News stories by Marcela Valente* - Tierramérica

The United States has taken over the pro-whaling stance traditionally championed by Japan, but instead of supporting the capture of whales for scientific research purposes, it is doing so under the guise of aboriginal subsistence quotas.

Argentina and the United States have launched a jointly developed satellite observatory that will provide real-time information critical to understanding two major components of the earth's climate system: the water cycle and ocean circulation.

The upsurge in the use of the toxic pesticide endosulfan, targeted for prohibition by the international community, illustrates one of the dilemmas of intensive agriculture in Argentina and Latin America in general.

Some of Latin America's major cattle-producing countries will begin working as a team in 2011 to quantify the greenhouse-effect gas emissions from their bovine industry -- and to come up with options for reducing them.

Agua Negra Pass today is an unpaved road that connects Argentina and Chile at 4,800 metres above sea level. But it is only open in the southern hemisphere summer months -- December to March -- and then only to lightweight vehicles.

Argentina's glaciers, along with Chile's the most extensive of South America, manifest the damage caused by climate change, while they also face threats from mining and major transportation infrastructure projects. A law to protect them has been postponed yet again.

If you want to observe the charismatic southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), the most popular place to do so is off Argentina's Valdés Peninsula, an enclave on the Atlantic coast that relies on tourist dollars -- and therefore opposes whale hunting.

Fatal accidents at coalmines, like the recent tragedies in China and the United States, cause great public alarm. But U.S. physician Alan Lockwood warns that many more deaths are caused by the pollution that comes from the use of coal as an energy source.

Invisible beneath a vast area of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the Guaraní Aquifer is one of the world's largest reserves of freshwater. Despite supplying water to millions of people, it is neither contaminated nor overexploited.

Argentina is building its first solar energy park in the northwestern province of San Juan. The project calls for the manufacture of photovoltaic panels to supply the rest of the country and the other member countries of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur).