A great opportunity for networking in the sustainability sector is opening this year for the Mexican and Central America Markets. Green Power is a company that specializes in offering professionally organized events focusing on sustainability has announced that this years 2nd international Carbon Markets Mexico & Central America networking conference would be taking place in Mexico City. Green Power has organized to date over 50 events around that have encourage the development of sustainable business practices and over the last 5 years they have built a global data base of over 4000,000 contacts that include investors, delegates and experts.

The purpose of this conference is to create a networking platform in with the investors, delegates, experts, representatives of industries such as oil and gas, utilities, energy distributors, manufacturing industries, chemical industries, construction, transport, mining/mineral production, metal production, waste handling and disposal, agriculture and a forestation; will debate, analyze and learn about the current regulatory framework, investment criteria, project start up requirements, Certified Emission Reductions (CER)credit production optimization, strategies for the market, regional policy movements and the progress of the region in preparation for COP16.

The event will take place on September 8 and 9 2010 and the fee vary for each type of delegate. The fee includes full event documentation, refreshment breaks and lunch but not accommodation nor travel. Non-profit organizations get a 20 % discount. To book your place you have to fill a form that you can find on www.greenpowerconferences.com and send it by e-mail or fax to graham.swanson@greenpowerconferences.com or Fax: +44 20 7900 1853.

For the ones who are interested in learning more about Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects there will be a pre- conference seminar on Tuesday 7 September 2010. This seminar is an introduction for project developers with expertise and knowledge to enter the carbon market successfully and study the subject with practical cases that will be analyzed by experts on the field.

These events are the key to great opportunities such as developing partnerships with project hosts and potential investors, understanding the growing carbon market in Mexico and his strength in REDD and learn about cogeneration and hydropower technologies in Central America.

Por: Leesa Muirhead

Ten organisations have been short listed for the US$1M Rio Tinto Prize for Sustainability 2008, which is awarded annually by an international Adjudication Panel of distinguished sustainability experts.

Chairman of the Adjudication Panel, Director of Guelph Institute for the Environment, University of Guelph, Canada, and Former Minister for Environment in Canada, David Anderson said the 2008 short listed organisations represented a diversity of work being done locally to contribute towards global sustainable development.

“The Prize received 117 entries from organisations throughout the world, working across a broad range of different and exciting initiatives. Having evaluated the entries, we believe we have ten short listed organisations which highlight the diversity and depth of talent, initiative and skills existing in the not-for-profit sector.”

The ten short listed organisations in 2008 are:

Childhealth Advocacy International (CAI)
- UK

Institute of Integrated Rural Development
- Bangladesh

International Development Enterprises India
- India

Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda
- Mexico

SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
- The Netherlands

The Equilibrium Fund
- Mexico
Trees, Water & People
- USA

US Green Building Council
- USA

VillageReach
- USA

Water for People
- USA

Further information about the short listed organisations can be found at www.riotintoprizeforsustainability.com.

The global US$1M Rio Tinto Prize for Sustainability is open to all not-for-profit, civil society and non-government organisations working to advance the goals of economic, environmental and social sustainability.

Rio Tinto global head of Health, Safety & Environment Elaine Dorward-King said Rio Tinto’s association with the Prize, through its acquisition of Alcan in 2007, provided Rio Tinto with an opportunity to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to sustainable development.

“For some time now, we have focused on integrating sustainable development considerations into our business plans and decision making processes. We believe performance across economic, social and environmental considerations is critical to sustaining not only our long term success, but also the world’s long term sustainability.”

To facilitate an inclusive, rigorous and transparent management process for the award of the Prize, Rio Tinto partners with the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) which manages the entries and selection process. IBLF engages independent sustainability experts from around the world to ensure the process and decisions are made in an objective and consistent manner. Rio Tinto does not participate in the assessment process.

IBLF chief executive Adam Leach said the Prize demonstrated the ongoing commitment of the corporate sector to sustainable development at a difficult economic time globally.

