The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 27 proposed the nation's first Clean Air Act standard for carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. Under the standard, greenhouse gas emissions from new coal-fired plants would be reduced by about 50% over the life of the plants. The rule only concerns new generating units that will be built in the future, and does not apply to existing units already operating or units that will start construction over the next 12 months. The proposed standard follows a 2007 decision by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts vs EPA that greenhouse gases are air pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

On March 22, World Water Day, the "March for Water, Life and Dignity," more than 1,000 strong, reached Ecuador's capital after a two-week, 700-kilometer cross-country trek to oppose plans for large-scale mining projects on indigenous lands. Carrying the rainbow-colored indigenous flag, marchers were joined by thousands of supporters in Quito. Some demonstrators clashed with police outside the National Assembly building. Police repelled rock-throwing youth with tear gas, and at one point charged the demonstrators on horseback.

The UN's International Labor Organization (ILO) released a report by a committee of experts March 3 finding that the Brazilian government violated the rights of indigenous people by moving forward on the massive Belo Monte dam without consulting native communities. The report follows a request last year by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the Brazilian government to suspend the dam, which is currently being built on the Rio Xingu River in Pará state, in the Amazon Basin. It has met with repeated angry protests by the Kayapo and other local indigenous peoples.

On March 20, Colombia's Committee-Foundation for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP) informed the press that 500 prisoners in several of the country's facilities had initiated an indefinite hunger strike. The strikers are mostly imprisoned FARC guerillas who undertook their action to demand that they be recognized as "political prisoners of war and conscience," and to protest the government's denial of a request by the group Colimbians for Peace (CCP), led by ex-senator Piedad Córdoba, to visit the prisoners and verify "the actual conditions of human rights that they face." The strike started at El Barne prison in Cómbita (Boyacá department), and quickly spread to other facilities. Some have decided to lift their strike since the announcement, but at last report 417 were still refusing all food. The strike follows the FARC's recent pledge to release hostages and abandon abductions. (Antifa Bogotá, Adital, Radio Nederland Internacional, March 22; EFE, March 21; Semana, AVN, March 20)

Colombia is enjoying an oil boom, its output of crude having nearly doubled in the past six years, from 525,000 barrels a day in 2005 to a daily average of 914,000 last year. But as exploration expands in the country's eastern lowlands, oil companies continue to confront armed groups. In February, the ELN guerrillas kidnapped 11 workers in Casanare department who were building the Oleoducto Bicentenario, slated to be Colombia's largest oil pipeline. The 11 were released in early March. Simultaneously, Interior Minister Germán Vargas Lleras warned that he was "not going to tolerate" more road blockades in the region. Local peasants and residents have in recent weeks repeatedly blocked arteries through the region to protest the lack of benefit to their communities by the oil operations, facing down troops of the elite National Police riot squad, ESMAD. Leaders have denied government claims that the guerillas are behind the protest campaign.

On Feb. 28, Peru's government sent a protest note to Chile, claiming an unauthorized incursion by Chilean troops into its territory five days earlier. The Chilean soldiers reportedly entered the country while performing landmine-clearing work, after heavy rains shifted anti-personnel mines in the area. "The findings suggest the presence of Chilean troops in an area of Peruvian territory, between Milestone [Hito] No. 1 and the sea, carrying out signaling work of the land shift that reached the territory of Peru," a government press statement said. This set off a flurry of press accounts of further such incursions over the next month, prompting that Foreign Ministry to release a statement March 26 denying any new incursions. The dispute comes as the International Court of Justice at The Hague has scheduled oral arguments in Peru's case against Chile over their longtime maritime border dispute. (Peruvian Times, March 23; RPP, March 16; Peru This Week, Feb. 28)

The US State Department's 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy report contains harsh words for Peru, lamenting the country's "slow advance" in coca leaf eradication. The report says the country has 53,000 hectares under coca cultivation. Colombia has 100,000 hectares—but Peru's total has increased in recent years, while Colombia's has dropped. (Although Peru has challenged these claims.) The report calls out Peru's Customs Service, Coast Guard, Port Authority and Public Ministry as blocking progress in the anti-narcotics struggle. State Department analyst Pedro Yaranga told Lima's La Republica that "there does not exist a decision to attack the coca source areas [cuencas cocaleras]." He particularly named the Upper Huallaga Valley and Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE).

The former head of Peru's National Water Authority (ANA) and current water consultant to the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), Abelardo de la Torre, warned March 19 that Peru faces at least 70 social conflicts related to control of water, and that these are likely to worsen if urgent action is not taken to address them. He said ANA's Hydraulic Resources Management Modernization program, launched under his leadership, was aimed at eliminating inefficiencies in the national irrigation networks, and pointed to the environmental impacts of informal mining as contributing to the degradation of watersheds. (Reports did not indicate that he mentioned the impacts of formal mining.)