F -. ;·, ~· CHAPTER 11 ......~· South America IMPORTANT TERMS CONCEPTS AND ISSUES El Nino Slash and burn agriculture • Pressure of frontier settlements in the Amazon lowland on tropical rainforests and native peoples. Entrep6t Plantatio n • Impact of cocaine production o n loca l or regional economies and cultures. Carrying capacity • Pan-Americanism and the dominance of the United States. Squatter sectlements • Rural migration to urban centers and frontier areas. Frontier migration Greenhouse effect CHAPTER O UTLINE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT Physiography Climate Vegetation Soils Resources HUMAN ENVIRONMENT Aboriginal Inhabitants Colonial Impacts Modern Population Culture Human Landscape Regions of South America SPATIAL CONNECTIVITY Economic Linkages Trade Transportation Telecommunications Tourism PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS Population Growth Environmental Degradation Economic Develo pment Political Stability J78 PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD outh America is a contine nt of contrasts in terms of both physical and cultural variatio n . Glacie r-capped mountains nearly 23,000 feet (7000 meters) high in the southern Andes stand in sharp contrast to the lowland pampas of Argentina and the coastal plains of the Guia nas. The driest deserts o n earth are found alo ng the no rthe rn coast of Chile, yet across the Andes are the lush rainfo rests o f the uppe r Amazon Basin. While some Ame rindia n inhabitants of the rainfo rest have onl y recently made contact with the o utside world, the urbanites of Rio de Jane iro, Sao Paulo , and Buenos Aires look to Paris, Mila n, and New York for the latest fashions in attire. Inhabited o n the eve of European d iscovery by perhaps 15 million aboriginal "Indians," whose cultures ranged from very traditional lo highly developed , South Ame rica was q uickly d ivided up betwee n the Ibe rian countries o f Spain and Po rtugal. Iberia n colonists were sent to claim, settle, and explo it the new te rritories. Many demographic changes soon took place, including the decimation of much of the native po pulation by introduced diseases. Fo llowing ill-fate d atte mpts at e nslaving the indigenous peoples, a labor supply fo r the mines and pla nta tions was fo rcibly imported from Africa. Today a high pro po rtion of the coasta l population of the ea t a nd north coasts of South An1erica is of African descent Elsewhere, the re was substantia l mix ing of the European and nati ve populations, which resulted CHAPTER 11 FIGURE II.I in a large m estizo class that is characteristic of much of highland South America today. European immigratio n was impo rtant in the tempe rate southern South Ame rican countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and today portions of those countries rema in quite Euro pean in terms of both population and cultural landscape . South Ame rica's prese nt p o pulation of nearly 300 million is distributed rathe r unevenly among 12 indepe ndent countries and the two small fo re ign "dependencies" (Figure 11 .1). Over half the total populatio n is in the Portuguese-speaking country of Brazil, which comprises slightly less than half of the lotal landmass. With the exceptions of the three sparsely populated Guianas-Guyana (formerly British Guiana), Suriname (formerl y Dutch Guiana), a nd French Guiana (offi cia lly a French overseas departement)-and the 2000inhabita nt offshore British colony of the Falkland Islands (or Islas Malvinas, as Argentina claims), the rest of the South American countries are Spanish speaking and trace their po litical roots to the d isintegration of the panis h colonial empire in the 1820s. Arge ntina, with slightl y over 32 million inhabitants, is the most populous o f the Spanish-speaking counlrie1;, and its northern ne ighbor Paraguay is the least populous with 4.3 millio n. Altho ugh the overall population density is relative ly mode rate (41 inhabitants per square mile; 16 inhabita nts pe r square kilometer), South Americans are J79 SOUTH AMERICA Polltlcal Units and Major Cities of South America Medellin