RIO DE JANEIRO - The ''cerrado'', a type of savannah that covers a vast part of central and western Brazil, will disappear by 2030 if current rates of deforestation continue, says the environmental watchdog Conservation International.

Of the savannah's 204 million hectares, 57 percent has been deforested for building hydroelectric dams, for creating farmland and livestock grazing areas, and for coal mining. Ten years ago, the deforested portion was 37 percent.

The annual loss of 2.6 million hectares of forest hurts one of the areas of greatest biodiversity in the world, threatening 142 species of amphibians, 52 of which are endemic, according to researcher Reuben Brandao.

The state of Mato Grosso is accused of spearheading deforestation, but Governor Blairo Maggi, a big soy farmer himself, says that 58 percent of the ''cerrado'' is being used, which is less than 65 percent authorized by Brazilian law.

SANTIAGO - The ''eco-neighborhood'' is the destination of 1,700 poor families who in 1999 took over a 22-hectare area in the Chilean capital's Peñalolén district, in the foothills of the Andes.

The Housing Ministry, Ecological Policy Institute and the Family Foundation signed an agreement July 16 to launch the yearlong project, which will provide the families with permanent homes in a healthy environment, and with training to protect it.

The families will also receive technical support in saving energy and recycling waste, said Institute president Manuel Baquedano.

CARACAS - The fishing community of San Francisco, in the most remote and arid region of Venezuela's Margarita Island, will launch in August a desalinization plant intended to alleviate the thirst of the town's 3,500 inhabitants.

Salt will be removed from water by reverse osmosis, in a filtering process that will treat up to 500,000 liters a day ''without harming the environment, because it doesn't involve chemicals, and the water is not extracted directly from the sea but from underground wells,'' project engineer Omar Elena told Tierramérica.

Six kilometers of pipeline will supply water to the San Francisco households, replacing the sporadic service of tanker trucks, Environment Minister Olga Umpiérrez explained to Tierramérica.

HAVANA - The long drought that has hit Cuba is blocking reforestation efforts, which in the past decade were able to increase the island's forest index to more than 23 percent. In 1959, that index had fallen to 13.7 percent.

Experts with the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture told Tierramérica that it was not possible to plant trees over 10,000 of the 20,600 hectares of mountainous zones that were scheduled for reforestation in the first half of 2004.

It was precisely to protect Cuba's watersheds that reforestation plans targeted areas around more than 1,000 dams.

GUATEMALA CITY - The National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) is promoting a bill in the Guatemalan Congress to regulate the influx into the country and the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

These transgenics ''could be beneficial for the country, but could also have negative impacts, which is why it is essential to regulate their entry and use,'' CONAP leader Ana Luisa Noguera told Tierramérica.

The bill was handed to President Oscar Berger on July 16 and he is to send it to Congress, she said.

If the bill passes, it would ban GMOs in areas where there are endangered species, improve controls along Guatemala's borders and make certain transgenic-related activities a crime, said Noguera.

Imports of GMOs were banned in 1986, but Yuri Melini, director of the Legal, Environmental and Social Action Center, said that transgenic tomatoes have been cultivated in the northern department of Baja Verapaz for years.

TEGUCIGALPA - An environmental defense campaign will get under way in 25 Honduran municipalities in two months, with nine million dollars in financing from the European Union, Environment Minister Patricia Panting told Tierramérica.

The funds are earmarked for protecting micro-watersheds, managing waste, protected areas and wildlife, as well as for environmental education in schools and communities, with citizen participation in protecting forests and promoting ecotourism, she said.

The aim is to ''change behavioral habits and improve management of natural resources (which) represent the prolongation of our lives,'' said Panting.

Singer-songwriter and ecologist Guillermo Anderson will participate in the portion of the campaign geared towards children.

''We will make songs and spread the message, because I think that without the help of children the development of a nation has no future,'' Anderson told Tierramérica.