Nobel laureate wants global environment court

Yahoo – AFP, October 24, 2017

Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman calls for a global tribunal to
prosecute executives of multinational corporations who damage the environment (AFP
Photo/Orlando SIERRA)

Tegucigalpa (AFP) - Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkul Karman proposed in Honduras on Tuesday the creation of a global tribunal to prosecute executives of multinational firms who damage the earth.

Karman, of Yemen, made the suggestion in the Central American country that Amnesty International last year described -- along with its neighbor Guatemala -- as the most dangerous in the world for environmentalists.

"A world court should be created that could punish all these multinational corporations" that damage the environment and contribute to climate change, Karman said through a translator.

She spoke at a press conference with Shirin Ebadi of Iran, a fellow Nobel laureate who won the peace prize in 2003.

As part of the Nobel Women's Initiative, they aimed "to gather a first-hand account of the ongoing violence against women land defenders" in Honduras and in Guatemala, where they travelled later Tuesday, the group's website says.

The murder of Berta Caceres, 45, gunned down last year, highlighted the threat to Honduran activists and sparked international outrage.

Caceres opposed plans by the company Desarrollos Energeticos to build a hydroelectric dam across a river on which indigenous communities depended.

Rachel Vincent, advocacy and media director for the Nobel Women's Initiative, said Honduras has the world's highest rate of murders for human rights and land defenders.

Since 2009, 123 activists have been killed, she said.

In comments to AFP, Karman said a special international court is needed "to fight against corruption and money laundering and against all those involved in destroying the environment and exploiting the climate in a damaging way."

She said such a tribunal could be similar to The Hague-based International Criminal Court which investigates and tries people charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Karman said the court she proposes would handle cases in which human rights and environmental activists or anti-corruption fighters are "found dead."

She also said the investigation of Caceres's murder must be deepened "to discover all those who benefited from this crime."

Eight people were arrested, among them an employee of Desarrollos Energeticos.

The Nobel laureates met Austra Berta Flores, the mother of Caceres, on Saturday.

In Guatemala, they are to join two other Nobel Peace Prize winners, Guatemala's Rigoberta Menchu and Jody Williams of the United States.

Nicaragua signs Paris climate agreement

Yahoo – AFP, October 24, 2017

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (R), flanked by his wife and Vice President
Rosario Murillo (L), speaks to supporters in Managua on July 7, 2017 during the
celebration of the 38th anniversary of "El Repliegue" at Victoria Square in Managua
 (AFP Photo/INTI OCON)

Managua (AFP) - Nicaragua signed the Paris climate agreement Monday, leaving the United States and Syria as the only two holdouts on the global climate pact.

The government of President Daniel Ortega said the global 2015 pact represented "the only international instrument that offers the conditions to face global warming and its effects," according to a statement read out by Vice President Rosario Murillo.

Monday's announcement leaves the United States and Syria as the only countries holding out on the Paris deal, which set measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent temperatures rising by more than two degrees.

US President Donald Trump in June announced the start of a three-year process to pull out of the agreement on the grounds that it would put the US at an economic disadvantage.

Ortega said last week that Nicaragua would sign the pact, but did not say when.

The tiny central American country had previously refused to sign the agreement on the grounds that it did not go far enough to combat global warming.

"We welcome Nicaragua's announcement, which further underscores the commitment of the international community to take full responsibility for our shared planet," said Elliott Harris, assistant secretary-general of the UN environment program.

"We must all continue to step up our individual and collective efforts to face climate change, one of the greatest challenges of our time."

Weather threat

In September, the leftist Ortega announced during a private meeting with World Bank directors in Managua that his country would join the agreement, but the news was later removed from the official government website without explanation.

In its statement announcing the decision Nicaragua noted the dangers of more frequent natural disasters with "high costs, loss of lives and increasing material damage."

The Central American country's move to join the pact comes just weeks after tropical storm Nate struck the region, highlighting the vulnerability of Nicaragua and its neighbors to the effects of climate change.

