Word: ricas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Experience has shown the Third World that destruction of forests can have disastrous consequences. Forests are vital watersheds that absorb excess moisture and anchor topsoil. Deforestation contributed to the recent droughts in Africa and the devastating mud slides in Rio de Janeiro last year. In Costa Rica topsoil eroded from bald hills has greatly shortened the life of an expensive hydroelectric dam. Alvaro Umana, Costa Rica's Minister of Industry, Energy and Mines, estimated that the surrounding watershed might have been protected 20 years ago for a cost of $5 million. Now the government must reforest the watershed...
...produce more money in the future. Another way to harvest cash from forests and other habitats is to set up tours and safaris to attract animal lovers and photography buffs. Long a moneymaker in Africa and the Galapagos Islands, this "ecotourism" is spreading to such places as Costa Rica...
When a fungal disease began ravaging Levy Bryant's four-hectare cacao farm a decade ago, the landowner could have done what other besieged farmers have | done. He might easily have picked up an ax and begun cutting down more tropical rain forest around his land on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. He could have sold the timber from the tall laurel trees that shade the cacao bushes, then burned the dense virgin forest on the hill behind his farm. Then Bryant, like so many financially strapped small farmers in Latin America, could have sown pasture and sold the land...
That Bryant did not rush headlong down this slippery ecological slope is in part testimony to Costa Rica's commitment to its dwindling natural resources. The country has more than 20 national parks, wildlife preserves and other protected areas covering 2,577 sq. mi., or 13% of the land. Moreover, the nation's stable democracy has attracted hundreds of scientists and ecologists, making Costa Rica a laboratory for finding out what is possible in terms of sustainable development in the tropics...
...encroachment of cow pastures on the cloud forest at Monteverde spurred another of Costa Rica's efforts to save its natural heritage. In 1972, 350 hectares of land owned by American Quakers who had settled the region in the 1950s were set aside as a private reserve. Over the years that has grown to 10,500 hectares. One key to preserving this huge area was to allow local people to develop a tourist business. In five years the annual number of visitors has gone from 6,000 to 15,000, and could climb to more than 30,000 when...