Green Options

Japan has agreed to supply Peru with a $120 million loan to help protect approximately 136 million acres of the Amazon Rainforest from deforestation.

The loan will have an annual interest rate of 0.1% and won’t need to be repaid for 40 years. It is part of a plan to help Peru reach a rate of zero deforestation in the next 10 years. Peru’s Minister of the Environment says that the amount of forest that will be protected help store 20 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, aiding in efforts to combat global climate change.

What do Peruvians think about Barack Obama’s exciting victory? If you are an American, it’s not quite what you might think.

LIMA (EcoWorldly) -  After having successfully negotiated a free trade agreement with the United States, Peru is now strategically positioned to become one of the U.S.’s key allies and trade partners in Latin America. Given the American media’s substantial touting of international interest in the U.S. presidential election, I decided to go out the morning after Obama won and see what I could find out about the reactions among Peru’s newspapers and citizens.

What I found out surprised me. While newspapers wrote articles that I would have expected, the reaction I got from people was different.

A gigantic political scandal has rocked Peru in the past week. During the confusion and charges of corruption, the President’s cabinet has been forced to resign.

The scandal emerged last week when a Peruvian TV station played audio recordings it had obtained from an anonymous source. The conversations involved high ranking members of Peru’s government discussing bribes they would receive from the Norwegian Oil Company, Discover.

The environment and interior ministries in Peru have announced plans to set up a special task force to safeguard forests and monitor the rivers in the Amazon basin. The special force will be made up of around 3,000 officers to be known as the Environment Police.

This past weekend, a major summit was held in Lima, Peru between leaders of European Union countries and also Latin American and Caribbean countries. Numerous agenda items were on the table, but the overall focuses of the meetings were upon the global food crisis, climate change, poverty, and potential trade agreements. Of course, what would an international summit be without some

1. good, old-fashioned name-calling to put everyone on edge before hand
2. a President attending a “rival summit” and taking time to go play some football! (Soccer for Americans.)
3. and an uninspiring finish where seemingly little got accomplished, but yet we can hold onto hope because there are plans to keep the conversation going.