Environmental Crisis in the Latin American Countryside

Abstract

Abstract Latin America is richly endowed with natural resources. Major deposits of oil and bauxite, copper, and other minerals are scattered from the Rio Grande to the Tierra del Fuego. At Carajas, in northern Brazil, there is enough iron ore to supply the entire world for centuries. Gold and other precious metals are mined in a number of places. The region’s renewable resources are similarly abundant. Many highland valleys in Central America and the Andes are blessed with volcanic soils and ample precipitation. Nowhere on the face of the earth are conditions better for agriculture than in the Argentine Pampas, a region that combines a Mediterranean climate with the soils of the midwestern United States. Drawing on rich natural ecosystems, many countries produce and export large quantities of timber and fish.