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Iberoperuana Inversiones plans to invest $240 million in the farm, which is projected to provide clean electricity for an estimated 80,000 families in Peru’s southern desert region of Paracas. The wind energy park will be located near the city of Ica (near Paracas National Park and the Nazca Lines) and will be known as the “Parque Eólico San Andrés” (San Andrés Wind Park).

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I was quite surprised to read earlier today, that among all of the possibilities, a neighborhood in Lima has taken a stand on the issue of noisy, barking, scurrying, dogs. Who would have thought that noise pollution caused by dogs would get a group of Lima citizens up in arms?

Without a doubt, the level of noise pollution in Lima is tremendously high. When combining the cacaphony of sounds that arise from traffic, parties, animals, and so on, you will be hard pressed to find Lima residents who at some point have not been annoyed by the constant tapping of their ear drums. For this reason, I think there is merit in passing a law that attempts to limit noise pollution in Lima. Whether or not targeting the population of dogs as a method to control noise is the right way to do it– I’m not sure.

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This past Friday, the U.S. company Pure Biofuels opened up a new biodiesel plant in Lima, Peru. It plans to produce 52 million gallons of biodiesel next year, about 35% of which will meet Peru’s internal demands for the alternative fuel. The rest will be exported. The plant has the capacity to increase its production threefold, and hopes to eventually produce 156 million gallons of biodiesel per year. Production has yet to start at the new plant, but will later this year.

The new plant is only the second to open its doors in Peru. The other biodiesel plant opened in January and will produce about 48 million gallons each year. So with biodiesel on the rise, could this be the start of a new energy boom coming out of Peru? It is difficult to know.

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The Gocta Fall is third tallest waterfall in the world, although its status is disputed. It is 771 meters high (~ 2529 feet). If its measurements are accurate, only Venezuela’s Angel Falls and South Africa’s Tugela Falls are taller. It was also “discovered” in 2005, although local communities knew about its existence as well. According to Peru’s El Commercio newspaper (via Wikipedia), “local people feared the curse of a beautiful blond mermaid who lived in its waters if they revealed its whereabouts.”

Only several days after the news of the this new waterfall’s discovery was announced, an expedition has departed to see and document the waterfall. The group includes a topographer, photographer, and representatives from local communities. While this expedition’s hasty departure is not surprising, the “discovery” of the spectacular waterfall leaves me with two conflicting feelings.

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It is hoped that the fund will raise up to 21 billion dollars over the next 13 years from nations around the world. Norway has already chipped in, pledging 100 million dollars to kick things off. Brazil has made it clear though that donations are only being accepted with a condition of no strings being attached. In other words, countries that donate money will have no say over how the money is used.

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Of course, you cannot be a stickler for quality with such DVDs, or you will be sorely disappointed. But if you like laughing along with audiences, wearing a hearing aid while watching movies, or pride yourself in your non-humble ability to tell people to sit down and shut up in the theater, then I’ve got a Kungfu Panda DVD that will be perfect for you.

It will probably come as no surprise to you that these kinds of DVDs are made by pirating businesses who use digital cameras to record new movies in theaters. They then distribute them quickly to the masses for profit. Peru, as well as many other developing countries where pirated DVDs are sold will unquestionably suffer over time from the pollution these DVDs will cause. To better understand why the environmental effect of DVDs will be proportionally greater in Peru than in a country like the United States, read on.

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Writing out my thoughts was a sort of preparative exercise, mostly to try to articulate the main dilemma I have with zoos: do the potential education benefits of zoos outweigh the cruelty of caging animals in small spaces that I personally believe typically don’t provide them with fulfilling lives? I still am not sure of the answer, but my trip to the Huachipa Zoo did answer another intriguing question for me. When zoos are bad, would I personally prefer that a bad zoo exist rather than have no zoo at all?

Before I reveal the answer to the aforementioned question, I should explain that my wife and I came up with some criteria for rating zoos. For the purpose of reviewing more zoos in the future, I wanted to have some reasonable means to compare them.

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A modern planetarium is an especially terrific asset for the country, as evidence from many of Peru’s archaeological sites suggest that ancient Peruvian peoples used the stars above and our solar system to their benefit. Examples of places where these observations occurred include Machu Picchu and also the site of Chankillo, which is thought to be the site of the most ancient solar observatory in the Americas. Now the people of today’s Peru can also use a special tool to learn about what happens in the skies above.

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Several days ago, I read a story about how Peru’s butterfly exports had increased 43% from January-April of this year. These are the butterflies that are pinned into glass frames for sale as gifts and souvenirs. I wondered if all of these butterflies included those that are exported illegally and those that are endangered. Questions of this kind were on my mind as just several days earlier my family had passed by a street vendor who sold animals illegally.

One of the animals was a baby monkey, caged and frightened. We live in the highlands region of Peru, so the monkey was far from its former home in the rainforest. My wife, who in the past worked as a biologist throughout Peru, told me that she thought this was an endangered monkey. As we walked home, I wished I had brought my camera. This I thought, is a story that needs to be pursued.

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Recently in a cafe I saw a copy of a well-known edition of National Geographic. This issue had featured Africa’s wild dogs on the cover. I pointed it out to my wife, who promptly told me that Peru had wild dogs too, and that they were endangered. Really, I asked? Why hadn’t I ever heard of the Peruvian wild dog before?

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My family recently visited a place in Peru that we had wanted to visit for a long time. While not as famous as Machu Picchu, the Chavín de Huantar Ruins are quite fascinating in their own right. Most visitors after reading their guidebooks want to see a carved stone obelisk that sits at the center of underground passages in the “Old Chavín Temple.” Known as the “Lanzón,” the obelisk has various animal features, and is thought to have been worshiped as something of a nature god, or treated as an oracle by the people using Chavín. The outside of the Chavín Temple was decorated with carved stone heads, that likewise were anthropomorphic.

All of these mysterious features and others have lead archaeologists to believe that this was an important religious site to the Chavín culture, and also that the culture’s influence was widespread during its heyday from approximately 850 to 200 B.C. What is unclear though, is why the Chavín culture disappeared. I’m no archaeologist, but I did once work as a park ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. My experiences there give me some guesses as to why the civilization and culture might have disappeared at Chavín de Huantar.

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In some places in Peru it is just as common to see people bicycling as it is driving cars. Most Peruvians cannot afford cars and for this reason, bicycles provide an excellent, inexpensive means of quick transportation. Peruvians also are masters at modifying their bicycles in creative ways so that they can be used to transport goods and tools for their work and businesses. Fruits, vegetables, construction materials, ice cream, meat, bananas, pets, and countless other items can be transported by bicycle, when a cart has been added. Unlike in the United States though, these aren’t your everyday bicycle carts.

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In a paper published in the latest edition of Animal Conservation, researcher Mathias W. Tobler and several of his colleagues describe a study they conducted in an area of the rainforest in southeastern Peru. By experimenting with hidden “camera traps,” these scientists set out to inventory elusive, rarely seen large and medium-sized mammals that live in the Peru’s rainforests. What they discovered is both exciting and interesting.

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