Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Exploration Makes Strange Bedfellows – March 15, 2012

US Enviro Groups and Oil Execs Band Together to Promote End of Cold War-Era Hostilities Between Two Nations

From his hotel in Havana, marine scientist and conservation policy specialist David Guggenheim, aka the “Ocean Doctor,” can see the lights of Scarabeo 9. The recently arrived oil-drilling platform off the Cuban coast began drilling exploratory deepwater wells on the Cuban side of the Florida Straits, about 70 miles from Key West, last month.

Photo Courtesy MapquestLast month, Spanish oil company Repsol began exploratory drilling on the Cuban side of the Florida
Straits, about 70 miles from Key West. US environmentalists and policymakers are concerned that
Cuba doesn’t have the resources, technology, or expertise needed to deal with a Deepwater Horizon-
like disaster.

The 53,000-ton rig is,… more

by: Karen Hoffmann

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In Brazil, Murder of Activists Underscores Bitter Fight over Amazon’s Resources – July 5, 2011

Locals Say Timing of killings and Approval of Belo Monte Dam Far From Random

“The forest cries,” read a sign at the funeral of José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espirito Santo. The Amazon activists had been murdered, execution-style, by unknown assailants, less than 24 hours after Brazil's lower house of congress voted to roll back forest protections.

Photo by Lou GoldJosé Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva speaking at TEDx Amazon last November where he
predicted his own death.

Chillingly, Ribeiro had predicted his own death at a TEDx talk in Manaus six months earlier. He had been receiving threats from loggers in the area of his home near Nova Ipixuna, in the lawless Brazilian state of Para.

“I could… more

by: Karen Hoffmann

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