The resignation of the president of Ecuador’s Constitutional Assembly, Alberto Acosta, on June 23 is the latest in a series of setbacks for Latin America’s 21st century socialists. With political conditions deteriorating in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, it makes sense to ask – what happened to Latin America’s socialist revolution? Where is the change their… Read More Democracy Strikes Again: The End Of 21st-Century Socialism?
June 9, 2008 (Southern Affairs) — Peru’s Transportation and Communications Minister Verónica Zavala announced May 27th that Unasur’s highest profile project, an inter-oceanic highway connecting the Brazilian Atlantic with the Peruvian Pacific, was being investigated after discovering that it did not have a budget or engineering plans. The minister told a Congressional Committee that while… Read More Peru’s Halts Jungle Highway Construction After Investigation Shows Design Wasn’t Done
What is Chile’s current foreign policy? Chile’s current foreign policy strongly resembles the foreign policy of the Portales period, emphasizing political neutrality, non-intervention, sovereign equality, regional stability, and commercial expansion. The types of problems it faces are also similar to that era, but not specific to it, insofar as it has yet to resolve territorial… Read More Chilean Foreign Policy: 2008
What is Brazil’s current foreign policy? “Brazil is not a small country. It does not, and it cannot, have the foreign policy of a small country.”[1] These words, from the current Minister of External Relations express the essence of Brazil’s foreign policy. It is a country in pursuit of major power status and, as such,… Read More Brazilian Foreign Policy: 2008
Besides the now famous spat between President Chavez and King Juan Carlos and the evil empire bashing of the People’s Alternate Summit, what actually happened at the Iberoamerican Summit that took place in Santiago last week? Why did the leaders of 33 countries go to so much trouble to meet together for three days of… Read More The Other Iberoamerican Summit
U.S. newspapers announced this week that Congress is expected to ratify a free trade agreement (FTA) with Peru before its Nov. recess. The FTA will eliminate 80 percent of U.S. export tariffs to Peru with the remaining 20 percent to be phased out over the next 10 years. While U.S. lawmakers argued over the inclusion… Read More What Does Peru’s FTA Mean For The Rest Of The Region?
This week Brazil announced it is seeking approval to explore for new oil and gas reserves near the Jurua River in the Amazonian state of Acre. The government will set aside US$35.5 million for the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) to begin exploration, while the Acre State Industrial Federation has promised to raise US$15 million. Officials… Read More BRAZIL ANNOUNCES NEW OIL EXPLORATION IN AMAZON
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is full of good ideas this week. On his visit to Italy this week he is reported to have proposed that the UN publish a list of environmental terrorists whose reckless actions are putting the world in danger. He also agreed to let the US maintain its military base in Manta,… Read More ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS AT LARGE IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
Valparaiso, Oct. 16 – Environmentalists and politicians met Tuesday in Valparaiso to discuss the creation of the world’s largest whale sanctuary. Representatives from 15 non-governmental organizations across Latin America presented the project to Chile’s Senate Environmental Commission with the hopes of receiving governmental approval before the upcoming 60th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission… Read More CHILE DEBATES ESTABLISHMENT OF WORLD’S LARGEST WHALE SANCTUARY
By N. H. Gill (Oct. 10, 2007) – The human and environmental costs of increased infrastructure integration in South America was the topic of debate at the First Latin American Congress of National Parks and Other Protected Areas this week in Bariloche, Argentina. Scientists from around the world met to discuss the effects of the… Read More Scientists Worry About Human and Environmental Costs of Integration
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was invited by Colombia and Venezuela to attend an upcoming meeting between their two presidents, Alvaro Uribe and Hugo Chavez to celebrate the opening of the new gas pipeline in the Colombian District of LaGuajira that connects the city of Ballenas with the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo. The Colombian Foreign Minister… Read More URIBE AND CHAVEZ INVITE CORREA TO LAUNCHING OF NEW PIPELINE
On Oct.4 Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim arrived in Ecuador to discuss potential areas of mutual interest with President Rafael Correa. The visit followed last Sunday’s national assembly elections that gave President Correa sweeping powers move forward his new socialist platform designed to reduce economic inequality and exploitation in Ecuador. The visit was also a… Read More UNASUR MAKING VERY SMALL WAVES
(May 24, 2006) Escondida mine, one of Chile’s state owned cooper mines, announced it will open the nation’s largest water desalination plant in the city of Antofogasta in August, 2006. The water plant will generate 525 liters of industrial quality water per second and cost approximately US$160 million. The project includes the installation of 170km… Read More ESCONDIDA MINE ANNONCES NEW WATER PLANT IN ANTOFOGASTA
Citation Larrea M., Carlos. Hacia Una Historia Ecológica Del Ecuador: Propuestas Para El Debate. Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 2006.
