Letter From the Editor

From advances in organic farming in Cuba and the renewed U.S.-Canadian commitment to clean up the Great Lakes, to The Nature Conservancy's project to provide seed capital to green startup companies, we looked for examples of change that have slipped below the radar screen. [...] I hope that even those readers who do not join me in my belated conversion to environmentalism will consider this issue a useful and multifaceted contribution to the debate.

From A. Lowenthal, Et Al./Response From Daniel Fisk

Far from arguing that the United States should "acquiesce in the demise" of Latin American democracy, as Fisk charges, our volume provides a clear guide to how the new Barack Obama administration could help strengthen democratic currents in the Americas: by rigorously disaggregating the region and understanding its diverse dynamics; favoring respectful inter-American cooperation with key countries and subregions on shared problems and opportunities; concentrating on strengthening cooperation ...

Aq Interview: Wyclef Jean

Multi-platinum and Grammy-awardwinning musician and producer Wyclef Jean made a name for himself in the 1990s both as a solo artist and as a member of The Fugees with his political and socially oriented hip hop. Timberland has agreed to put the Yéle logo on one of its boot lines to raise money for reforestation. [Ed. note: deforestation now affects 77.5 percent of the island's land area.] The fact that Timberland would share a logo with Yéle shows that there are people who care and would lo...

Cartagena International Music Festival

Over the course of eight days, renowned musicians from across the globe fi ll the city's plazas, churches and theaters with classical music.

10 Things to Do

Watch the traditional rivalry between Asunción's two largest professional soccer teams-Club Olimpia and Club Cerro Porteño-play out at one of their regular games at the city's Defensores del Chaco stadium or at one of the clubs' private fi elds. 10Cool off by the lake.

Calendar

Amarrados [Bound] Americas Society www.as-coa.org November 3 Lima, Peru AS/COA 2009 Latin American Cities Conference Americas Society and Council of the Americas www.as-coa.org November 9-10 Mexico City, Mexico 2009 Conference of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art International Council of Museums www.icom.org November 13 Buenos Aires, Argentina Foro Latino Global 2009 Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) www.cadal.org November 28-D...

Latin American Hopefuls

Alves went on to place 37th at the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships- earning him the distinction of becoming the fi rst male fi gure skater to compete for Brazil at the senior world level.

Entertainment for the Masses

For three weeks every January, Chile's capital hosts Santiago a Mil, a mix of mainstream, experimental and street theater performed in various locations.

From the Think Tanks

Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) * Vanderbilt University Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) * Security and Defense Network of Latin America (RESDAL) The growth of emerging economies like China and India offers real opportunities for some of the hemisphere's exporters.

Miami Style

At least 250 art galleries participate in the event, which has "put Miami on the map of the contemporary art world," according to Frederic Snitzer, a member of the art fair's selection committee.

The Oas: Should It Re-Admit Cuba?

In 1962, in the midst of the Cold War, the OAS voted to exclude Cuba, which joined the organization in 1948, from participating in the Inter-American system because it had proclaimed its allegiance to Marxist-Leninist doctrine and was fomenting and participating in subversive activities in the hemisphere. At a working group meeting held parallel to the General Assembly proceedings, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented a text that lifted the 1962 suspension, but conditioned Cuba's ren...

Innovators and Innovations in the Hemisphere

Since it was founded in 1997 by Berríos and a small group of university students at La Universidad Católica in Santiago, the organization has built 42,000 homes, has recruited 200,000 volunteers and won the trust and participation of governments and multinational corporations throughout the hemisphere. Virginia Garretón, 40, a molecular biologist and CEO of Austral Biotech S.A., is at the vanguard of efforts in Chile's emerging biotechnology industry to develop technology that will help to m...

Our Man in Haiti: Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton Since his recent appointment as United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton has been called, half-seriously, "president of Haiti" and "viceroy." According to Robert Maguire, a political science professor at Trinity College in Washington DC and a leading expert on Haiti, the ex-president is wellqualifi ed for the job.