The storm unleashed heavy rains that triggered floods and mudslides, cutting a path of destruction that flattened houses and destroyed roads and bridges.

Nate left at least 32 in Central America, 15 of them in Nicaragua, the hardest hit.

The Nicaraguan environmental organization Centro Humboldt praised its country's move to join the global pact.

"We applaud this decision," the organization's director, Victor Campos, told AFP. "We had asked them to support the accord and we are very happy with the decision."

He said the government must now define how Nicaragua will participate, and his organization plans to urge developing a national plan concerning climate change.

Preserving the memory of glaciers

Yahoo – AFP, Dominique Schroeder, March 18, 2017

Locked up in ice capping a Bolivian mountain lie 18,000 years of climate history,
but this precious archive of environmental change since the last Ice Age is
melting fast (AFP Photo/MARTIN BERNETTI)

Paris (AFP) - Locked up in about 140 metres (460 feet) of ice capping a Bolivian mountain lie 18,000 years of climate history, dating back to an epoch when humans were only just learning to farm.

But this precious archive of environmental change since the last Ice Age is melting fast, to the despair of scientists.

They have now decided to take matters in hand, in a remarkable initiative that combines glaciology with high-altitude trekking.

An international team will set out in May on a gruelling trip up Bolivia's 6,400-metre Illimani peak to drill three ice cores from its crowning glacier.

These will be preserved for posterity, along with cores from other glaciers, in the natural freezer that is Antarctica.

"Eventually, these ice cores will be all that is left of the glaciers," said Jerome Chappellaz of France's CNRS research institute, a partner in the endeavour dubbed Ice Memory.

Glacier ice contains traces of gas, chemicals and dust.

Analysed in the lab, this is a treasure trove of data on past changes in the climate and environment, including rainfall trends, forest fires, atmospheric temperatures, levels of greenhouse gases and chemical pollutants. They provide a crucial benchmark for understanding how our climate is mutating.

"The glaciers... hold the memory of former climates and help to predict future environmental changes," said the Institute of Research for Development (IRD), another mission member.

But time is running out.

"If global warming continues at its current rate, glaciers at an altitude below 3,500 metres in the Alps and 5,400 metres in the Andes will have disappeared by the end of the 21st century," said the IRD.

"These are unique pages in the history of our environment which will... be lost forever."

A glacier is a slow-moving mass of ice formed when snow accumulates year after year, compacting the layers below into a dense body of ice.

The Chimborazo volcano in the Ecuadoran province of Riobamba, some 240 kms 

(170 miles) south of Quito (AFP Photo/MARTIN BERNETTI)

Sanctuary

At the Illimani site, two metres of snow fall every year, translating into a very detailed record that by now lies 140 metres deep.

"Studying the glacier therefore means the past of this environment can be reconstructed as far back as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)" -- the peak freeze, about 21,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, mission coordinators said in a statement.

At the time, vast ice sheets cover much of North America, northern Europe, and Asia, before starting to melt as the climate warmed, allowing modern humans to thrive and spread.

The Illimani expedition is the second leg of Ice Memory.

The first three ice cores -- between 126 and 129 metres long -- were taken from the Col du Dome glacier in Mont Blanc in the Alps in August last year.

They have been placed in a deep freeze at a research institute in Grenoble, at the foot of the Alps, to eventually be moved to the French-Italian Antarctic research base Concordia.

There a cave is being prepared for their permanent storage at an average of minus 54 degrees Celsius (minus 65.2 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a temperature that should keep them safe even at top-of-the-scale global warming.

The "ice archive sanctuary" should be ready by 2020.

In the end, the team hopes to amass hundreds of ice samples.

But drilling an ice core at these kinds of altitudes is no easy feat.

"It requires a lot of equipment," Illimani project head Patrick Ginot of the IRD told AFP ahead of the team's departure.

"Twenty guides and carriers will help us to transport the material from an altitude of 4,500 metres to the summit at 6,300 metres.

There is a passable road for up to 4,500 metres, but beyond that not even a helicopter can go.

