

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

Where that Fine Malbec wine is ever present! Salud!

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Strip Mining in Uruguay

article from July 21, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

Uruguay, often referred to as “the Switzerland of South America,” is currently being confronted with a Swiss-made dilemma. The Swiss-owned Anglo-Indian Zamin Ferrous Aratiri Exploration Project has obtained the approval of the Uruguayan government to explore an area of 120,000 hectares in the east-central portion of this small nation.

In Uruguay, all subsurface minerals belong to the state; therefore, property owners who have been farming and ranching in this area are confronted with having their property expropriated to allow for the strip mining of low-grade iron ore that is to be shipped to China. The destruction of the land has already started, with landowners receiving a pittance for the damages caused to their properties.

A deep-water port is slated for the coast of Rocha Department, an area of unspoiled beauty, with its sensitive ecological lagoons, dunes and beaches. Some of my readers may be aware of the ecological and political fallout from the Finnish pulp mill that was built on the Rio Uruguay, polluting the air and water in Uruguay as well as neighboring Argentina. That not being sufficient, a Portuguese company wanted to build a similar mill nearby. But the prospect of the new deep-water port in Rocha now has this company more interested in building their plant near to that. La Paloma has been mentioned as a candidate, as there are hundreds of thousands of hectares that could be exploited by planting fast-growing Eucalyptus hybrids.

The mining idea certainly has very serious drawbacks, to my thinking. As it is envisioned, the ore will be crushed in situ.  Then by adding Mother Nature’s most precious resource, water, it will be converted into slurry and sent in a pipeline to the waiting bulk carriers heading to the iron smelters in China, probably by way of the newly expanded Panama Canal. Selling Uruguay by the pound! ...or by the cubic mile, more likely.

The main problem I foresee with this scheme, as I envision it, will be the slurry. Surely, the water will be extracted rather than being added to the gross tonnage of the ships – extracted and put into sediment ponds, which will eventually leak and pollute the pristine beaches of Rocha Department.

Oh, the lights just came on: that of course will lead to more job creation down the road for the former farmers and ranchers, and perhaps the vacationers will be able to supplement their income by cleaning the beaches, removing the penguin and sea lion carcasses.

So imagine the rolling hills of that area of Uruguay falling victim to open-pit mining. After they destroy the first 12,000 hectares, the government will have gotten used to the easy money and continue to grant more and more concessions to rape and destroy the Eastern Republic. And what will be the benefits to the people of this very special country? Cheaper nuts and bolts? Iron supplements? Maybe! 

The loss of such a large amount of fresh water in a nation that goes from drought to flood on a regular basis will surely have very serious consequences that will not be mitigated by creating 1,500 lousy mining jobs, roughly equal or smaller to the amount of people whose livelihoods will be destroyed. Never mind the internally displaced citizens, many of whom will end up moving to Montevideo, helping to enlarge the already sufficiently large population of the very poor there ...all this sacrifice for the Uruguayan government to get 5% of the take.

Jamie Douglas

Formerly La Paloma, Rocha Department, Uruguay

Where the Tannat Wine is Always Fine

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Brazil’s Continuing Struggle Over Land and Natural Resources

article from May 30, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

This past week, horrific violence has caused the Amazon Basin of Brazil to suffer a great loss. Land-hungry cattle ranchers are stealing the indigenous territories with impunity, hiring criminals to get rid of the opposition, who many times are ordinary citizen activists, as was the case on Tuesday, May 24, and again on Friday, May 27.

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo Silva, were found murdered on Tuesday morning. Then, on Friday night, 57-year-old Adelino Ramos was attacked and shot to death in the state of Rondônia. All three victims were known activist who were hoping to make a difference in saving large portions of the Amazon Basin rainforest from illegal loggers, miners and cattle ranchers.