Negotiating a Green Commitment

[...] the facts. Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), chaired by 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, establish that for the first time since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human activity has produced substantial changes or modifications in the earth's temperature. Human activities related to industrialization and modern transportation generate emissions of four long-term GHGs: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH^sub 4^), nitrous ox...

Indexing the Environment

Urban Health

[...] equity-or, the fair distribution of these assets-is crucial to overall urban health. The movement is powered by social participation and the concept of healthy governance: integrated urban planning initiatives in public health, environment, education, transportation, economic activity, education, and culture based on partnerships between governments, the community and the private sector.

The Fulcrum of Our New Relationship in the Americas: Climate Change & Energy

The challenge we face is enormous. Since 1750, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are up 38 percent, from 280 to 385 parts carbon dioxide for every million particles in the atmosphere. The wind farm will produce enough energy to power a city of 500,000 people, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 600,000 metric tons each year.

Fat City

In the U.S. and throughout the Americas, this will require not simply dramatic adjustments in diet and lifestyle but also urban planning that focuses on the design of new transportation and service networks, on careful management of density, on reinforcing neighborhoods, on reducing the spatial privileges of class, and on a far healthier relationship to the natural environment. [...] planning has too often been the victim of the fragmented and dysfunctional politics of our undisciplined, ove...

A Tale of Our Cities

According to the 2007 United Nations Habitat Global Report on Human Settlements, an estimated 1 billion people live in slums-and the figure is growing. [...] cities and humans have demonstrated a unique capacity to evolve and adapt.

5 Ways to Improve Urban Transportation and Reduce Its Environmental Effects

[...] these projects require signifi cant land-use changes. According to the World Resource Institute, by 2005:

Ask the Experts

[...] by investing in mass transit, smart urban planning and transit-oriented development, cities can reduce reliance on automobiles while simultaneously improving livability and reducing air pollution. * Forests: [...] I say, ignite and nurture a prairie fi re of grassroots citizen engagement on behalf of important but neglected priorities: natural resource conservation; air and water quality; parks; community sprawl and livability; renewable and nuclear energy; restoration of rivers, lakes...

Ravaged Lands, Ravaged Peoples

In his article in this issue, President Lagos (p. 38) writes that 18 percent of global carbon emissions comes from deforestation. [...] by denuding the landscape, the practice places local residents (again, often the poor) at greater risk of floods and mudslides.

Renegotiation of Great Lakes

According to the Washington DCbased Center for Public Integrity, as-yet-unpublished governmental research suggests elevated infant mortality and increased cancer risks for the more than 9 million people who live in select areas in the U.S. around the Great Lakes. * Why did we fall so far behind? The beginning of the downward slide coincided with a 1987 decision by governments to discontinue the monitoring and assessment roles previously carried out by the quasiindependent International Joint...

Growing Green

GROWING green Since the time of the Conquest, conservation has taken a backseat to empire, nation-building and economic growth.

Green Venture Capital

The Fund, a pool of venture capital targeted to the small but growing green-business sector in Latin America, offered both risk capital and business advisory services to small- to medium-scale enterprises in ecotourism, sustainable agriculture, apiculture, sustainable forestry, and non-timber forest products. The conservation benefi ts-habitat restoration and protection, biological corridor preservation and the development of sustainable livelihoods in buffer zones-have also been far- reachi...

Private Sector: Savage or Savior?

[...] the fi re in Vila Socó made Cubatão a national symbol of the price Brazilians have paid for their world-class industrial economy. [...] it raises the question of whether companies in Brazil and elsewhere in the hemisphere have taken the lesson to heart. * Cleaning Up Cubatão's road to environmental recovery was costly. Since 1983, businesses invested nearly $1 billion to conform to the pollution control board regulations.

Sustainable Agriculture in Cuba

Pamela Stricker, associate professor of political science at California State University and author of Toward a Culture of Nature: Richard Levins, a professor at Harvard University's School of Public Health, argued in a paper titled "How Cuba is Going Ecological" (2005) that socialist social arrangements had "an almost natural correlate" of sustainable economic and social development.