The helpers will carry the material, all 1.5 tonnes or 30 cubic metres of it, up the last 1,800 metres on their backs -- about 30 kilogrammes per person at a time.

Volunteers collect wastes on the Mer de Glace glacier in Chamonix-Mont Blanc, 

French Alps, on September 2, 2016 during the annual clean-up operation following 

the summer season (AFP Photo/JEAN PIERRE CLATOT)

'Property of humanity'

The kit includes the core drill, 75 specially insulated boxes, and camping gear. It all left from Grenoble on a 10,000-kilometre (6,200-mile) boat ride for La Paz in February.

Upon reaching the summit, two teams of six to eight people will take turns drilling, so as to minimise the physical challenges of high-altitude exertion.

The mission will take about a month, after which the team will have an estimated three tonnes of ice to bring back down.

The precious samples will be placed in the 75 insulated boxes to travel to Grenoble on a five- to six-week boat journey.

"One of the most difficult challenges will be to maintain the cold chain," said Ginot.

One core from Col du Dome and one from Illimani, will remain in Grenoble for analysis, while the other four are bound for Antarctica.

"These samples will be the property of humanity," said the IRD.

They will be preserved "in order to enable future generations of scientists to carry out unprecedented analysis."

Bolivia, Peru sign $500 mn deal for Lake Titicaca clean-up

Yahoo – AFP, January 8, 2016

Lake Titicaca, which is the highest in the world, at an altitude of 3,800 meters
(12,470 feet) above sea level, provides a habitat for a number of frogs, birds
and fish, including two species that have almost been wiped out (AFP Photo
/Aizar Raldes)

La Paz (AFP) - Bolivia and Peru agreed to provide more than $500 million towards cleaning up Lake Titicaca, whose polluted waters are home to some animals nearing extinction, a Bolivian environment official said.

The deal, which is meant to improve the lake's biodiversity, includes environmental management and recovery through to 2025.

Lake Titicaca, which is the highest in the world, at an altitude of 3,800 meters (12,470 feet) above sea level, provides a habitat for a number of frogs, birds and fish, including two species that have almost been wiped out.

Bolivia's Environment and Water Minister Alexandra Moreira and her Peruvian counterpart Manuel Pulgar signed the agreement during a public event.

"For the short term we have a limit of $117 million and for the long term $400 million," said Moreira's advisor Sergio Arispe.

“It's a logistical matter we are trying to manage through 2025," he said.

Part of the waste in the lake is generated by the Bolivian city of El Alto, near La Paz, which is home to about 800,000 people.

Peru's minister stressed that the two countries are "already taking concrete actions such as investing in water treatment plants to address the main problems the lake is facing."

Dozens die in extreme weather conditions in US

Several people have died after tornadoes struck different parts of southern United States. Other parts of the country witnessed slow, floods or surprisingly warm weather.

Deutsche Welle, 28 December 2015

Over the Christmas holidays storms over the South, Southwest and West of the United States have led to tornados and floods that killed over 40 people.

The governors of Missouri and New Mexico declared a state of emergency.

Meteorologist Matt Bishop told dpa news agency that tornado outbreak at this time of the year in North Texas occurred "from time to time," but that it was certainly not something that happened regularly.

Meanwhile, 60 centimeters of snow were reported in New Mexico, disrupting travel for many people returning home fro Christmas. Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said snow had caused 178 weather-related accidents. The National Weather Service said snow drifts of over 2.1 meters had been reported.

Flooding across Alabama occurred due to heavy downpours across southeastern US on Wednesday, bringing record rainfall in some areas. In California, wildfires continued to spread after they broke out two days earlier and were encouraged by high wind speeds.

Around Washington State, snowfall provided for optimal skiing conditions for winter sports fans. Cities like New York witnessed people playing beach volleyball and enjoying daily temperatures of 18.5 degrees. In Washington D.C., temperatures touched 23 degrees, breaking a record of more than 50 years.