 

Two suspects were detained by federal police this Sunday, May 29, in the murder of Adelino Ramos. However, police in Nova Ipixuna, to no one’s surprise, “have no leads” in the brutal double murder of the two environmentalist farmers there. The police, of course, are easy prey for the wealthy landowners because of their measly salaries that are supplemented by payoffs and shakedowns.

 

After these two assassinations, the Catholic NGO MISEREOR urged the Brazilian government to do more to protect the remaining voices in the jungle that are fighting  against overwhelming odds and to do more to protect this huge environmental treasure. To her credit, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff immediately ordered a very thorough investigation of the crimes by the federal police, an institution that is not as easily corrupted as the local police, particularly when under a presidential mandate.

 

Meanwhile, in Zürich, Switzerland, an unexpected guest showed up, dressed in his Amazonian feathery finest. Twenty-seven-year-old Bolívar Sinãrî Xerente, the first of his tribe ever to go outside his environment to study law, travelled to Switzerland to bring awareness to the rest of the world of the shenanigans that were being used to rob the Xerente of their subsistence lands. This tribe that now consists of about 3,000 souls was almost completely wiped out by settlers in the 1950s, when they were reduced to a mere 435 tribal members.

 

“We fought for our lands and survival with our blood and sweat,” Sinãrí explains. It was not until the 1970s when Brazil’s federal government finally acceded to worldwide pressure and granted them a reservation of 140,000 hectares. However, constant outside pressure from the cattle industry and, more recently, soy monoculture has reduced their holdings substantially since then.

 

For the Xerente, the environment has been degraded to such degree that sustenance by hunting and fishing can no longer provide the protein needed for the tribe to survive, and therefore they had no choice but to acquire for themselves about 150 head of cattle.

 

The Rio Tocantins, a tributary of the Amazon, has been tapped for hydro-electricity, with the first dam having been completed near Palmas and four more planned that are bound to destroy the Xerente’s way of life. This entire tribe of people is being sacrificed to the “greater good,” the industrialization of Brazil, soon to be the world’s fifth-largest economy and home to the largest fresh-water reservoir on the planet.

 

In a typical bureaucratic brainfart, some officials decided that raising chickens would be a great way for the Xerente to enter mainstream Brazil’s economy (as if they were aspiring to that). The result of that experiment was that the local climate, in the form of unrelenting heat, killed the entire brood stock in a matter of weeks.

 

Schools on the reservation end after grade 8, and the quality of education is way below the standards of the rest of Brazil. Quality health care is another thing lacking, and until recently, the naming of the children was left to the nurses and other lay health care providers who roam the Amazon Basin, registering the vital statistics in the vast region as well as they can and in the process assigning “white” names to the indigenous children, such as Bolívar Sinãrî Xerente’s name. His being named after Hugo Chávez’s hero, Simon Bolívar, would be comical, were it not so tragic.

[Image of the Amazon Rainforest via Wikipedia]

Jamie DouglasSan Rafael, MendozaWhere the Malbec Wine is Always Fine!

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

The Amazon Rainforest: Carbon Neutral?

article from May 16, 2011 (all links current as of January 2014)

By Jamie Douglas

The Amazon Rainforest covers 5,500,000 square kilometers or 2,123,562 square miles – an immense area! The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, and with minor amounts in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. I have traveled extensively in the Amazonian region, from rafting down the Urubamba River to the Amazon, to working on a film for a lengthy period. I traveled the length of the entire river twice and spent time in the bigger settlements along the river, such as Iquitos and Manaus, as well as in many smaller settlements.

The Amazon and its tributaries are the lifeblood of everything that lives in the region; and whether they are indigenous tribes or European settlers, they all live by and on the river. The amount of fish and wildlife that the basin supports is incredible. Many species of flora and fauna have yet to be discovered, and some will become extinct before being discovered.