COLOMBIA ®Bogota ~Cali GALAPAGOS ISLANDS (Ee.) Guayaqu R10Slio Franc,sco /-..,. { l ( 'i ) .cuzco Brasilia ® La Paz • BOLIVIA ~/ ® Sucre ll q_lli i ,/ Sao Paulo 10 de Janeiro 00 Santos Chincheros village market near Cuzco in the highlands of Peru. Open markets where people buy and sell produce, meats, and o ther goods are quite typica l of the Latin American landscape. Rosario Valparaiso Mendoza ~ago • Buenos Airif ARGENTINA @ National capitals Other major cities 0 0 URUGU ®Montevideo • Recife 380 REGION OR COUNmY Argentina Boliv,a Brazil PART THREE Millions 32.3 7.3 150.4 Chile 132 Colombia 31 .8 Ecuador 10 7 Falkland Islands 0002 French Guiana 009 Guyana 0.8 Paraguay 4.3 Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela 21 .9 04 3.0 19 6 THE DEVELOPING WORLD Population Life Area, Thousands Population Natural Projected Infant Expectancy Urban Per Capita of Square Density, Increase to 2000 Mortality at Birth Population GNP, 1988 Miles No.lmi2 (Annual (Millions) Rate (Years) (% ) fUS$) fKm 2 J (No./km2 1.3 36.0 32 71 85 2640 1068 3(2766.9) 30(12) 26 9.3 110 53 49 570 424.2(1098 6) 17(7) 1.9 179.5 63 65 74 2280 3286.5(85 12) 46(18) 17 15.3 18.5 71 84 1510 292.3(757) 45(17) 2.0 38.0 46 66 68 1240 439 7(1139) 72(28) 2.5 13.6 63 65 54 1080 109 5(283. 6) 98(38) 59 4 7( 12.2) 0.4(0.2) 73 351(91) 2.6( 1.0) 1.9 0.8 30 67 33 410 83.0(2.5) 9(3) 28 5.5 42 67 43 1180 157 1(406 8) 27(1 1) 2.4 26.4 76 65 69 1440 496.2( 1285.2) 44( 17) 20 0.5 40 68 66 2450 63.0( 16:; 3) 6(2) 0.8 3.2 22.3 71 87 2470 68.0(176 2) 45(17) 2.3 24 1 33 70 83 3170 352 1(912) 56(22) u'.1evenly distributed. Ma ny highland a nd coasta l region~ are so overcrowded that they are at or near their carrymg capacities, at least under present levels of techno logy and economic development. . Population pressures have led both to the degradation of natural resources, such as agricultu ra l and forested la nd, and to the proliferation of slums, or squatter settlements ' in the nu merous 1arge c1lles .. scattered ~ro ~nd _the periphery of the continent. Rates of urba n1zat1o n I~ several of the countries, especiall y those sub1ect to high rates of Europea n immigration duri ng the last hundred years, eq ual or exceed those of most develo~ed countries of the world . The traditionally more ~gran~n countnes-with a higher percentage of Indian mhab1tants-have a proportionally lower urban com~o~ent a~d are, in regard to levels of urbanizatio n, more 111 l_me with patterns of developing countries of As ia and Afnca. ~lth~ugh spare~ the nineteenth-centu ry European colorual scrambles that characterized Asia and Af . · nca, So ti A u 1 menca's economic dependency upon the developed world has resulted in numerous boom-and-bust cycles. 1:fistorically, the economy of South America has been o nenred toward demand fo r its raw mate rials by Europe and orth Am~rica, and fluctuations in exports of sugar, gold, silver, tm, copper, rubber, bananas, and coffee have not allowed for the development of ~t~~le econom~es. In the 1980s, new types of expo~:ry ill1c1t drugs, : h1efly cocaine and marijuana-have fue led the econo~1es of several South American countries. over th is new trade hav..'" led to muc h anControversies . tagon1~m between the beneficiary South Ame rican ~ou~tnes and the developed countries that are the dest111at1ons of the illicit exports. In recent decades, Common Market-style economic liaisons have stimulated int~rnal economic growth, but the traditional trade hnka?es with Europe, North America, and now Japan re ma m as the strong spatial connectivity links today. