Foreign Briefing: Colombia declares Malaga Bay a national park

1. Colombia

The government has declared a pristine bay on Colombia’s Pacific coast a national park, protecting most of the area from future development and ensuring its status as a wildlife habitat. The action ended a standoff between humpback-whale advocates and developers of a proposed mega-container port.

Málaga Bay, about 30 miles from the port city of Buenaventura, is a favored stop on the whales’ long migration along the Pacific coast from Antarctica. As many as 1,000 humpbacks are thought to visit there from June to October. The bay is also home to dolphins and sea otters and is a nesting ground for marine turtles, frigate birds and other species.

Last fall, just as then-President Alvaro Uribe was set to declare Bahia Málaga a national park, businessmen persuaded him to hold off so they could commission a study to see if the whales and a port could coexist in the bay. In the study, professors at Spain’s University of Cadiz found that container-ship traffic and whales were not compatible. They also found that a port project could displace nearby Afro-Colombian and indigenous groups, who are developing an ecotourism industry.

Uribe’s environment minister, Carlos Costa, declared the 150,000-acre parcel a national park before leaving office along with the rest of the Cabinet last month, when the new president, Juan Manuel Santos, was sworn in.

Málaga Bay has little tourism infrastructure. A spokesman for Aviatur, the country’s largest travel agency, said that regular bay tours are being planned but that none now are offered. People wanting to visit the bay must take a one-hour speedboat ride ($10 each way) from Buenaventura to Juanchaco, a small town at the mouth of the bay, where local boat operators can be hired for whale-watching excursions.

—Chris Kraul

2. Iceland

Aviation and aerospace experts will gather Sept. 15 in Keflavik, Iceland, to coordinate the global response to future volcano eruptions, officials said. The conference follows an aviation crisis this year, when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, spewing ash clouds that drifted over Europe, grounding flights and stranding fliers.

Reuters

3. Britain

A cake made from bricks and a big bluebird are among six artworks selected as finalists for a coveted place alongside a statue of Adm. Horatio Nelson in London’s Trafalgar Square. The winner, to be announced early next year, will replace Yinka Shonibare’s “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle” in the rotating display.

Associated Press

4. Spain

A vast flotilla of small, nearly undetectable jellyfish stung hundreds of people in early August on beaches near Elche along the popular Costa Blanca. Officials blamed the influx on strong currents, overfishing of jellyfish predators and unusually warm waters.

Associated Press

5. Egypt

Mohsen Shalaan, who heads the nation’s Culture Ministry, was arrested and accused of negligence in connection with the Aug. 21 theft of Vincent van Gogh’s “Poppy Flowers” (1887) from Cairo’s Mahmoud Khalil Museum. After the theft, officials discovered that none of the museum’s alarms and only seven of its 43 cameras were operating.

Associated Press

Caution spots

The State Department recently issued warnings or alerts for these areas:

Mexico, because of crime and violence.

Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, because of threats to U.S. interests.

Bolivia, because of unstable social and security situations in several regions.