WASHINGTON, DC – A new wave of upward pressure is hitting global food markets, as climbing global temperatures and increasingly erratic weather patterns linked to climate change threaten agricultural output across major producing regions. Climate-driven extreme heat, prolonged drought and other environmental risks have emerged as key stressors for supply chains, stirring widespread concern among policymakers and industry stakeholders.
分类： environment
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Belize Declares Power Supply Emergency
In a landmark response to a deepening national energy crisis, the government of Belize has formally approved a national power supply emergency declaration, after weeks of widespread rolling blackouts exposed critical vulnerabilities in the country’s electricity infrastructure. The emergency order, greenlit by the Belizean Cabinet during a Wednesday meeting, responds to an urgent request from Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), which warned that the nation could face a substantial energy deficit over the coming 12 months without immediate intervention.
The crisis was triggered last month when Mexico’s state-owned power utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad reduced its regular electricity exports to Belize, a move that left the Central American nation unable to meet domestic consumer and commercial demand. Over the past several weeks, the gap between available supply and rising demand has forced BEL to implement rolling, nationwide scheduled outages — commonly known as load shedding — that have disrupted daily life across the country.
Under the newly approved emergency declaration, BEL will now be able to accelerate processes to secure additional power generation capacity, cutting through typical bureaucratic red tape that would slow emergency acquisitions and infrastructure deployment. The move is designed to rapidly reduce the risk of prolonged or more frequent future outages.
Dr. Leroy Almendarez, Chief Executive Officer of Belize’s Ministry of Public Utilities, explained the regulatory and planning context that led to the emergency declaration in an interview this week. He framed the energy shortfall as a challenge of growing demand meeting constrained supply, noting that BEL conducts regular demand forecasting, on both annual and five-year timelines, that relies on historical consumption data to project future needs.
Almendarez explained that once BEL identifies a projected gap between domestic generation capacity and expected demand, it shares detailed data with the country’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Unlike standard regulatory adjustments, however, emergency declarations fall under Cabinet jurisdiction, so the PUC forwards the request to the Minister of Energy for full Cabinet review and approval.
Cabinet officials emphasized that the emergency declaration is a proactive, pre-emptive measure, rather than a response to a full-scale collapse of the power system. The government’s top priority is securing enough additional energy supplies to meet steadily growing domestic demand across the country in the coming year, and prevent further disruption to households and businesses.
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Three Months of Low Tourist Arrivals During Sargassum Invasion
A massive, ongoing sargassum invasion has choked the popular coastal beaches of Placencia in Belize’s Stann Creek District, leaving vast stretches of shoreline unfit for recreational use and sparking a sharp three-month drop in tourist arrivals that threatens the country’s tourism-dependent economy. As of September 4, 2026, local and national tourism stakeholders have moved into urgent talks to develop targeted mitigation strategies that can reverse the damage and protect Belize’s $4 billion marine tourism sector.
Representatives from the Belize Tourism Board held a full day of collaborative discussions with the Placencia Village Council this week to map out actionable solutions for the affected peninsula. Tourism Minister Anthony Mahler, who also holds the sports portfolio, has characterized the sargassum incursion as an unprecedented three-pronged crisis: an environmental emergency, a growing public health hazard, and a severe economic shock for coastal communities that rely almost entirely on visitor spending.
Mahler brings personal perspective to the crisis, having personally cut short a foreign vacation by checking out of an international resort due to unbearable sargassum accumulation on that property’s beaches. He acknowledged that broader global economic and travel headwinds have put downward pressure on Belize’s tourism sector, but emphasized that the invasive seaweed bloom is a major independent driver of the recent three-month downturn in arrivals.
“For me, and I’ve flagged this enough in cabinet, just like the cost of living, it is a crisis. It has become a health crisis. It has become an environmental crisis, and it has become an economic crisis,” Mahler explained in an address following the stakeholder talks. He noted that local coastal businesses and resorts are already absorbing unexpected, costly damage from the invasion, requiring unplanned repairs and upgrades to infrastructure and guest amenities that cut into already strained profit margins.
To address the long-term challenge of continuous sargassum inundation, the government is currently testing mitigation systems to identify which approaches work best for Belize’s unique coastal geography through a trial-and-error process. Mahler confirmed that officials have now identified a promising machine-based solution that can operate 23 hours a day to clear seaweed, matching the near-constant pace of sargassum influx along Belize’s coastlines. The new system will require integration with existing coastal infrastructure to reach full operational capacity.