Orlando, Florida witnessed a high of 30 degrees, last experienced in 1921.

mg/rg (AP, dpa, Reuters)

Related Articles:

South America floods: 140,000 people forced from homes

British PM Cameron visits flood-hit historic city of York https://t.co/3TNMlaOpdx #yorkfloods pic.twitter.com/UyV5blo3ZV

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) December 28, 2015

"Effect of the New Energy on DNA" + "One Foot in Each Energy" (3) - Aug 1-2, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"... The Role of the Sun

As you move into this new energy, or what some have even called "radiation", you should know how it works, for it's very related to your Sun. Physically, it affects the magnetic field of the Sun (the heliosphere), which then in turn is blasted to your own magnetic field via the solar wind. That's the physics of it, but dear one, let me give you the esoterics of it. This has been the plan all along, that if you made it as a Human race past the 2012 marker, you would pass into this area of space and the magnetics would shift, allowing Human consciousness to change. Dear ones, this was always here waiting for you to pass the marker! This is why I came 26 years ago and told you the magnetics would shift. This is an evolutionary energy that is going to affect your Sun - the heliosphere of your Sun - which then will pass to the magnetic field of the earth, a field that has now been repostured for this new consciousness.

Oh, there are those intellectuals who would say, "Well, what if we had destroyed ourselves as the prophecies said we would? What if there were no Humans to receive this?" It's simple. No Humans would have been here, but the planet would have still moved into this new area of space and the same energies would have been there, but you would not have been. Simple. But indeed, here you are!

So now you can see that the prophecy from the indigenous is also being fulfilled, for they told you about the changes coming after the precession of the equinoxes (December 2012). How could they have had this prophecy about your movement into a new place around your galaxy? Think about it! These things are not new, and even the ancients told you it was coming! They may not have known the specifics of science, but their prophecy is the same one I have: New consciousness is coming.

Dear ones, I want you to continue to put together these pieces physically in what you can see. As we told you, these changes affect your Sun. The heliosphere of your Sun changes you magnetic grid. Now, for this all to work, the Sun had to be quiet for this. I want you to ask an astronomer about the Sun and the cycles of the Sun. Ask about what period of radiance the Sun is in at the moment. The astronomer will tell you that it appears to be one of the quietest cycles that the Sun has ever seen. Solar flares and sunspots are disturbances in the multidimensional field that surrounds the Sun, so these had to be gone while the new energies were starting to be implemented. For this all to work, the Sun had to be as quiet as possible, and it is. The Sun's quiet time is also affecting your weather, and we told you that, too. Due to its quietness, you're in a cycle of weather that we also predicted [a cold time coming] that also has a lot to do with the energy that's coming. That's physical. Ask an astronomer, “Are they worried about all this?” Some of them are and others are not. But it is affecting you and the planet right now. Now you know why the magnetic grid was changed when it was changed and why. That's physical. .."

Central America tests drought-resistant 'miracle' beans

Yahoo – AFP, Carlos Mario Marquez, 1 December 2015

The CENTA-EAC bean is the product of hybridization: the combining of

naturally formed plants to form a cross-breed (AFP Photo/Marvin Recinos)

Quezaltepeque (El Salvador) (AFP) - "These beans are miraculous because they beat droughts," crowed Manuel Ceren, a farmer in El Salvador trying out a hybrid, climate change-defying crop produced by Salvadoran, Colombian and Honduran experts.

In Quezaltepeque, a village 30 kilometers north of San Salvador, Ceren and 13 other co-farmers feel fortunate to be the first testing the bean.

They proudly showed off an abundant harvest of around 0.7 of a hectare (1.7 acres) of the bean grown on the farm where they work, to the awed gaze of visitors.

Farmers in Quezaltepeque are trying out

 a hybrid, climate change-defying bean

produced by Salvadoran, Colombian and 

Honduran experts (AFP Photo/Marvin

Recinos)

"We were very careful with this initial experiment with these beans, which were hit with a 15-day drought and two storms," the 45-year-old manager of the farm, Baltazar Garcia, told AFP.