The reason for the scenario I am about to discuss is not “global warming” as it is often confusingly called, but global climate change, and it is not all human-made. Many natural factors come into play when throwing about expletives like that. Throughout the history of the planet, there have been many events, long before man discovered hydrocarbons and CFCs. And there are always natural cycles at play, such as jet-stream shifts and massive volcanic eruptions that have led to global cooling and starvation within human memory.

However, there is no doubt that CFCs, coal-burning industries and internal combustion engines have contributed to a speed-up of the current climate havoc, which has brought inundating rains and strange snowfalls, but most disturbingly, extreme droughts in Amazonia. Twice in recent times, the Rio Negro, during a period of five years, has completely dried up, something unprecedented in the known history of humankind. There are several particularly severe consequences to this ecological catastrophe.

The indigenous tribes who have depended on the river for a good portion of their protein intake were deprived of that, and many had to migrate away from their traditional areas, intruding on other tribal areas, which led to sometimes-bloody conflicts. The inhabitants of the rainforest are very territorial because they have just enough sustenance for themselves. Many had no choice but to move downstream to Iquitos and Manaus, where there was nothing for them except meager government handouts, menial labor, crime and prostitution. But it is very unlikely that any of them will find their way back to their previous homesteads, as they are seduced by the modern conveniences of life in the cities and towns along the great river. This is the human disaster facing the people from the interior.

What is of much wider significance, and has gone largely unnoticed to the world population, is that with these droughts, millions of trees have died or are dying. As we all learned in school, the Amazon Rainforest is an essential living and breathing part of the Earth – the lungs, but more than that, something like the liver, kidneys, pancreas and lungs, combined, absorbing toxins along with carbon dioxide and releasing cleansed oxygen back into the air.

Between the cutting down of millions of acres over the last few years, along with slashing and burning to accommodate the cattle ranchers, miners and new settlements sprouting up like mushrooms after a rain, the world’s lungs were already getting strained. And now this: the dying of millions of trees along the Rio Negro, the dropping of the water table by 3 meters, well below the roots of any of the trees in the region, is bringing about a change, the likes of which humankind has never seen before. All those millions of trees will decay over a period of years and release many tons of carbon into the atmosphere, making this great natural resource that we usually think of as a carbon sink actually carbon neutral – something that, along with the tens of thousands of jet planes plying the upper atmosphere of Mother Earth and depositing millions more tons of carbon, will surely have an effect.

So, whether you call it “global warming” or “climate change” will, in the end, not matter. What will matter is that our descendants will inherit a less healthy planet (never mind the various national debts that they will have to pay off!).

I am not crying wolf, but there are some changes in the works.

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia, Argentina

References:

Amazon Rainforest Facts

CNN: Amazon droughts increase climate change fears

CNN: Arctic ozone hole affecting weather in tropics, new study says

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Ecotourism, Green Tourism, and the Myth Thereof

article from April 4, 2011

by Jamie Douglas

First off, let me state unequivocally that I consider both the terms “ecotourism” and “green tourism” to be oxymorons in the league with “military intelligence.”

I am proud to say that I have never paid the extra 50% to the organizers of an eco-tour to make me feel better. Your feel-good ecotourism adventure likely starts out with a trip to the airport in a motor vehicle, and then it’s onto a jet plane, which deposits tons of carbon in the upper atmosphere, to be followed by a stinking diesel bus ride to your final destination, with a stay in a comfortable, air conditioned room topping off the orgy of carbon emissions your green vacation requires to get you there to supposedly make a positive impact on the local environment.

So now that you are in the neighborhood, there are all these wonderful side excursions you can take, powered by diesel bus or van, outboard motors, large diesel ship engines, helicopters and small planes contributing more than your share of carbon to the free and formerly unspoiled locales you have come to admire. Whether in the Central American rainforests or cloud forests like Costa Rica’s Monteverde, where enthusiastic entrepreneurs have constructed their platforms and strung steel cables through the jungle canopy so that people can go zipping through the treetops, building more and more roads and infrastructure in order to give more and more tourists access to delicate environmental regions is a strange way of protecting them. In Monteverde alone, there are dozens of companies that draw people to this remote location and operate with very little oversight from the Costa Rican government, as the almighty tourist dollar is the green currency.