With 70% of all visitors to Belize traveling to the country for marine-focused activities, protecting clean, accessible shorelines is non-negotiable for the national economy, which draws $4 billion in annual revenue from tourism. “The last few months have been rough. It has, we’ve taken a beating from sargassum, but there are other issues,” Mahler added, referencing the overlapping global challenges hitting the travel sector.
To secure sustainable funding for long-term mitigation, Mahler has put forward a policy proposal to allocate 1.5 percentage points of a proposed 3.5% hotel tax increase directly to sargassum clearance and prevention measures. The government is also in talks with international financial institutions to secure additional grant and loan funding to scale up mitigation efforts across all affected coastal regions of the country. This report is a transcript of an evening television newscast originally published by the outlet.
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Grankreek maakt opnieuw bezwaar tegen zandafgravingen
On Friday, the Indigenous community of Grankreek, located in Suriname’s Saramacca district, delivered a formal formal objection to District Commissioner Aniel Ramautar, pushing back against recent legal moves that could clear the way for restarting suspended sand extraction operations on their traditional ancestral land. The filing comes in response to a new court notice from one of the companies involved in the mining project, which seeks to overturn the stop-work order imposed on the activity earlier this year.
The conflict between the Grankreek community and sand mining operators dates back to February 2024, when widespread local protests forced authorities to halt all extraction activities. More than six months have passed since the suspension, but community representatives say they have yet to receive clear, comprehensive answers to the core questions they have raised about the project.
Over the past six months, Grankreek’s leadership has sent multiple formal correspondences, held multiple rounds of talks with regional and national authorities, and pushed for transparency around the ongoing official investigation into the project and the validity of the mining permits issued. To date, no conclusive updates have been provided on these processes, leaving the community in a state of uncertainty.
Among the outstanding issues are the unaddressed environmental damage that community members confirm has already been caused by initial mining operations, as well as the unclear fate of the existing mining permits, which the community demands be fully revoked. This latest legal push to lift the suspension has reignited widespread anxiety across the village, with residents arguing that no resumption of work can be allowed until all fundamental questions about the project’s legality, environmental impacts, and respect for Indigenous land rights have been resolved.
By submitting this formal objection to District Commissioner Ramautar, the Grankreek community is once again demanding urgent attention from national authorities. Village head Angelique Palmtak, who personally handed the objection letter to Ramautar, reaffirmed that the community will maintain its opposition to all mining activity on its traditional territory until full clarity is provided on all outstanding concerns. The full text of the community’s objection letter is being published as an attachment to this report.
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Protected areas that buffer hurricanes are also among the most exposed in the Dominican Republic.
Located in the hurricane-prone Caribbean basin, the Dominican Republic is confronting a striking environmental paradox: the very protected natural areas that shield its communities from hurricane and tropical storm damage are themselves the most vulnerable to repeated cyclonic impacts, new government analysis reveals.
A comprehensive mapping study published by the Dominican Republic’s National Statistics Office (ONE) tracks the overlap between the country’s National System of Protected Areas and historical cyclone tracks spanning 1990 through projected 2025 pathways. The findings show that key conservation zones have accumulated exposure to as many as 20 separate cyclonic events over the 35-year period, creating urgent new challenges for ecosystem conservation and proactive disaster management.
Protected areas across the Dominican Republic deliver irreplaceable public and environmental benefits: they safeguard fragile native biodiversity, regulate regional freshwater supplies, prevent soil erosion, and broadly reduce the overall risk of extreme weather damage for adjacent populated areas. However, the majority of these conservation zones are intentionally sited in coastal, mountainous, and other ecologically sensitive landscapes—geographic features that also put them directly in the path of recurring tropical cyclones that form in the Caribbean.
The study’s most notable finding centers on the two most strictly protected conservation categories: Strict Protection Areas and Habitat and Species Management Areas. These zones, designed to preserve the country’s most vulnerable ecosystems and endangered species, recorded the highest cumulative exposure, with each category hit by 20 separate hurricanes or tropical storms over the study period. National Parks rank next with 15 recorded events, followed by Protected Landscapes at 12, Nature Reserves at 10, and Natural Monuments at six.
These statistics confirm that the country’s most environmentally valuable conservation territories are also consistently subjected to extreme weather events that can strip away critical vegetation cover and permanently alter the delicate natural conditions these areas are meant to protect.
ONE researchers explain that tropical cyclones trigger a cascade of harmful impacts in protected zones, including severe flooding, destructive landslides, accelerated coastal erosion, and widespread damage to native plant communities. These hits are disproportionately damaging in conservation areas, where even small ecological disruptions can erase decades of conservation progress for rare or endemic species.
