Toward An Environmental Strategy For Latin America And The Caribbean

This book is a collection of readings that explore environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean using natural science and social science methods. These papers demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and solve environmental problems. The essays are organized into five parts: conservation challenges; national policies, local communities, and rural development; market mechanisms for protecting public goods; public participation and environmental justice; and the effects of development policies on the environment.

A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing Latin America and the Caribbean—from the tip of South America to the Windward Islands. Home to Earth's longest mountain range, largest river, and greatest rainforest, no region boasts greater geographic extremes, faces greater environmental dangers, and enjoys more economic potential from its biodiversity than Latin America and the Caribbean. What are the political and economic factors affecting the Amazon's rapidly disappearing rainforest? What is being done to harvest life-saving drugs from the plants of the Orinoco? And what lies behind the mysterious disappearance of Central America's frogs? The work includes essays, tables and figures, and an appendix titled International Environmental and Developmental Agencies, Organizations, and Programs on the World Wide Web. Latin America & the Caribbean examines a region waking up to its environmental problems and possibilities.

This document forms part of the preparatory activities for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development to be held in mid-1992, the specific aim being to provide sound based and guidance for the discussions at the Regional Preparatory Meeting for that Conference to be held by ECLAC in Mexico City in March 1991.

This book is a collection of readings that explore environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean using natural science and social science methods. These papers demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and solve environmental problems. The essays are organized into five parts: conservation challenges; national policies, local communities, and rural development; market mechanisms for protecting public goods; public participation and environmental justice; and the effects of development policies on the environment.