Of Poverty, Rainforests and Ecotourism

Latin America is a region of geographical and ecological extremes including some of the highest peaks in the world, the driest desert, the largest tropical rainforest, the planet's southernmost inhabited landmass, the largest river, and it is flanked by the world's two largest oceans. It is also a land of social and economic extremes: among the highest rates of income inequality, the world's most populous city, remote indigenous groups, and some of the poorest countries on earth. These two worlds of extremes, the environmental and the human, are not separate, unrelated phenomena. They are intensely interrelated, often at odds with each other in a desperate battle for survival. Furthermore, they are becoming increasingly interconnected with the outside world.

In the words of Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez, "Globalization is not contrary to conservation. We believe globalization can be an asset to conservation, especially sharing the costs." Rodriguez addressed the issue of globalization and its effect on the environment in Latin America at the State of the World Forum on Wednesday.

A recurring theme among all panelists was how poverty is the enemy of environmental preservation. Not only the poverty within Latin American countries, but also the ever-increasing gap between the developed and developing nations—an especially dramatic gap in the Americas because of the geographical proximity of the world's wealthiest nation, the United States, to Latin America. According to Brazilian Carlos Peres, a professor at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in England, "What Bill Gates lost in one day when the stock market crashed last year would have purchased 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest."

But Bill Gates is not buying the Amazon—its newest occupants are poor Brazilians who are fleeing the poverty and unemployment of Brazil's cities and towns for the vast frontier and its often illusory promises of a better life. As Peres said, "You can't blame a poor unemployed peasant with a family to feed for burning down four or five hectares of rainforest so he can grow manioc."

As we enter the new millennium, people's lives are increasingly affected by decisions beyond those made by their local or national governments. According to Peres, a one percent rise in interest rates in Washington, or a decision on Wall Street to move money from one country to another at the touch of a button, can result in thousands of people in the developing world losing their jobs.

Many in Brazil view the Amazon region as a vast frontier of untapped wealth and resources in much the same way North Americans viewed the West throughout the nineteenth century. Inevitably, it is a short-term solution that will only momentarily alleviate some of the social and economic problems Brazil faces. People slash and burn small plots of rainforest, which because of poor soil quality only remain productive for a few years. They inevitably move to another plot and begin the process again. Furthermore, multinational corporations are involved in environmentally destructive projects like mining and logging, while Brazilian ranchers clear large areas of forest for cattle grazing in order to export beef to developed nations.

Costa Rica, on the other hand, has set an example by bringing environmental concerns in from the periphery and making them an integral part of social and economic development issues. By the end of this year, according to President Rodriguez, 99 percent of Costa Rica's energy production will be from "clean" energy sources—with the remaining one percent coming from oil. Costa Rica intends to start exporting energy to the rest of Central America and Mexico. Costa Rica has also become a mecca for ecotourism, now the country's principal industry.

But Peres believes that Costa Rica's ecotourism experience cannot be replicated in the Brazilian Amazon. He says ecotourism works in Costa Rica because of the nation's small area and its topography. A visitor can easily access 13,000-foot volcanoes, tropical rainforests, beaches, dry forests, deep-sea fishing and an abundance of flora and fauna. The vastness and inaccessability of the Amazon make it a much more grueling, time-consuming and probably far less enjoyable experience. Furthermore, said Peres, Costa Rica benefited from the turmoil of its neighbors throughout the 1970s and 1980s. If ecotourism had developed throughout Central America it would have drastically diminished the economic benefits gained by Costa Rica.

In Colombia, the civil conflict that results in part from poverty has been exacerbated by illicit drug production and trafficking, with serious environmental damage to the Colombian Amazon being one result. Colombian President Andres Pastrana says that vast areas of forest are being destroyed every year in order to cultivate coca and poppies. Because the rivers are used for transportation, most of the processing labs are located on their banks, and the precursor chemicals used in drug processing are being dumped directly into the rivers.

VIDEO EXCERPT FROM PASTRANA

"We are fighting a globalization we do not want," said Pastrana at the State of the World Forum. "Drug trafficking is a global problem that requires a global solution." He believes Europe needs to do more to monitor the sales of these polluting precursor chemicals. According to Pastrana, an increase in Colombia's legal exports—achieved, for example, by lowering U.S. tariffs on Colombian textiles—would create alternative jobs for those working in the cocaine and heroin trade. The Colombian president failed to explain how instituting these "free trade" reforms, which have resulted in high unemployment in other Latin American countries, was going to have the opposite effect in Colombia.

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