"Other people called us crazy. But today a lot of them are admiring the harvest."

The type of light red bean they are using, which is also resistant to an infection known as bean golden yellow mosaic virus, was painstakingly developed with the help of El Salvador's National Center for Agricultural and Forestry Technology (CENTA).

Dubbed CENTA-EAC, the bean is not a biotech crop designed by genetic engineers slicing up chromosomes.

Rather it is the product of hybridization: the combining of naturally formed plants to form a cross-breed.

"You could say it's the simple cross-fertilization of red bean and black bean plants in a process that in this case took five years of selecting and discarding plants until the desired variety was created," a CENTA researcher, Aldemaro Clara, explained.

A search for better crops

The Salvadoran experiment came as a prolonged drought settled on Central America this year, causing heavy crop losses across a broad swathe of land stretching from Costa Rica to Guatemala.

Because of the lack of water, 2.3 million small Central American farmers will need food aid, the UN's World Food Program has warned.

The CENTA-EAC bean is part of a decade-old effort by laboratories in the region to come up with hybrids able to survive and even prosper during the recurring droughts. With the help of farmers, it was noted that it was possible to come up with crops adapted to extreme weather conditions.

"Our mission to produce seeds resistant to climate change, which in this region means against high temperatures, long droughts and extremely heavy rainy seasons," Rolando Ventura, another CENTA researcher, said.

The whole region is working along the same lines. In Guatemala, scientists are working on the ICTA-Chorti, which will not only resist droughts but also be rich in iron.

In Nicaragua, another institute has made a variety of red bean, the INTA-Tomabu, also able to survive when water is scarce.

A farmer harvests and cleans beans of the CENTA-EAC variety at a farm in 

Quezaltepeque (AFP Photo/Marvin Recinos)

Corn, tomatoes and cacao

Candida Lazon, who is trying out that bean on her farm, said: "Here, it almost never rains. We have managed to grow the INTA-Tomabu bean by watering it just once every 12 days. I'm thrilled about this seed because it adapts to the very dry local climate."

It's not beans that are being made to "adapt" to climate change.

In Panama, one of the first countries in the region to work with types of corn resistant to changing weather, has come up with a new seed.

"In the case of corn, these seeds are compatible with higher temperatures, 35 to 36 degrees (95 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit), and drought-tolerant," said Jose Alberto Yau, deputy director for seeds at the country's IDIAP Agriculture and Fishing Research Institute.

In El Salvador, farmers already have the option of using a type of corn called CENTA-Pasaquina, but it has fallen from favor because of its perceived low yield.

Nicaragua meanwhile has a type of virus-resistant tomato seed christened INTA-Jinotega that copes with temperatures over 25 degrees centigrade.

In Costa Rica, it's cocoa -- a crop essential to the economy -- that is being looked at in the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center with hopes of coming up with a more resistant variety.

Costa Rica boasts clean energy -- and bad car pollution

Yahoo – AFP, Marco SIBAJA, November 19, 2015

The Churchill Mamiche ice-cream parlour in Caldera, Puntarenas, 80 km 

southwest of San Jose is entirely powered --day and night-- by solar panels

(AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Caldera (Costa Rica) (AFP) - At dusk one weekend on Costa Rica's tropical Pacific coast, Mamiche is catering to a line of customers in front of the beachside ice-cream stand he tends.

All looks balmy and typical -- except for one little detail: the stand's refrigerator, fan and lighting are not connected to the electricity network and there's no noisy generator.

Instead, solar panels on the roof are providing the power, another sign of an eco-friendly push in Costa Rica that has made the country a model of development and clean energy.

Costa Rica expects 97% of its energy 

generation to come from renewable

 sources this year (AFP Photo/

Ezequiel Becerra)

The ice-cream outlet's owner, Luis Diego Vasquez, recalls how he used to spend up to $40 a day on fueling a smelly generator to keep the shop running.

"Fed up with the noise and the pollution, we started thinking about putting up solar panels to use the sun -- something we have a lot of here," he told AFP.

