Peru begins reforestation, 60 million trees to be planted

After centuries of heavy deforestation, Peru is undertaking a campaign to reforest the highlands with 60 million trees – an act that not only helps prevent the terrible flash floods that plague the tree-less mountains, but also hopes to make a small dent in climate change affecting the country.

December 18, 2009 | Nature, News

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NBC Nightly News: Melting Glaciers lead to water wars

Three reports from NBC’s Nightly News program about the devastating impact on Peru from melting glaciers due to changing climate patterns.

December 8, 2009 | Nature, News, Opinion

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Little town of Quince Mil is becoming a Hotspot [Featured]

For TIME, Lucien Chauvin writes about developments in the little town of Quince Mil, from the benefits of the new Inter-Oceanic Highway that links the Atlantic with the Pacific via Peru and Brazil, to the environment problems it will bring.

November 28, 2009 | Cusco Guide, News

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Brutal deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon [Featured]

Forests are converted into deserts due to the advance of informal mining that illegally extracts gold. Regular buying and selling of mercury is demanded by locals, who use it for the extraction of the precious metal.

November 17, 2009 | Nature, News

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Hundreds of Sea Lions poisoned in Colán

A terrible sight on Piura’s most picturesque beach – hundreds of Sea Lions washed up dead on the white sands. In front of homes and hotels, the bodies of these animals rot, all so that the fishermen that poisoned them can continue dangerous and unsustainable over-fishing the seas.

November 14, 2009 | Nature, News

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Land grabs by technicality in the Amazon

Indigenous Amazonians risk loosing their ancestral lands by way of a Government slight-of-hand which grants concessions and exploration rights to wealthy foreign energy companies.
One of these, US oil company Hunt Oil, which has been granted rights to one of the world’s last untouched areas of cloud forest with unsurpassed levels of bio-diversity, is now demonstrating how this [...]

October 28, 2009 | News, Opinion

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Lima’s sewage pollutes the ocean [Featured]

Lima, with a population of 9 million people, is home to one-third of Peru’s population. But the coastal city does not have a single sewage treatment facility. With no safe place for raw sewage to go, most of it ends up in the ocean.

Almost as big as the pollution itself, is the apathy that seems to exist towards the problem. Until last year, Peru has never had an environment ministry.

Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo reports on the realities that make going to the beach in Lima a dangerous proposition.

May 14, 2009 | News

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Another victim of Global warming: Quilca glacier disappears

For the second time in as many months, the affects of global warming on Peru’s rare tropical glaciers is made painfully evident.

Peru’s National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA) has reported that the Quilca glacier in Puno, 5250 m.a.s.l., has now completely vanished. This is an ominous warming for a country where the vast majority of the population lives on a desert coast who’s rivers are fed by melt waters from similar glaciers.

January 23, 2009 | News

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La Oroya: House of Lead: A story of Greed

International attention comes and goes, but La Oroya is in the spotlight once more as CNN begins its coverage of the town where 99% of the population is heavily lead-poisoned by up to three times the highest healthy limit, have strange rashes, stomach pains, are intellectually stunted, covered in layers of toxic dust of which 1,000 tonnes is omited per day, and where children are dying regularly. Living in this town means you are 2000 times more likely to die of cancer… that’s if you are even born. Should you not be miscarried, you are born pre-lead-poisoned and already risk not growing up at all.

December 16, 2008 | News, Opinion

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Another victim of global warming: Chachani volcano now without snow

As more and more of Peru’s glacial peaks find themselves without their snowy white caps, one more can now be added to that growing list.

December 4, 2008 | News

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Peru to move a city – Cerro de Pasco picks up and leaves

Time to update those maps of Peru’s Andean Pasco region, because the regional capital Cerro de Pasco is set to move 35km down the road. High levels of pollution are blamed.

After intense and at times colourful debate, the population of Cerro del Pasco and its authorities have approved the immediate relocation of their city. Although not all entirely happy, residents have accepted the decision.

December 4, 2008 | News

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Lima’s toxic smog of death is now 11.77% less deadly

Air quality in Lima has never been good, mostly thanks to the high humidity and fog. But when dictator Alberto Fujimori passed laws to allow second-hand ancient, deadly and heavily polluting cars to be imported from abroad, air quality took a massive hit. Though it never rains, grey clouds took on a hint of black, and a thick soot blanketed the city.

November 27, 2008 | Lima City Guide, News, Opinion

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