[en] The concern for the rational and appropriate use of the renewable natural resources in the extraction processes, benefit, transformation of the minerals is recent, although there are dispositions from principles of the republic that refer to that relationship. Presently article is made a journey by such dispositions, it is explained how it should have restructured the executive branch of the public power to put on in consonance with the changes in environmental matter and like it has belonged the process of adaptation from the mining managers to those legislative changes

[en] The author intend to show how the perspective of institutional economy, worried about natural resources and the environment, insists in the necessity of a conceptual reconstruction of the concept of economy. This proposal is presented by considering three main aspects essentials for that reconstruction: a) The displacement of the philosophical assumptions of XVIII and XIX countries, b) Reformulation a widening of the meaning of the basic concepts and c) How to complement the marked price analysis with the consideration of social values. After analyzing these aspects it is show how they are applied to the study of natural resources and environmental problems through the notion of social costs

[en] The article refers to the concept of agrarian sustainability from a complex perspective, underlying its ambiguity in relation with the interpretations given by the different actors. The difficulties to understand and apply the concept to the Colombian agrarian sector under the present historic moment of chronic war are presented, discussing some aspects of equity in the distribution and quality of agrarian products. The principal factors mentioned as obstacles to reach agrarian sustainability are the diversity of approaches towards agriculture; the multiple facets of sustainability and the various challenges posed by the scientific and technological revolution all the new biotechnological developments. Biological war to cocaine is presented as an example of technological dependence and some structural aspects of the university educational sector are debated in relation to the environmental problematic

[en] This article is a preliminary analysis of eight workshops developed with the local committees for disasters prevention on the Aburra Valley. No one of these committees has at this moment a clear and coherent policies for disasters prevention that make possible to establish administration and community procedures according to the national laws. As a result they do not have specific goals to achieve a permanent action. In most of cases is missing an organized structure to articulate all the different agencies and employees involved. The committees do not have a periodical prepared meetings schedule, what they do is just making emergency reunions to answer to calamity situations. Even though all the cities have a responsible officials staff for emergency management, they have others priorities so the prevention disasters work is left on a second level. In the second part of this article are presented some theoretical elements about disasters and are developed some legal aspects that support the policies related to this topic

[en] The international trade conventional theory not only continues being supported upon the classic principle of comparative advantage, but also, in response to the rationality inherent to the traditional economic system, al so neglects considering the biophysical conditions under which transable goods are produced. The linkage of environment to trade is a recent concern, and it is explained on the basis that the first one has become a barrier for the second one. The environmental cause defenders, so as the free market advocates, are exposing their arguments in a context in which not necessarily to build viable solutions to the conflict is possible. The world economy behavior and tendencies do not offer the conditions needed so as that the official thesis in which the GATT - Rio - WTO thought can be summarized and the positive linkage towards the environmental quality, explicitly claimed by that thesis, becomes reality. Form these considerations, it is argument in this article in the direction of establishing a new international trade pattern and also some ideas are presented as to its characterization ecological economic view

[en] The paper presents a critical and systematic reading of the debate being developed in the United Nations commission on sustainable development, trying to identify the different meanings given to the notion of sustainability inside this new international forum. The study has comprehended fourteen official documents written to the second and third CSD sessions, happened respectively in 1994 and 1995, including different issues as technology transfer, trade, land, desertification, forests and biodiversity, critical elements of sustainability, human settlements, toxic hazards and poverty

[en] In order to obtain the best social and environmental results from mining activities, different solutions, which involve a variety of perspectives, have been proposed. These include the worldwide perspective based in the economy globalization paradigms; the regional perspective, focused in the integration of countries; the national perspective, which emphasizes the natural assets and development options, and finally a local perspective is incorporated to account for the participation of directly affected communities. Within this framework, the mining industry is requested to develop both technological and managerial tools appropriate to evaluate, optimize and communicate the social and environmental performance and output of its related activities, mainly in the developing countries. On the other hand, the governments have been committed to implement regulatory actions, of command and control type, based on an environmental legislation in line with the above mentioned perspectives and also to use economical instruments as a mean to accomplish environmental objectives. In Colombia the direct regulation methods have been traditionally used to prevent the environmental deterioration produced by mining activities, however, since the 1991 political constitution and the law 99 of 1993, the communities' participation and economical instruments were incorporated. A historic summary of the environmental legislation in our country from the early 70's up to now, showing its implications in mining is presented. Then a favorable tendency is indicated in the environmental improvement of the national extractive industry, accomplished as a result of the implementation of new strategies to minimize the impact of mining on the environment and to improve the well being of local communities

[en] The process of institutional change in the Brazilian electric sector accelerated the revision or elaboration of relating normative documents to the elaboration of studies and generation projects and electric power transmission. These documents were produced in a cooperative way by initiative of the organ federal regulator, under the coordination of ELETROBRAS and with the collaboration of technical teams of about ten Brazilian companies of energy. The aspects socio-environmental was absorbed in the normative documents, starting from an integrated vision of content and of the activities proposed with the energy studies and of engineering, allowing to diminish the relating uncertainties to the implementation of the projects and to assist to the national and sector environmental politics

[en] Among 1939 in that Sherrington praises the man's absolute power on the rest of the nature and 1968 in that G. Hardin speaks of the tragedy of the planet for the ignorance that the man has of the limits of that, a deep transformation, a paradigm change that moves from the Noosphere of T. of Chardin until Gaia of Lovelock, happens that is to say, from the anthropocentrism radical until the ecologism radical. This deep paradigm change should move to reflection on the effect of the technology in the man's future on the earth

[en] Given the complexity of an aquatic ecosystem and the impossibility of making experiments on a real scale, the water quality engineer represents the different reactions and interactions that happen in these ecosystems using mathematical models. This constitutes a powerful tool that allows prospective studies and helps in the decision-making. On the other hand, the huge volumes of information produced by the geographical space analysis and the large amount of variables involved, make the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) a powerful tool to develop analysis, modeling and simulation tasks on a defined area and the processes related to it. This article presents an integration proposal that permits to associate both, the spatial analysis and the visual representation capabilities of a GIS application with the water quality results obtained from a mathematical model, in such a way that, the interaction of the users of the information get increased, and the development of new tools helps in the decisions making and administrative process in the management of the water resources