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT PHYSIOGRAPHY Stretching nearl y 5000 miles (8000 kilometers) north to south (from ~bo ut 120 north to 550 south latitude) and over 3000 miles (5000 kilometers) from east to west CHAPTER 11 (from about 35° to 80° west longitude) not counting offshore islands, the familiar triangular-shaped contine nt of South America encompasses an area of nearly 7 million square miles (18 million square kilomete rs), almost twice the size of the United States. Physiographically, the continent can be divided into three major units: a plateau region on the eastern side, lowland plains in the central po rtio n, and a narrow range of high mountains on the weste rn side (Figure 11.2). The two major plateaus-the Guiana and Brazilian highlands-are the o ldest sections of the continent. They have the appearance of a highly weathered and eroded landsca pe, partly covered by stratified rocks and lava flows. Except for the lushe r vegetation cover, the remote Guiana highlands resemble the eroded plateau landscape of Arizona's Monument Valley. Angel Falls, descending nearly 3300 feet (1000 mete rs) from a high plateau (tepuiJ in Venezuela, is the world's highest waterfall. The Brazilian highlands extend quite close to the Atlantic, forming a sharp escarpme nt, or cliff, at the edge of the narrow coastal plain upon which cities such as Rio de Jane iro and Salvador de Bahia are located. Although quite scenic in appearance, this escarpment historically has served as a barrier to easy colonization of Brazil 's interior. The inte rior low plains of the contine nt have received many of the sediments e roded from 381 SOUTH AMERICA the older highlands, and most of South America's major river systems-including the Orinoco, Amazon, and Parana/ Paraguay-are found here. The third major physical unit is the geologically young Andean cordillera. South America is e ntire ly embedded in a contine ntal plate, and at its western edge, plate collision has forced the subduction of the Pacific continental plate under the South American plate. As a result, deep oceanic trenches lie immediate ly offshore, and extensive volcanic and earthquake activity has created a mountain chain with over 50 peaks exceeding 20,000 feet (6000 meters) in elevation. The Andean cordillera, although over 5000 miles (8000 kilometers) lo ng, has an average width of only about 200 miles (320 kilometers), except near the Peru-Bolivia border. In this area, the Andes split into an eastern and western chai n, and between them lies the altipla110, a basin 14,000 feet (4250 meters) high within which seve ral lakes have formed from local snowmelt. Lake Titicaca, encompassing 3200 square miles (8300 square kilometers), is the largest lake on the contine nt. CLIMATE As much of South America lies within the tropics, tropical rainy climates prevail over a large portion of the A vista of the Brazilian Highlands near Petr6polis. Petr6polis is located slightly north of Rio de Janeiro on the southern edge of the Brazilian Highlands. The highlands are important for agriculture, livestock ranch ing, and mining-particularly iron ore. 38Z PART TWO THE DEVELOPED WORLD CHAPTER 11 FIGURE 11.Z Physica l Features of South America ,o· ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN ATLANTIC ｾ＠ 100" OCEA ELEVATION Meters Feet ~,·.= ~ Over 13,120 500-1 ,999 1 ,640-S,559 2,00Q--4,000 Q--499 0 0 250 250 11,· 500 500 750 6,560-13,120 0-1,639 750 1,000 miles 1.000 lulome1ers lW" 90" 80' 383 SOUTH AMERICA continent (Figure 11.3). The Amazon basin, along the equator, is hot and wet year round with temperatures varying little from a daily average of 80°F (27°C) and annual rainfall of about 100 inches (250 centimete rs). Flanking the Amazon Basin to north and south are tropical wet-and-dry (savanna) climates characte rized by distinctive rainy seasons ("winter," or inviemo) in their respective high-sun periods. The low-sun dry seasons are considered "summer," or verano, and shorter dry spells within the rainy season are locally referred to as a vera,iillo ("little summer"). The southeast trade winds and warm offshore currents bring moisture to a narrow coastal belt of Brazil, thereby extending a wet tropical climate to slightly south of Rio de Janeiro. ortheast Brazil is a dry region, however, receiving only between 10 and 20 inches (25-50 centimete rs) of rainfall. Precipitation he re is also quite variable, and several prolonged droughts have led to crop failures and out-migration of people. The narrow southern portion of South America, although situated within temperate latitudes, is not subject to the extremes of heat and cold (continentality) that characterize