Land of renewable energy

With an electricity grid supplied by hydroelectric dams across rivers, from the heat of its numerous volcanoes, and from wind and the sun, the small Central American nation expects 97 percent of its energy generation to come from renewable sources this year.

"Costa Rica has renewable resources -- a sun that shines. The wind. It has hydro resources. And all of that, along with geothermal and biomass energy, allows us to have such a renewable energy network," Javier Orozco, planning chief at the national energy company ICE, told AFP.

Next to him, ICE's CEO, Carlos Obregon, said the ultimate aim was to eventually have 100 percent renewable energy, "but that requires us to find a balance between different energy production, and that's not a question of a year, but of many years."

Still, the country caught the attention of the world ahead of December's COP21 UN Convention on Climate Change in Paris by being totally reliant on renewable energy for the first 75 days of this year, with no recourse to its thermal plants using fossil fuels.

A report by the environmental protection group WWF last year highlighted the country as a Latin American leader in clean energy and predicted that in 2021 it would have an entirely renewable energy supply.

Owner Luis Diego Vasquez installs more solar panels for the Churchill 

Mamiche ice-cream parlour (AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Polluting cars

But there is another side to Costa Rica, one that tarnishes its image as an environmentally conscientious nation: that of its congested roads, saturated with old cars and buses, many spewing smoke.

According to the Environment and Energy Ministry, the transport sector is responsible for 66 percent of hydrocarbon consumption and 54 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions, one of the principal gases responsible for climate change.

Despite its clean-energy network, Costa Rica produced 1.7 metric tons of CO2 per head of population between 2011 and 2015, on a level with other countries at a similar stage of development, such as Colombia or Uruguay, World Bank figures show.

Costa Rica has nearly 1.4 million cars for a population of five million. RITEVE, its roadworthiness inspection agency, says the average age of the vehicles is 16 years, which aggravates the emission problem.

In an effort to address the issue, one lawmaker, Marcela Guerrero, of the governing Citizen Action Party, last month presented a bill to lift import duties on electric vehicles for five years and to encourage ownership of CO2 emission-free cars.

She told AFP that she hoped to see 100,000 electric cars replace ones with conventional engines.

"We want users, with clear signals, to get behind a new pattern of consumption that will lower emissions," she said.

Wind turbines of the National Power and Light Company in Santa Ana, 

Costa Rica (AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Electric train?

Another initiative is to start up an urban electric train system in the most populated center of the country, where the congested capital San Jose lies.

Although considered crucial from transport and environmental perspectives, lawmakers have made little headway in having the train project approved because of funding discrepancies.

Guerrero said she was confident a consensus allowing a vote would be reached by April 2016, and that the trains would be operational in the following five years.

The question is whether Costa Rica can maintain its clean energy goal while providing the sparks needed for electric transport.

Obregon is convinced that ICE will be able to handle the increased demand by deepening investment in non-conventional sources such as wind and solar power, which currently play a marginal role in its mix.

"We are preparing for a future where consumers are also (energy) generators," making contributions to the grid through private solar panels and the like, he said.

If it goes that way, Mamiche's little stand may end up selling not only ice, but fire.

Related Article:

Benin tackles climate change with sunshine and coconuts

Argentina gets China's help on wind energy development

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-07-06

Wind turbines in Xinjiang, June 5. (Photo/Xinhua)

China has been playing an increasingly important role in helping Argentina modernize and improve its energy mix via boosting clean energy development led by wind power.

Arauco Wind Farm, showcase of the Sino-Argentinean wind power development endeavor, falls under jurisdiction of northern Argentina's La Rioja province, home to 40% of the South American country's olive-growing industry.

Located in the Puerta de Arauco Valley, Arauco Wind Farm was built in 2012 with 12 wind turbines capable of generating 25 megawatts of power, along with a transformer station. The wind farm was added with an extra installed capacity of 25 megawatts in 2013.

