Region

South America

Ecuador: Dead Meat

For anybody who needed convincing, the Deepwater Horizon accident has proven that tapping the Earth for oil can be hazardous for workers and the environment.

Ecuador's Oil Demons

The Deepwater Horizon accident reminds us that oil drilling is dirty business.

Ecuadorans know this fact. They’ve lived off, and with, oil for more than three decades. For many Ecuadorans, oil promised riches but delivered ruin. Along with great wealth, for a few, it stimulated political vice and the noxious excretions.

Fishing story: Four Friends in Ecuador's Rain Forest

Tiputini Research Site, Ecuador--Do the world's tribes enjoy any pastimes in common? Probably not. But one lazy afternoon, four guys raised far from one another delighted in a mutual passion in the forest of the Amazon basin of eastern Ecuador, giving renewed hope of cross cultural harmony.

Bolivian Climate Summit Produces Final Report

The land occupied by the country of Bolivia has been inhabited continuously for more than 2,000 years. Perhaps due to the long perspective of time such ancient roots engender, Bolivians often view times marked on calendars or in the programs of meetings as advisory not mandatory. Yesterday, in Tiquipaya, a small town on the outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia, a small crowd waited to gawk at Bolivian president Evo Morales. They chatted amiably as ten o'clock went by and the president had not appeared.

Bolivia: The Planet or Death?

Capitalism. This was the most widely used word at the conference. Then came the phrase climate change, of course; the environment, and mother earth—or Pachamama, as it's known throughout the Andes.

Bolivia: A Difficult Climate Deal

It's 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, the first day of the climate change conference in Bolivia, and for the last hour the participants in a panel discussion have been arguing about the definition of a forest.

Gold, Guns and Garimpeiros

Gold is always a good business. It never goes bankrupt or needs a bail-out. Gold is the go-to investment when financial markets suffer. For the last few years, as "Western" Markets have sank, gold prices, predictably, have soared, reaching record high values. Consequently, gold mining increases.

French Guiana: Welcome to the Jungle

If people know anything about this place--and not many do--it's because of Steve McQueen. In 1973, McQueen starred in Papillon, a movie based on the book of the same name by Henri Charrière, a hustler in the French underground and accused pimp-murderer sentenced to a life in prison on French Guiana's infamous Devil's Island penal colony.

French Guiana's Gold Rush: The Big Picture

During a bad recession, the price of gold lifts astonishingly high as the market drops precipitously low—a pecuniary pas de deux with ripple-out effects around the world but in no stranger place than French Guiana, home of the infamous Devil's Island penal colony, the rocket-launching Centre Spatial Guyanais, and the European Union's largest rainforest.

Bolivia: Indigenous People Confront Global Warming Introduction

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, has called for a worldwide meeting of indigenous people about global warming. Morales is an outspoken advocate for indigenous rights and a critic of the results of last December's Copenhagen Climate Conference.