The situation is uniquely pressing for the Dominican Republic, whose geographic position in the Caribbean places it directly along the annual migration path of tropical cyclone systems forming in the Atlantic Ocean. For this island nation, extreme weather is not a rare anomaly but a recurring seasonal reality that shapes all environmental planning.
Unlike many previous studies that focus on quantifying damage after individual cyclones, the ONE analysis takes a proactive approach: it does not set out to calculate harm from past storms, but instead maps the overlap between protected area boundaries and historical cyclone tracks to identify long-term exposure patterns. The goal of the work is to help conservation managers prioritize resource allocation for preventive protection that strengthens vulnerable ecosystems before storms hit.
ONE officials note that the data collected through this study will be a critical tool to improve national territorial planning, inform more effective conservation policy, and enhance broader national disaster risk reduction strategies. Ultimately, the analysis brings a long-unrecognized paradox into sharp focus: the natural ecosystems that act as the Dominican Republic’s first line of defense against extreme weather events are themselves in urgent need of additional targeted protection to survive the rising frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones linked to a changing climate.
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Community members in Las Lavas, Santiago, report health problems and demand a halt to mining activity
Residents of the small Dominican community of Las Lavas, located in Villa González, Santiago, have united in a urgent call to shut down nearby unregulated mining operations, citing widespread dust pollution, soaring rates of respiratory illness, and unaddressed risks to children’s health that have upended daily life for the 2,000-person neighborhood.
Community organizers allege that poor environmental conditions tied to intensive mining have contributed to at least five recent resident deaths, though no official causal link has been confirmed by Dominican public health authorities. The movement brought their grievances directly to top local and national officials—including Deputy Minister of the Interior and Police Ángela Jáquez, Villa González Mayor Cesar Álvarez, and representatives of Digesett, the national traffic and transportation security agency—at a special security convening held to address the ongoing conflict between residents and mining operators.
Rubén Darío Peña Lendóf, president of the local community advocacy group Unidos por Las Lavas, told attendees that the region of less than one square kilometer adjacent to the neighborhood hosts more than 20 separate active extraction sites, where operators pull sand, gravel, and stone from surrounding hills. “We can’t eat at the table, we can’t rub ourselves with a clean sheet, we can’t bring a family member to visit us, because they want to leave right away; their clothes get dirty with dust. You can’t breathe,” Peña Lendóf described, emphasizing how constant mining dust has degraded quality of life for every household in the area.
Backing up the community’s anecdotal claims, officials from the Dominican Ministry of Public Health presented data from an in-person survey of 486 local residents conducted to assess population health outcomes in the area. Dr. Rafael Polanco, of the Santiago Provincial Directorate of Public Health, outlined survey findings that show staggeringly high rates of respiratory and related conditions among the assessed population: 56% of respondents reported respiratory allergies, 46.7% experienced frequent common colds, 31.3% lived with bronchial asthma, 30% had rhinitis, and 26.7% were diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Additional reported conditions included skin disorders, tonsillitis, conjunctivitis, gastroenteritis, and cancer. The survey also recorded that 63.3% of respondents reported acute respiratory distress, while 66.7% lived with chronic respiratory illness—health officials clarified that these two metrics were measured through separate survey questions and are not overlapping indicators.
Unlike many public health surveys that rely on remote phone polling, the assessment was conducted entirely through face-to-face interviews with local residents, a detail Polanco highlighted to reinforce the data’s credibility, noting that “we didn’t call people by phone without knowing who we were surveying, questioning, or investigating.”
For Las Lavas residents, the official survey results validate years of unaddressed concern about the impact of unregulated mining on their community. Community leaders also claim that an earlier joint inspection with an environmental commission found that roughly 90% of the nearby mining operations lack the required legal operating permits, and are calling on authorities to launch a full investigation into permitting compliance.
In response to the community’s demands, Jáquez outlined a set of incremental policy proposals designed to mitigate harm while addressing the conflict, stressing that there is no quick fix for the ongoing crisis. The proposed measures include a city council resolution banning mining trucks from entering or exiting the extraction area during school drop-off and pick-up hours, with fines for non-compliance, as well as the urgent development of a formal environmental remediation plan led by the Ministry of Environment with input from all affected stakeholders. Jáquez projected that tangible improvements for the community would become visible within a 3-month timeline.
The proposals have failed to satisfy local residents, who remain firm in their core demand for a full, immediate halt to all mining operations near Las Lavas. Community representatives issued an ultimatum to authorities: if no decisive intervention is delivered within the next 15 days, organizers will launch a 48-hour general strike across the municipality of Villa González to escalate pressure for action.
