South America
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4,27MB - 52 pages
The TDPS region is characterized by overlapping cultural and
economic systems in which a vast agrarian subsistence economy exists side by
side with agricultural sectors directed at regional and national markets and
with a mining industry looking abroad. The impact on natural resources has
varied, but in every case their consumption and depletion are not included in
the costs of production. The ancestral values based on respect for
"Mother Earth" have largely died out, and nature is perceived as an
inexhaustible fount of resources and a waste dump. The widespread poverty and
low levels of education prevent the population from developing an awareness of
the limits on their resources, and only in the wake of major natural
catastrophes such as droughts and floods have some sectors of the society
begun to think about the cause-and-effect relationship between the use and
management of natural resources and those catastrophes.
A change in behavior toward the natural environment, especially on
the part of those sectors causing it the most harm (mining, mining-based
industry, urban concentration) requires a change in attitude based on an
understanding of, and respect for, the region's physical and biological
processes, its natural and cultural-anthropological values, and the right of
its indigenous peoples to emerge from poverty by receiving a growing share of
the return on the development of its resources. This change in outlook
requires more effective action by the state, with a comprehensive policy
including the creation and enforcement of legal, institutional and fiscal
mechanisms and economic incentives and resources designed to further
sustainable development in the region. Real participation by the local
communities in administering the areas within their jurisdiction is also
needed.
The present environmental assessment is an important step toward
those ends.
851Kb - 42 pages
The document summarizes the objectives, methodological approach, and principal
conclusions and recommendations of the binational plans, programs, and projects being
executed by the Amazonian countries with the cooperation of the General Secretariat of the
OAS.
The general purpose of the border plans and programs is to create conditions for
sustainable development. The plans also seek to explore the development potential of the
border areas in terms of population, ecosystems, and natural resources, with a view to
incorporating these areas into the countries' economies. They are intended not only to
deal with the specific problems of each border area, but also to serve as models for
extending environmentally sound development planning to other parts of the Amazon region.
851Kb - 42 pages
In April of 1988, the Presidents of Colombia and Peru met in the
town of San Antonio, on the Amazon River, and signed a Joint Declaration
agreeing to a Bilateral Action Plan to carry out the Plan for the Integral
Development of the Putumayo River Basin, to be executed within the framework
of the Joint Committee for the Colombian-Peruvian Amazon Cooperation Treaty.
Their ministries of foreign affairs were asked to jointly negotiate financial
support from international organizations, especially the Organization of
American States. The first meeting of the Joint Committee took place in
August 1988 in Leticia, Colombia, capital of Amazonas Department. In this
meeting, the terms of reference for the drafting of the Plan for the Integral
Development of the Putumayo River Basin (PPCP) were approved.
563Kb - 12 pages
After seven years of field work it is now possible to prepare this synthesis of
OAS experience with natural hazards. The material comes with a broad set of objectives, a
reflection of the breadth of the issues involved in hazard mitigation. At the policy
level, it is hoped that national planning ministries, development agencies, and
international financing institutions will be encouraged to systematically include analyses
of natural hazards in their economic development programs.
2,054Kb - 141 pages
This document is the result of nearly two years of work by the staff of the
Program of Regional Development, Argentine coworkers, and several international
consultants (Appendix A). Every effort has been made to make the content and prose
applicable to the needs of project directors and field staff working in the planning of
river basin development. Consequently, scientific and specialized terminology have
been kept to a minimum and the recommendations have been made in full consideration of the
realities of developing countries. The document has been purposefully kept short to
give it the character of a guidebook rather than that of an exhaustive treatise on the
subject of environment and development.
in those training centers and
institutions that relate to development planning.
1,100Kb - 95 pages
This assessment
focused on the industrial sector and indicated that the main
environmental changes with the possible implementation of FTAA
could include water contamination and detriment in air quality due to
outdoor air pollution. However, the assessment highlights that those
industries that could affect air quality in Brazil use environmentally
friendly technologies in order to meet sustainability and market access
requirements of the export markets. Additionally, this assessment
examines the Brazilian legal-institutional frameworks and the
internalization of environmental cost by industry, concluding that these
costs do not affect competitiveness. Finally, this assessment includes
some recommendations for regulating entities in terms of promoting
efficiency and competitiveness of the Brazilian industrial sector.