“The US$1M Rio Tinto Prize for Sustainability has provided an important financial boost to the not-for-profit sector, and demonstrates an active commitment to sustainable development amongst the corporate sector,” he added.

Previous winners of the Prize for Sustainability include the Forest Stewardship Council (Germany) www.fsc.org, Aga Khan Planning and Building Services (Pakistan) www.akdn.org, the Barefoot College
(India) www.barefootcollege.org and Utthan Centre for Sustainable Development & Poverty Alleviation (India) www.sietalld.org.

For further information, please contact:

Leesa Muirhead
Manager, Rio Tinto Prize for Sustainability
MOBILE: +44 (0) 7901 510 701
SWITCH: +44 (0) 20 7467 3600
E: manager@alcanprizeforsustainability.com
W: www.riotintoprizeforsustainability.com

Por: Michael Bott

The Lacandona Jungle is in the state of Chiapas and at the heart of it is the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. The Lacandona jungle also includes Bonampak and Yaxchilan Natural monuments. There live three different native Mayan tribes: the Lacandons, Choo’ls and Tzeltal, each speaking their own individual languages.

In this blog I will endeavour to break down the threats which I saw into 3 main categories: economic, environmental and social. I will also discuss some possible future threats to the Lacandona Jungle.

Economic

When driving down the main road to the communities you can see the mass deforestation that has taken place to make way for cattle farms. Just by observing what is left of the land you can get a picture of how tall the trees were there. The ones still standing are the sabre trees (Ceiba) which are sacred in Mayan culture. Another cause of deforestation has been the demand for palm oil in the 21st century, as the oil is used as a food preservative. These monoculture plantations are places where diseases and pests thrive. A future threat to the area could be Ecotourism, even though it is not a threat at the moment because there are only very few cabins for people who want the “jungle experience” to stay in.

Environmental

As I have already mentioned deforestation in the above paragraph, it is important to bring up the resulting environmental issues which occur when a forest is cut down, which is soil erosion. This is a problem that can affect the water courses, which has a knock on effect for the local communities. Forest fires are also a major threat during the dry season but I only saw controlled burning of patches of farm land.

Social

Due to the popularity of ecotourism in the last 20years the diminishing natural world has started to appeal to more and more people. This causes the people in nearby villages and maybe even towns to move to the ecotourism hotspots because there is money to be made from people like myself. Around 30 to 40 years ago the Mayas of the Lacandon never spoke Spanish, but now with more people visiting the need to communicate with the tourists and with one another is ever greater. For example, Manuel was speaking to a girl on the collectivo, she was from a local tribe (Tzeltal) and she spoke Spanish as her second language. The interesting thing was that she told Manuel she was Catholic. Also this culture change is evident in the clothes they now wear as I saw a boy wearing a Nike T-shirt instead of the traditional white lacandon gowns. Is this the generation where ancient Mayan beliefs start to die out?

Conclusion

On conclusion I have realised that it is very difficult to put each threat into separate categories because they are all linked.  I would like to point out that the main damage in the area has already been done with the deforestation due to cattle farming and palm plantations. I think now what needs to been done is to protect the forests that are left, and with the current area now a protected site I think that we are taking a step in the right direction. I also think that better education for people who own the land, not only to show them how to manage their land sustainably but to demonstrate why it is better practice to do it sustainably. Ecotourism is great. The fact that people want to see areas of natural beauty cannot be a bad thing because it creates public awareness which is a positive impact. Maybe when things start get a bit overwhelming for the area, start thinking about putting a cap on the number of people visiting an area.  All the changes will only happen if every party involved in the protection and conservation of the area is willing to communicate, take on board different ideas and cooperate… and if they really care, they will.

I would like to end with two massive “thank you”s one to Reforestamos Mexico and one to Manuel for showing me around this beautiful area of Southern Mexico.

Muchas muchas gracias.

Michael Bott The University of Aberdeen, Scotland