Paraguay's environment in bad shape
ASUNCION, Wed.- Rapid deforestation, industrial pollution of rivers and streams, and farmers’ widespread abuse of pesticides are taking a serious toll on Paraguay’s environment, specialists say.
In the last 40 years, some eight million hectares of wooded land have been deforested in the eastern part of the country, according to official statistics. The vast majority of the clear-cutting has occurred in the last 20 years.
Government commissions and environmental groups are putting the finishing touches to what they say are less-than-encouraging reports to be presented next month at the UN-sponsored Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Paraguay is divided into two climatically different regions: the arid, semi-desert West and the tropical, heavily forested East.
The eastern part has sustained the most environmental damage and experts estimate that 75 per cent of the forests there have been felled, at a rate of up to 150,000ha a year.
The worst destruction occurred in 1989 when, alter the fall of General Alfredo Stroessner from political power, thousands of peasants rushed into eastern jungles hoping to stake a claim and gain titles to unoccupied land.
The squatters’ move-in prompted large landowners whose property had been occupied to deforest the land in an effort to show it was being used and to underscore their control.
The confrontation was brought under control in 1990, but only alter thou-sands of hectares bad been deforested.
Alarmed by what some ecologists saw as a devastating development, the World Bank in 1991 purchased 60,000 hectares of forest in the Mbaracayu mountain range and handed them over to the Paraguayan Government for "perpetual conservation".
Taking a cue from the bank’s move, the administration of President Andres Rodriguez bought another 150,000ha of forest in the same area and put them under similar protection.
Along with the deforestation crisis, Paraguay’s rivers and streams have come under siege from industrial pollutants.
The famed "blue lake" of Ypacarai, 37km outside Asuncion, has turned gray due to pollutants.
Industrialists have said they are prepared to take measures to cut down on pollution, but not without international financial help in installing filters and waste treatment facilities.
Agricultural expansion also poses a threat to the environment in Paraguay, experts say. In particular, production of soybeans and cotton has soared, most of which is exported.
Peasants who invaded the forest lands of Alto Parana and Itapua in eastern Paraguay have replaced ancient trees with hundreds of thousands of hectares of the two cash crops.
Along a 300-km stretch of highway between Ciudad del Este and Encarnacion, there is not a tree in sight where forests once stood, all replaced by planted fields, said Agriculture Ministry officials.
The agriculture boom has led to an increase in the use of toxic pesticides which, although banned, are not controlled and have been linked to several deaths in recent years. — AFP
Li: Border dispute solvable
BEIJING, Wed. — Chinese Premier Li Peng said today he believed a long-running border dispute with India could be solved.
He was speaking on the final day of a trip to Beijing by Indian President Ramaswami Venkataraman, the first to China an Indian head of state, during which the two huge neighbours friendly relations.
The New China News Agency quoted Li as saying that despite difficulties in ending the border problem "I believe this issue will eventually be solved, so long as the two sides make unremitting efforts."
"We hope to see a peaceful, friendly and co-operative border between China and India," the agency quoted Li as saying during an interview with the Press Trust of India news agency.
China and India fought a brief border war in 1962 but have normalized relations in recent years with high-level official visits. Li visited India last December.
Li called for more high-level contacts and said that the world’s two most populous countries should cooperate on international issues.
India says China holds 38,000 sq km of its territory in Aksai Chin along its northwestern border. China says India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh covers 90,000 sq km of its land.
Li said some progress on the dispute was made this year by a Sino-Indian negotiating team. — Reuter
Source : The Straits Times, May 21 1992
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