Celco chiefs met with European Union (EU) members of Parliament in Santiago on Wednesday after Chile’s government decided no to let them visit the environmentally hazardous pulp and paper plant in Valdivia. At the meeting, Celco presented the EU officials with their plans to minimize the environmental impact the plant would have on the area.… Read More EUROPEAN UNION ENVIRONMENTAL COMISSION ARRIVES IN CHILE
(Sept. 29, 2005) Barrick Gold Corporation’s attempt to buy citizen support for the development of its US$1.5 billion Pascua Lama gold mine has not satisfied government officials in charge of reviewing environmental legislation. Paulina Saball, director of the Region III National Environmental Commission is still concerned about the proposed mine project even though Barrick has… Read More CONAMA Raises Qyestions About Barrick Gold Deal
(Sept. 26, 2005) The island home of Alexander Selkirk, the man whose true story inspired the famous novel “Robinson Crusoe,” has finally been uncovered on Robinson Crusoe Island, 645 kilometers off the coast of Chile in the Juan Fernández Archipelago. Although the island has long been known as the place where Selkirk was cast away… Read More ROBINSON CRUSOE SITE DISCOVERED IN CHILE
A team of engineers was run off by fishermen Monday after pulp and paper manufacturer Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (Celco) announced plans to dump industrial waste in their fishing grounds. The team was surveying potential dump sites near the coast of Corral in southern Chile when they were confronted by the concerned fishers and forced… Read More FISHERMAN STOP CELCO SCIENTISTS
Citation López Sandoval, María Fernanda. Agricultural and Settlement Frontiers in the Tropical Andes: The Páramo Belt of Northern Ecuador, 1960-1990. Regensburg: Institut für Geographie an der Universität Regensburg, 2004.
Citation López Paredes, Dolores. “Aproximación histórica de los cambios de la seguridad y consumo alimentario entre los pueblos quichuas de la sierra ecuatoriana : Otavalos y Cayambis en la cuenca del Lago San Pablo, provincia de Imbabura,” November 6, 2002. http://repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/handle/10469/709.
Citation Wunder, Sven. The Economics of Deforestation: The Example of Ecuador. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Citation Bebbington, Anthony. “Reencountering Development: Livelihood Transitions and Place Transformations in the Andes.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90, no. 3 (2000): 495–520.
Citation Cebrián Abellán, Francisco. La organización del espacio en Ecuador. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1999.
Warren Dean’s With Broadax and Firebrand is a history of the destructive impact of human activity on the Atlantic forests of Brazil. Chronicling social attitudes towards nature and the impact of those attitudes on the forests from pre-Columbian times to the present, he highlights the ultimately unproductive exploitation of Brazilian natural resources, which left the… Read More With Broadax and Firebrand: Warren Dean
Karl Zimmerer’s Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian Andes looks at agriculture systems and species biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes in the late twentieth century. Focusing on an indigenous community in Paucartambo region, near Cuzco, the author explores the divergent fortunes of different communities in this area as they adapted to changing… Read More Changing Fortunes: Karl Zimmerer
Elinor Melville’s A Plague of Sheep (1994) examines the effects of sheep ranching on the environment in the Valle de Mezquital in colonial Mexico. Melville traces the processes that turned a wooded, well-irrigated landscape into desolate pasture lands. She weaves disease, territorial control, ungulate irruptions, and the collapse and consolidation of regional land tenancy into… Read More A Plague of Sheep: Elinor Melville
Suzanne Alchon: Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador (1991) explores the relationship between epidemic diseases and indigenous populations in the north-central highlands of Ecuador in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Alchon argues that appreciating the role of epidemics in everything from food security to politics is critical to understanding changes in regional history in… Read More Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador: Suzanne Alchon
Citation Knapp, Gregory W. Andean Ecology: Adaptive Dynamics in Ecuador. Dellplain Latin American Studies, no. 27. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.
Citation Preston, David A. “From Hacienda to Family Farm: Changes in Environment and Society in Pimampiro, Ecuador.” The Geographical Journal 156, no. 1 (1990): 31–38.
Citation Ramón Valarezo, Galo. La resistencia andina: Cayambe 1.500-1.800. Cuaderno de Discusión Popular. Quito: Centro Andino de Accion Popular, 1987.
Citation Stadel, Christoph. “Del Valle al Monte: Altitudinal Patterns of Agricultural Activities in the Patate-Pelileo Area of Ecuador.” Mountain Research and Development 6, no. 1 (1986): 53–62.
Magnus Mörner’s The Andean Past: Land, Societies, and Conflicts (1985) is a wide-ranging survey of Andean history since conquest, focusing on classic political, social, and economic themes. In his discussion of Andean rural history, Mörner says historians should view the development of haciendas in terms of their wider commercial networks and argues that international export… Read More The Andean Past: Magnus Mörner
Karen Spalding’s history of colonial Peru, Huarochirí, begins with the origins of Andean society, following social changes from pre-Inca days until the height of colonial rule. Written in the mid-1980s amidst a brutal economic crisis that inordinately impacted indigenous communities in areas like Huarochirí, this monograph seems an attempt to revalorize Andean society at a… Read More Huarochirí: Karen Spalding
