Development Roast Giving international development a proper roasting
By Juan Forero, article originally published by NPR.
Though Brazil’s Amazon has been the focus of environmental groups for decades, the deforestation rate there has fallen dramatically in recent years as clear-cutting of Amazonian jungle in eight other countries has started to rise.
As a result, the 40 percent of Amazonia located in a moon-shaped arc of countries from Bolivia to Colombia to French Guiana faces a more serious threat than the jungle in Brazil. The culprits range from ranching to soybean farming, logging to infrastructure development projects.
And in no other country is the problem as serious as in landlocked and remote Bolivia. Though better known for its bleak and haunting highlands, 70 percent of Bolivia’s land mass is part of the Amazon basin, from biodiverse foothills to lowland jungles. It’s an area bigger than California; but every year, nearly 1,400 square miles are deforested, about two-thirds the size of Delaware. Read More »