Ecological Preservation: What Role for Foreigners?

[...] the 66-year-old New York native, who founded the North Face and Esprit clothing lines says he is willing to hand over title to his vast holdings to the Chilean and Argentine governments-but only with guarantees that the land will be turned into national parks and wildlife refuges.

Dispatches From the Field: The Coup in Honduras

While international condemnations of the coup scrolled across the CNN en Español news ticker in every hotel lobby, young locals seemed to have adapted quickly to the 9:00 p.m. curfew, heading to bars and dance clubs while their parents were still eating dinner. According to the 2008 Latinobarómetro survey, 75 percent of Hondurans have a positive image of the U.S., (the second-highest figure in the region). [...] the situation has exposed the weaknesses of the OAS' Inter- American Democratic...

Decriminalization: A Trend Takes Shape

[...] the president sees this as inconsistent with efforts to curtail drug traffi cking. Since 2003, the Colombian President has unsuccessfully tried fi ve times to overturn the court's ruling and amend the constitution.

Health and Equity in Latin America

Some Latin Americans benefi t from access to good local and international health care, but the majority struggle to obtain basic care. [...] the middle of the twentieth century, Latin American health care systems were quite similar.

Weak Land Rights = Weak Preservation

[...] it recognized the permanent land rights of indigenous peoples, allowing, in principle, for the recovery of vast tracts of land throughout the country-especially in the Amazon-that had been seized from indigenous peoples. According to Brazilian anthropologist Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida even before congress approved the law, "the real estate conglomerates tell us that foreign investors are awaiting the results of this Amazon land package legalizing these lands so that they can proce...

Three Years After Chile's Penguin Revolution

The economic returns of a technical or professional degree were higher, with graduates earning 20 percent more than non-graduates. [...] for those who possessed a college or university degree this number increases to 24 percent. [...] public higher education spending is concentrated on the 25 universities in existence when the current legal framework was created, though more than 200 universities and technical institutes operate today.

China in Latin America: The Whats and Wherefores

According to the author, Latin America is also a potential arena for strengthening Chinese foreign policy aims, such as securing international isolation of Taiwan and developing "strategic alliances as part of China's global positioning as it emerges as a superpower." Political and military exchanges are another key facet of the growing relationship with Brazil as well as with other key regional players like Mexico. [...] China, as it has done elsewhere in the world, has linked trade incent...

Gringo Na Laje: Produção, Circulação E Consumo Da Favela Turística

The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is investing $90 million to upgrade infrastructure in Rocinha as part of its national PAC (Plan of Accelerated Growth) program, but for the works to go forward, the government had to have the implicit support of the drug cartel. [...] at least at the time this issue went to press, the constant shootouts between rival gangs and the police have been replaced by a deceitful peace, with the drug lords still ruling inside the favela and admini...

'No Hay Ley Para Nosotros...' Gobierno Local, Sociedad Y Conflicto En El Altiplano: El Caso Ilave

[...] Peru's attempt to decentralize as part of a major government reform in early 2000 raised unrealistic expectations in rural communities. Severe poverty coupled with weak state presence, fractured political institutions, the understandable demands of a mobilized community, and the slow learning process involved in leaders valuing compromise over confl ict, are all part of the challenges Ilave and many similar municipalities in Peru face today.

Las Vías de La Emancipación En Bolivia: Conversaciones Con Álvaro García Linera

Conversaciones con Álvaro García Linera Pablo Stefanoni, Franklin Ramírez and Maristella Svampa Ocean Press and Ocean Sur, 2008, Softcover, 99 pages REVIEWED BY MIGUEL CENTELLAS Bolivia captured international attention with the 2005 election of President Evo Morales, the country's fi rst indigenous president. [...] many books and articles have explored Bolivia's place in the regional turn toward new Left politics- with some defi ning the election as part of a broader global struggle against ...

Just the Numbers

According to its owner, Classifi ed Media Group, 80 percent of the cars listed on the site are sold.

Turn On the Lights