A similarly sad situation exists in Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos, along the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. And on the Caribbean coast, as well as many other interesting locations in the world, you will find natural settings that are being exploited as “green tourism.”

Costa Rica has carefully created and groomed this eco-tourism myth by having a large percentage of its national territory designated as national parks, nature preserves and “Indian” reservations. The myth about it is that they have long looked the other way when it comes to gold mines, rare tropical wood harvesting and the neglect of the indigenous population. When it comes to enforcing regulations that give the appearance that the government is environmentally aware, it very often just doesn’t happen.

Back in 1975, I stayed with the Boruca people in the southern mountains of Costa Rica, collecting oral histories and taking many a photograph for a presentation when I had to leave suddenly due to a medical emergency. I did not return to the area until 1995, when I announced to my two traveling companions that once we reached the edge of the ridge and had a view into the valley where the reservation is, they would be astonished at the amount of pristine rainforest that they would see.

Well, what a difference 20 years made. Virtually all the old-growth trees were gone, replaced by banana plantations and mining scars. The formerly majestic river running through the valley had been reduced to a trickle, and the population of the village was a fraction of what it once was. Most of the youth had left to become maids, gardeners and, sadly, prostitutes in the growing tourist towns along the Pacific coast, which had also undergone an incredible transformation. The then-new coastal highway was allowing developers access to formerly isolated areas where they had begun building without regulation or regard, also bringing in an influx of drug traffickers that facilitated the transport of cocaine from Colombia to the USA and Europe.

The Osa Peninsula, home to Central America’s largest protected area of tropical wet forests, suffered from the continued looting of valuable timber resources while Canadian, Australian, and US mining interests had established themselves with impunity by paying the necessary officials off – those same officials who were also paid large sums of cash to look the other way when airplanes and ships came in for refueling. In the mean time, the local population of the Osa Peninsula was left behind as one of the most poverty-stricken regions in Costa Rica.

So is Costa Rica really an eco-paradise?

Costa Rica was at the vanguard of the “ecotourism” movement, which was no doubt initiated with the best of intentions. But today, with carbon trading being more of a feel-good excuse than a solution and the “green” image so easily taken advantage of by corruption and greed, we have to be honest with ourselves, thoughtful about our actions and ever more diligent about verifying claims being made if we really want to do what is best for the planet.

The better question might be, can Costa Rica actually live up to its green image?

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Monarch Butterflies: Some Great News from Mexico

article from March 1, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

The Monarch Butterflies have made a comeback!

The news from Mexico is so often interlaced with its drug-related problems; but for once, I am happy to report the good news that the amazing monarch butterflies have returned in greater numbers than they have for a while.

For those of you who are not familiar with this incredible traveler, here are some basics: They migrate from Canada and the USA all the way to the central-western Mexican states of Michoacán and Mexico, a distance of over 3,000 miles, to spend the winter in some small forest enclaves there. Several generations come and go, until the Methuselah generation is born. The males serve only as breeders, and all die in Mexico, leaving the females to return to the northern latitudes, where they will lay their eggs for successive generations to return back to their wintering grounds in the high mountains of Mexico.

Since they return to the area around the Day of the Dead, natives since pre-colonial times have thought of them as being the souls of deceased children, treating them with fearful respect.

The last few years have been very hard on their population’s survival. Harsh climatic conditions and illegal logging have taken their toll on this adventurous insect. Some years back, while we lived in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, which is at an altitude of about 7,000 feet, we experienced a particularly cold and wet winter, which was very unusual, as that is normally the bone-dry season. The combination of the rains and sub-freezing temperature were catastrophic to the monarchs. They died by the millions before they could complete their reproductive cycle, greatly reducing the number of females returning to the USA and Canada. Witnesses stated that they were wading in knee-deep dead butterflies (I only saw the photos).