In March, La Rioja and Chinese company Hydrochina International Engineering signed a deal worth of more than US$300 million to raise Arauco Wind Farm's installed capacity by 104 more megawatts.

La Rioja "has as a strategic objective to move forward in what we are good at, 'energy sovereignty', to supply our citizens with the energy they need," said Javier Tineo, the regional official in charge of Economic Production and Development, in an interview with Xinhua.

Tineo said they hoped the wind farm would be able to generate more electricity to pump water and expand irrigated area in the agriculturally important province on completion of the expansion program with the help of the Chinese company.

By increasing output at the wind farm, "we will make the province self-sufficient and give the surplus to the national power grid," said Tineo. He added that Chinese company's contribution is the key to the next stage of development at the wind farm.

"The province's government began looking for financial and technological partners. We met with one of the most important Chinese companies (Hydrochina) and came to an agreement," recalled Tineo, who praised Yang Wanming, Chinese ambassador to Argentina, for his role in helping make the cooperation program a reality, saying the wind farm "involves friendship and cooperation from both the Chinese and Argentinean governments." According to Tineo, there is "high expectation" in Argentina that increased trade and cooperation with China will "contribute to our food production, our job creation, our conditions for producing both wind and solar energy."

"We expect to make progress with Chinese companies and the Chinese government, because we need their expertise, industry and development in the (energy) field, and their ability to develop machinery and equipment to improve our primary productivity and food industry," said Tineo, the local official from La Rioja.

Moroccan villagers harvest fog for water supply

Yahoo – AFP, Zakaria Choukrallah, 19 June 2015

A Moroccan inspects fog fences in a hamlet on the outskirts of the southern

coastal city of Sidi Ifni, on June 7, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

Sidi Ifni (Morocco) (AFP) - Green technology to turn fog into fresh water straight from the tap has put an end to exhausting daily treks to distant wells by village women in southwest Morocco.

Families in five highland Berber communities have begun to benefit from "fog harvesting", a technique devised in Chile two decades ago and since taken up in countries from Peru to Namibia and South Africa.

On the summit of a mountain named Boutmezguida, which looms over the villages at 1,225 metres (4,019 feet), thick fog shrouds about 40 finely meshed panels designed to trap water and relay it to a network of pipes.

A Moroccan woman uses water collected 

on fog fences to wash her hands in a 

hamlet on the outskirts of the southern

 coastal city of Sidi Ifni, on June 7, 2015

(AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

To have water running from a faucet at home is a "revolution" for inhabitants of the semi-arid mountains known as the Anti-Atlas, says Aissa Derhem, the chairman of an active regional association called Dar Si Hmad for Development, Education and Culture (DSH).

DSH prides itself on building "the world's largest fog-collection and distribution system" and helping locals in the Sidi Ifni region -- Derhem's birthplace -- to learn to operate it, after repeated droughts and scarce rain.

"Our rain here is the fog," Derhem adds.

Tiny droplets are caught on the mesh while fog wafts through panels. The harvesters mix all they catch with more water derived from drilling, then supply the villages on the lower slopes.

Derhem first heard about fog harvesting 20 years ago. A few years later on returning to Sidi Ifni, he realised that the local climate was similar to that of the Andes in South America.

DSH joined forces with Fog Quest, a Canadian charity whose volunteers work in a range of developing countries. North Africa's first pilot project became operational after almost a decade's work refining techniques.

'An imitation of nature'

The valves were opened at Sidi Ifni for the first time to mark World Water Day, March 22. Ever since, "92 households, or nearly 400 people," have enjoyed running water at home, says Mounir Abbar, the project's technical manager.

Aissa Derhem, the president of the "Dar Si Hamed for development, education

 and culture" association touches a fog fence in a hamlet on the outskirts of the

southern coastal city of Sidi Ifni, on June 7, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

"Morocco has a lot of fog because of three phenomena: the presence of an anticyclone from the Azores (north Atlantic islands), a cold air current and a mountainous obstacle," Derhem says.

The mesh that traps water is "merely an imitation of nature," he adds, pointing out how spiders have always caught minute droplets of water in their webs.