314.16KB - 49 pages
Reviewing 20 years of experience with integrated regional development planning
is a humbling exercise. Mistakes and failed plans stand out clearly with the perspective
of time, but so do the occasional successfully implemented projects that flowed from the
plans. Less obvious but perhaps equally satisfying are the mistakes avoided because of the
plans. DRD draws here exclusively on its own field experience in Latin America, leaving it
to other technical assistance agencies to catalog theirs. Accordingly, the emphasis in
this book is on the development of natural resources, energy, infrastructure, agriculture,
industry, human settlements, and social services. In these accounts, we believe, are
information and ideas of use to developing-country governments from the local to the
national levels, sectoral agencies, river basin authorities, regional development
corporations, other technical assistance groups, and - most of all - field study managers.
6,637Kb - 313 pages
Minimum Conflict: Guidelines for Planning the Use of American Humid Tropic
Environments represents the Phase I report of the OAS/UNEP/Government of Peru
sponsored project: "Case Study of Environmental Management: Integrated Development of
An Area in the Humid Tropics - The Selva Central of Peru." To a large degree this
effort is a follow-up of the OAS/UNEP/Government of Argentina study of the Upper Bermejo
River Basin of Argentina in 1975-1977 which sought to develop a planning methodology for
river basins in semiarid areas. The results of this early study were published in 1978 as
a small book, Environmental Quality and River Basin Development: A Model for Integrated
Analysis and Planning. Both of these studies have their basis in Resolution 61 of the
1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Action Plan, which requests that
research be undertaken to design practical planning methodologies for distinct categories
of development activity in specific individual biomes and which would include
"concern for the environment" as an integral part of development planning.
3,375Kb - 283 pages
2,802Kb -
148 pages
Under the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, the governments of
Colombia and Ecuador signed a cooperation agreement in 1979 to promote and
oversee the two countries' bilateral activities in the Amazonian region. In
1985, both governments reaffirmed the need to encourage sectoral activities in
the border region and decided to begin to draw up a binational action plan to
steer regional development towards sustainable development objectives that
were compatible with their fragile ecological systems. Thus, in 1986, the
Physical Planning and Management Plan for the San Miguel and Putumayo River
Basins (PSP) was approved and initiated.
1.867Kb -
150 pages
In concurrence with the objectives, policies and strategies
specified in each country's Amazonian Development Plan, the overall PPCP goals
can be summarized as follows: (a) To promote the harmonious and sustained
development of the area; (b) To integrate the area with the rest of the
territory by constructing roads and other transportation facilities and
establishing communication links, as well as through political, cultural,
social and economic inter-action; (c) To improve the population's standard of
living; (d) To concentrate, in the native communities, on substantially
improving the handling of territorial issues, and the provision of basic
social and health services, including the conservation of areas traditionally
inhabited by such communities while protecting the fundamental rights of those
communities, and, in particular, their social and cultural integrity; (e) To
promote research and the compilation of information on the area.
4.930Kb - 172
pages
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In accordance with the objectives, policies, and
strategies contained in the development plans for the Amazon region in both
countries, the general objectives for the development of the border
communities are as follows: a) improvement of the living standards of the
population; b) determination of the appropriate use of the areas natural
resources, with a view toward sustainable development; c) binational
integration of the area into the remainder of the territory of the two
countries, through the efficient use of their natural resources and the
fostering of effective occupation of the border areas.
3.060Kb - 157
pages
The Source Book of Alternative Technologies for Freshwater Augmentation in
Latin America and the Caribbean was prepared by the Unit for Sustainable Development
and Environment of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) as
part of the joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Water Branch and
International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) initiative to provide water resource
managers and planners, especially in developing countries and in countries with economies
in transition, with information on the range of technologies that have been developed and
used in the various countries throughout the world.
2,387Kb - 323 pages
This document summarizes the preliminary findings and
recommendations resulting from the two-year formulation phase of the Strategic
Action Program for the Binational Basin of the Bermejo River.
116Kb -
19 pages
On May 4, 1989, the Government of Uruguay and the Inter-American Development
Bank signed a technical cooperation agreement to finance a national study that would help
incorporate the environmental dimension into the development process of Uruguay.
This document synthesizes the findings of the study and provides an action plan
to implement the strategy, projects and programs that are based on these findings. In
summary, the study established that a formal environmental policy was needed to meet the
national objectives of improved quality of life for the people of Uruguay.
433Kb - 39 pages
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