This was also a particularly harsh time for the human population around that region. The Mexican economy, never having provided much hope for the really poor rural population, got even worse, and the resulting suffering, financially and climatically, led to a rapid and large increase in illegal logging. The locals were literally freezing to death in their homes and had little choice but to cut firewood for survival, increasing the normal consumption level of the pine forests greatly, thereby reducing the area the monarchs used and endangering the reduced return migration.

The Mexican government stationed police and soldiers along the roads to control the large-scale looting of forests by commercial operators, which led to several fatal encounters. The whole area had been designated a biosphere and was eventually declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the local population was urged to get engaged in the protection not only of the forests, but also of the monarch butterflies.

Soon, the people around the region realized that they stood to make more money from the ecotourism that this phenomenon fostered than from trying to steal the trees for firewood to sell. The states of Michoacán and Mexico supplied funds for improving access by adding trails and rest areas, as well as to provide salaries for guides and guards. And it worked! There is still some illegal logging going on, but it is mitigated by replanting and the locals jealously guarding their heritage (read source of income).

Mind you, there are still plenty of campesinos who go to these forests every day to get fuel for cooking and heating, but they go by horse and donkey, as they traditionally have, and they don’t make much of a dent, as they pick up mostly fallen timber and dead branches, a huge difference from the caravans of heavy trucks that had been destroying the forests by the thousands of acres.

The really great news is that the number of monarch butterflies that came back this year has doubled, and they are occupying twice the acreage as they did last year. The ecotourists are coming, in spite of the scary reputation of the region, and the local population is benefiting, having realized that having this miracle in their midst is a financial blessing. While this is all good news, these folks must still find a way to survive the other eight months of the year.

So the next time you see a monarch butterfly, think of the huge migrations their ancestors have been making for thousands of years to assure the survival of the species.

Hug a tree, but not a butterfly, as they are very sensitive human beings. You can be nice to them by slowing down when you encounter a flight of them in Texas or Florida or while making your own winter migration to Mexico in the fall.

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

[Photo by Kenneth Dwain Harrelson via Wikipedia]

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Brazil’s Biodiversity

article from January 13, 2011

by Julie R Butler

Brazil is considered by biologists to be the most biologically diverse nation in the world. It is home to the largest number of different species, and it is the enormous Amazon Rainforest that holds the largest collection of living plant and animal species of them all regions. The entire rainforest covers a mind-boggling 5.5 million sq km (1.4 billion acres), and according to the World Wide Fund for Nature, it is home to one-tenth of all known species in the world. Sixty percent of the Amazon Rainforest lies within the boundaries of Brazil.

But the Amazon Rainforest is just one of Brazil’s many ecosystems, existing in the North Region of this immense country. The four other regions that exist in Brazil contain a wide variety of geographies and habitats. The Atlantic Forest is also vast and includes a diversity of ecosystems that range from tropical and subtropical jungles, to forest types known as semi-deciduous, tropical dry, montane moist, and mangrove, to coastal restigas, as well as the transitional areas between them all.

The Cerrado, which means closed, is a region that covers a huge swath of the central interior of Brazil with tropical savannah crossed by gallery forests that line the rivers and streams. It contains a surprisingly high level of diversity in the wide variety of grasses and twisted, woody trees that form nearly impossible to penetrate closed canopy forests.

In northeastern Brazil, there is an ecoregion called the Caatinga that is characterized as xeric shrubland and thorn forest. Here, the brief rainy season nurtures cacti, thorny brush, thick-stemmed plants, grasses that thrive in the arid climate, and a spurt of short-lived annuals. Water rights and irrigation policies are a major issue in the Caatinga.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Pantanal, a tropical wetland that is the world’s largest wetland of any kind. This is a floodplain ecosystem much like the Nile River in Egypt, with 80% of this river delta region becoming submerged during the rainy season. The water arrives as runoff from the Mato Grosso Plateau to the northeast, then slowly releases into the Paraguay River, which flows into the mighty Paraná, which empties into to the world’s broadest estuary, the Río de la Plata. The Pantanal ecosystem is a coming together of the surrounding bioregions, where the biology is adapted to the radical cycle of inundation and dehydration.