"This is ecological and enables us to look after the regional water table, which we have been emptying away," Derhem says.

The scheme will be extended to other villages and, in time, advocates hope, to other parts of the country.

In the village of Douar Id Achour, residents are proud of their new taps, for good reason. Women and children used to spend an average of four hours a day on a round trip to a well, even longer in dry summer.

"I filled two 20-litre (5.3-gallon) containers four times a day," says Massouda Boukhalfa, 47. "But even those 160 litres wasn't enough for us, because we have cattle as well."

'Ready for export'

During droughts, water was carried in by tanker trunk. "That took a fortnight and cost 150 dirhams (13.7 euros), $15.6) for 5,000 litres on average," young resident Houcine Soussane recalls.

According to Dar Si Hmad, 7,000 litres of fog water cost three times less than before, even with a fee of 20 dirhams to each household for the right to a counter.

Thick fog is trapped by finely meshed panels and relayed it to a network of pipes

(AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

Villagers today have more time to collect the nutty fruit of argan trees and extract its prized and potentially lucrative oil, used in cooking, skin care and easing arthritis. Reputed as an anti-ageing product, argan oil has been taken up abroad as an ingredient in high-end cosmetics.

"Our women and daughters no longer wear themselves out. They go to school and are safe," 54 year-old villager Lahcen Hammou Ali sums up. "With the time saved, we can pay for water all year by producing a bottle of argan oil."

DSH next wants to supply fog water to as many villages as possible in the area. It also plans to replace mesh in the panels with a new variety that can resist wind speeds of 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph).

The panels were perfected on Moroccan soil with help from the German charity Wasserstiftung, and successfully passed the testing phase.

"The nets are now ready for export to other towns in Morocco, in all the mountainous regions and along the seafront," Derham says, hopeful they can be deployed in all highland areas where fogbanks are frequent.

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Agricultural microbiology draws Chinese researchers to Argentina

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-05-02

An organic experimental farm using agricultural microbiological
technology in Beijing, Oct. 27, 2013. (File photo/CNS)

Microbiology applied to agricultural products is connecting China with Argentina, two emerging markets with complementary economies and strategic partners looking to increase bilateral exchanges.

Among the many links between Beijing and Buenos Aires, Argentine firm Rizobacter stands out. The company, which uses microbiology to boost soy output while cutting production costs, has been in business for 38 years and reports an annual turnover of US$100 million, 20% from exports.

In December, a delegation of the Academy of Sciences from China's Heilongjiang province visited the firm in Pergamino, a city located 180 km northeast of the capital Buenos Aires.

The delegation came to explore the possibility of signing an agreement for joint research and development of microbiological technologies, to improve Chinese soil and output.

"We are here to visit and get to know the Rizobacter plant," said Wang Gang, vice president of the academy.

"We are very interested in getting to know the technology being developed by this company and all of the efforts on the production of soybean, mainly related to soybeans and rhizobia," Wang added.

The Argentine company "sends products to countries like Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, the US, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and China, and has 400 employees. It is a very technological and professional company," Rizobacter CEO Ricardo Yapur said in an interview with Xinhua.

Rizobacter produces microbial, or soil, inoculants that are used to boost soybean production. The inoculants are applied to the seeds so when they germinate they can better absorb nitrogen in the air.

The method is not only highly sustainable, because unlike chemical fertilizers, it doesn't pollute the air, water or soil, and it's also cost effective, said Yapur.

The microbe costs between US$5 and US$10 per hectare, in contrast to urea fertilizer, which requires high pressure and temperatures to function, requiring burning petroleum, and costs US$150 dollars per hectare, said Yapur.

"This technology has been fully adopted in Argentina, where 90% of producers use inoculants, because the technology and the data shows it binds enough nitrogen to produce good results," he said, adding "it increases output by about 150 kg of soy."

At its plant, the company has the ability to carry out tests, quality control, and strain selection, and to experiment with different factors, such as temperature and light.

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