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Rainieri: “So far, there is no firm policy against sargassum”
The increasing inundation of Sargassum seaweed along Dominican Republic’s Caribbean coastlines has emerged as one of the most pressing threats to the nation’s critical tourism industry, smothering white-sand beaches and undermining the visitor experience that draws millions of vacationers to the country each year. While a range of proposals and experimental initiatives have been floated by public and private stakeholders in recent years, none of these plans have moved beyond the discussion stage to deliver tangible, large-scale results.
Leading the call for immediate action is Frank Rainieri, founder of Grupo Puntacana — one of the Dominican Republic’s most prominent tourism conglomerates, which has shaped the country’s Caribbean tourism identity for decades. Rainieri has stressed that the time for incremental talks has passed, saying the nation must implement a unified, decisive policy framework to tackle the recurring Sargassum crisis once and for all.
“We have to confront the Sargassum. We have to create a policy against Sargassum; so far there has been talk, but there is no coherent and firm policy against Sargassum,” Rainieri said, emphasizing that long-term planning for the tourism industry cannot move forward without resolving the persistent seaweed problem. The tourism sector cannot safely plan for the 2027 travel season while remaining vulnerable to annual Sargassum outbreaks, he argued, noting that urgent action this year is non-negotiable.
Rainieri pointed to the long lead times required for infrastructure projects to illustrate why delays are unacceptable: for example, if officials approve a program to deploy offshore barriers to block incoming Sargassum, approval must be granted immediately. Supply orders for the barriers take six months to reach the country, with an additional two months required for on-site installation. If authorization is dragged out, the timeline will slip straight into the next Sargassum season, leaving the coast unprotected once again. “If we go through that time, we will be back in Sargassum season, so we have many things to resolve ahead, and we have to resolve them,” he added.
Currently, a dedicated interagency cabinet has been convened to evaluate potential mitigation strategies for Sargassum across all of the Dominican Republic’s coastal regions. Once a consensus solution is finalized, the Dominican Association of Hotels and Tourism (Asonahores) will be able to access dedicated funds allocated by the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur) to carry out mitigation work on affected beaches nationwide.
Back in June 2026, Tourism Minister David Collado confirmed that $9 million has already been set aside in a dedicated account for this purpose, ready to be disbursed through Asonahores as soon as a formal mitigation plan is approved.
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Very Strong El Niño Could Bring Extreme Weather Into 2027
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued a stark new warning that the ongoing El Niño event is strengthening far faster than initial projections, with high confidence it will intensify into a historic, very strong weather pattern by the end of 2026 that elevates the threat of destructive extreme weather across every inhabited continent.
In a formal forecast update published Thursday, the WMO revealed that climate models show a near-100% chance El Niño will hold its influence through February 2027 — an almost unprecedented level of certainty for long-range seasonal climate outlooks.
This recurring climate pattern, defined by anomalous warm ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, is already being driven by ocean waters that have reached far above average warmth. The WMO’s latest projections indicate the event will continue to gain intensity over the coming months, with its peak strength likely to arrive between November and December 2026.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo emphasized that current trajectory puts the event on track to become exceptionally strong, noting that if current warming trends in the tropical Pacific hold, it could surpass the intensity of any El Niño event recorded since the organization began systematic global climate monitoring decades ago.
A powerful El Niño event reshapes global atmospheric circulation, triggering major shifts in typical rainfall and temperature patterns across the globe. This disruption dramatically increases the probability of simultaneous extreme weather events, including prolonged droughts, catastrophic flash flooding, and record-breaking heatwaves across different regions worldwide.
The upcoming event also carries specific risks for Caribbean nations, though the WMO was careful to note that the overall strength of El Niño does not directly dictate the severity of local impacts in individual countries. Regional sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and other independent climate drivers can amplify, dampen, or even redirect the typical weather shifts associated with El Niño, meaning local preparedness planning remains critical regardless of global intensity projections.
For the September-to-November 2026 period, the WMO’s outlook confirms a sharply elevated chance of above-average temperatures across nearly all global land masses. The tropical Atlantic is also projected to stay warmer than the long-term seasonal average through the end of the year, adding another layer of climate influence for Atlantic basin nations.
To reduce the risk of avoidable loss of life and property, the WMO is calling on national governments and local meteorological agencies around the world to ramp up continuous monitoring of regional and national climate forecasts, and to invest in early action and improved preparedness for potential climate-related hazards that may arise from the event.
In a clarification of the event’s origins, the organization stressed that El Niño is a naturally occurring periodic climate phenomenon, and is not directly caused by human-driven climate change. Even so, its impacts are unfolding against the backdrop of long-term global warming, which can amplify the severity of heatwaves and other extreme weather tied to the event.