Altogether, the results are an enormous variety of species that exist in Brazil:

55,000 plant species

3000 freshwater fish

1622 birds

+520 mammals

468 reptiles

The significance of all this? Biodiversity is considered to be a measure of the health of the ecosystem. As the result of some 3.5 billion years of evolution, diversity of species can be seen as a survival tool of the ecosystem as a whole. The adverse effects inflicted on the planet by a single species should therefore be understood not only as a tragedy, but also a danger of huge proportions.

Julie R Butler is a writer, journalist, editor, and author of several books, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger To Strange Lands (click here for more info). She is a contributor to Speakout at Truthout.org, and her current blog is Connectively Speaking.

email: julierbutler [at] yahoo [dot] com, Twitter: @JulieRButler

Geography of Brazil

article from January 11, 2011

by Julie R Butler

Dominating the map of South America, the world’s fifth largest nation by geographical size is also the fifth largest by population. Brasília, the capital of Brazil, is centrally located, the original, highly planned city having been built in just 41 months beginning in November 1956. While Brazil’s human population of 190,732,694 tends to stick to the more than 7,491 km (4,655 mi) of coastline, the vast interior is home to the world’s richest biodiversity.

The country is made up of five regions. Northern Brazil is dominated by the Amazon River, the second longest in the world after the Nile, along with its extensive equatorial rainforest system.

The area that extends farthest east is known as the Northeast Region, even though it is south of the mouth of the Amazon. This is the heart of colonial Brazil and is known for its rich culture as much as for its hot weather and lovely beaches. Inland, the term sertão refers to the semi-arid highlands, and a sertajeno is a Brazilian cowboy.

The Central-West Region holds Brazil’s immense reaches of tropical savannah, as well as tropical wetlands and more Amazonian rainforest in the north.

The Southeast Region is where all the human action is, concentrated along the coast where São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are located. With mountain ranges and plains, forests and savannahs, the tropical and the subtropical, caves and dunes, this region is known for its high level of biodiversity as well as for its industry and world-renowned cities.

Southern Brazil has subtropical as well as temperate zones, where it can get surprisingly cold in July, even snowy in the mountains. The region is characterized as having the highest living standards in all of Brazil. It is distinctive due to a large amount of agricultural immigration from Italy and Germany as well as Portugal during the 19th century.

Today, Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and is expected to become among the five largest within a matter of decades. According to Wikipedia’s article on the economy of Brazil:

“The service sector is the largest component of GDP at 66.8 percent, followed by the industrial sector at 29.7 percent (2007 est.). Agriculture represents 3.5 percent of GDP (2008 est.). Brazilian labor force is estimated at 100.77 million of which 10 percent is occupied in agriculture, 19 percent in the industry sector and 71 percent in the service sector.”

Innovation and a focus on the reduction of economic disparities, along with careful measures taken to balance the economy and instill consistency, have brought experts to proclaim that Brazil will come through the current economic crisis with flying colors. Perhaps Brazil’s Green Party, which was strong enough to have cost Dilma Rousseff the first-round win in the recent elections, can point to these successes in making the case that the time is ripe for introducing more environmental considerations into the great balancing act that is today’s Brazil.

[Image via Wikipedia]

Julie R Butler is a writer, journalist, editor, and author of several books, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger To Strange Lands (click here for more info). She is a contributor to Speakout at Truthout.org, and her current blog is Connectively Speaking.

email: julierbutler [at] yahoo [dot] com, Twitter: @JulieRButler