Posts by Andy Pugh

The need to fast-track the regularização of smallholder titles motivated the Terra Legal programme, which sent teams of surveyors to selected municipalities to accelerate the process for landholdings established prior to 2004. The initial goal was to review and certify 300,000 smallholdings in 463 municipalities; however, the programme collected data on only 117,000 landholdings and […]

As studies show far more natural hydrogen underground than believed, well-funded efforts to drill for the gas are underway around the globe. Boosters see a plentiful green replacement for fossil fuels, but skeptics say its large-scale use may not be practical or cost-effective.

Read more on E360 →

The ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana has it that Hanuman was a mighty ape god who marshaled an army to build a bridge linking northern Sri Lanka’s Mannar region with South India’s Rameswaram. Several hundred years later, a small bird species new to science is named as the Hanuman plover, as it lives and was found in […]

One of the objections to utility-scale solar power that I hear most often is that local communities will be left to cover the costs of cleanup at the end of a project’s life. But state and local rules in nearly all of the country are clear about who pays: The developer or the owner is […]

As the climate changes and weather warms, the freezing line is shifting, bringing rain and ice to regions not prepared for it.

Land subsidence is a factor as preparations are made for rising sea levels and strengthening storms. Human infrastructure, including buildings and groundwater extraction, increases vulnerabilities.

The third pillar of the institutional mission of the Instituto Nacional de Colonização y Reforma Agraria (INCRA) encompasses both administrative and legal aspects of land tenure and, as such, is the most important agency regulating rural real estate markets. Administratively, the institution is charged with collecting and organizing the records of all rural properties in […]

Activists say public power would lower bills and expand clean energy. But they face tough opposition from investor-owned utilities.

Coral bleaching is on the rise along Colombia’s Caribbean coast, according to the results of several expeditions made by Corales de Paz, an NGO that works to conserve and restore the South American country’s coral reefs. The NGO surveyed coastal coral reefs July 27-31, 2023, off the towns of Rincón del Mar, Pico de Náufrago […]

The largest combined solar and energy-storage project in the U.S. is now online and operating in California’s Mojave Desert. The sprawling megaproject stretches across 4,600 acres in Kern County and is located on private land as well as the Edwards Air Force Base. It’s the biggest public-private partnership the U.S.…