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Grassalco laat na NMA-onderzoek eigen extern onderzoek uitvoeren
State-owned gold mining company N.V. Grassalco has announced it will commission an independent external investigation into pollution affecting the Moeroekreek and Saramaccarivier in Suriname, following a government inquiry that has already held the company accountable for the environmental damage. The incident, which has resulted in widespread fish death and harm to riverside local communities, has drawn sharp attention from national authorities, with President Jennifer Simons formally naming Grassalco as responsible for the contamination.
In response, Grassalco has contracted SEPCO Industries, an international environmental consulting firm with a local presence in the region, to conduct what the mining company describes as an independent baseline assessment and environmental impact report. The firm has committed to carrying out full remediation of the affected area if the independent investigation confirms a causal link between its mining operations and the observed ecological damage, including the mass fish mortality.
In an official statement released Wednesday, Grassalco noted that it takes the government’s formal liability finding “extremely seriously”, and expressed regret over the ecological harm, large-scale fish death, and negative impacts on local communities living along the two waterways. However, the company stopped short of accepting responsibility for the contamination at this stage, pointing out that the site where the fish kill was detected sits roughly 15 kilometers away from its active mining concession in Maripaston.
The new external probe runs parallel to an internal investigation being led by Grassalco’s own Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) department, and comes after the National Environment Authority (NMA) already completed its own inquiry into the contamination, prompting presidential action against the firm. Grassalco emphasized that hiring an independent third-party researcher is intended to guarantee that findings will be credible and free from corporate influence. Results of the external investigation are expected within six to eight weeks, and will be published in full directly to the public with no redaction, according to the company.
The investigation will combine desk research, on-site fieldwork, and sampling of surface water, groundwater, soil, sediment, and local biota. All laboratory test results will be benchmarked against both national Surinamese and international environmental quality standards, before a final report is issued with findings and recommendations for any required cleanup. Beyond the full investigation, Grassalco also plans to run a small-scale remediation pilot project in the affected area to test cleanup methods before any potential large-scale deployment.
Grassalco reiterated that these preliminary actions do not constitute an admission of guilt for the pollution. “If the independent probe confirms the link between our operations and the reported fish death, we will proceed immediately with full remediation of the affected area,” the company said.
Moving ahead of investigation results, the mining firm has already begun providing support to impacted local populations. Grassalco says it has already established direct contact with affected households, and will provide clean drinking water to communities on an as-needed basis, with plans to expand support to address any additional identified needs.
To maintain transparency throughout the process, Grassalco has committed to keeping local communities updated during and after the investigation. Public community meetings will be held where residents can ask questions directly to Grassalco’s leadership, and a dedicated hotline will be launched to field questions and reports from affected residents.
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Dominica updates management plans for Morne Trois Pitons and Morne Diablotin
The Caribbean island nation of Dominica has launched a comprehensive update of management frameworks for two of its most ecologically critical protected areas: Morne Trois Pitons National Park and Morne Diablotin National Park. The entire review and revision process is scheduled to take approximately nine months to complete, with the private environmental consultancy Environment Direct Consulting Inc. leading the initiative.
The core goal of this project is to align the current management governance of the island’s protected lands with 21st-century national priorities, balancing robust conservation targets with the country’s broader social and economic development goals. Dr. Camille David, leading the project on behalf of Environment Direct Consulting, emphasized that the Dominican government has formally recognized these protected natural areas as irreplaceable strategic national assets.
Dr. David highlighted the outsized ecological importance of the parks, which serve as the island’s primary watersheds, host globally significant endemic biodiversity, and sustain a wide range of critical ecosystem services that support both local communities and national economic activity. He further noted that any updated management plan must intentionally integrate sustainable tourism development alongside protection of these fragile ecological systems, ensuring the parks deliver both environmental and economic value to the nation.
To build a collaborative, inclusive plan, a national stakeholder consultation was held earlier the same day at the island’s Fisheries Complex, giving civil society groups, local community representatives, government agencies, tourism operators and conservation advocates an early opportunity to share their perspectives and priorities for the revised plans. Dr. David explained that the entire revision process will center input from this diverse cross-section of stakeholders, a deliberate approach designed to ensure the final documents are practical, all-encompassing, and directly responsive to the unique needs of Dominica.
Over the nine-month timeline, the consulting team will conduct a deep review of multiple dimensions of current park management, addressing gaps and updating protocols to create plans that deliver on both conservation commitments and tangible contributions to Dominica’s national development strategy.