the large temperate landmasses of Eurasia and North America. Much of southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina is humid subtropical , quite similar to the southeastern United States. Central Chile is classed as Mediterranean, a climate characterized by a marked summer (high-sun) dry period. The Andean cordillera has a very pronounced effect upon South America's climate. Because of extreme variatio ns in elevatio n and latitude, many microclimates are found within the co rdillera. In the tropical Andes, the climates a re best described in te nns of the vertical zon atioit concept introduced in the last chapter. As one climbs in elevation, hot and humid equatorial climates grade into temperate and even polar climates. The Andes also modify the distribution of precipitatio n by means of the orographic effect. Incoming moistureladen air masses rise and cool as they reach the highe r mountains, thus causing precipitation. Consequently, the windward sides of the mountains receive the bulk of the rainfall whereas the leeward sides, in the rain shadow of the mountains, remain dry. This patte rn is bes t seen in extreme southe rn South America, where westerly winds have produced a wet marine west coast climate on the west side of the Andes while dry climates characterize Patagonia on the east side. Even within the Amazon Basin, the highest amounts of rainfall-and lushest vegetation cover-are found along the eastern slopes of the Andes, which in these latitudes represent the windward sides. The narrow band of west coast desert extending th roughout Peru and northe rn Chile is produced both by the rain shadow effect and also by the cold, north-flowing offshore Peru (or Humboldt) Current. As the moist, cool ocean air above the cold current moves overland and is warmed, the relative humidity drops, thus precluding condensation (reaching of the dew point). VEG ETATION The distribution of vegetation reflects the influence of the prevailing climate, the soils, and the availability of moisture (Figure 11.4). The Amazon Basin is covered with tropical rainforest, or selva, in which the continuous tree canopy precludes sunlight from reaching the forest floor. As the climate grades from "tropical wet" to "tropical wet-and-dry" with increasing distance from the equator, evergreen rainforests grade into more deciduous types of tropical forest as well as a variety of savanna (tropical wet-and-dry grassland) associatio ns. Whether these avannas formed naturally or by periodic burning by Indians is debated, although extensive conve rsion of forest to savanna has been noted in historical times. Several large expanses of savanna, including the llanos of Colombia and Venezuela and the partially wooded campos of Brazil, are important cattleranching zones. The dry northeastern area of Brazil contains a thorny, drought-resistant woodland known as caatinga, and agricultura l colonization in this region is periodically set back by extended droughts. Perhaps the most inhospitable te rrain in South America is the Gran Chaco of western Paraguay. Containing a thorn forest somewhat similar to Brazil's caatinga, the Chaco is characterized by extensive desiccation of the topsoil during the annual dry season d roughts and widespread flooding during the summer rainy season. Biogeographically, South America exhibits a southe rn hemispheric equivalent of temperate orth America. In Chile, for example, the vegetation grades from sparse xerophytic scrub in the northern Atacama Desert to eve rgreen woodlands in the central Mediterra nean region to a southern temperate marine west coast forest. These distributions are quite similar to vegetative changes along the Pacific coast from Baja California to British Columbia. As with the Sie rra Nevada and Cascade Mountains of the United States, the rain shadow zone east of the southe rn Andes (Patagonia) consists of steppe and desert vegetation. The humid subtropics of east central Argentina and Urugua y, similar to the Great 384 PART TWO CHAPTER 11 THE DEVELOPED WORLD 385 SOUTH AMERICA FIGURE 11.3 FIGURE 11.4 Climates of South America Vegetation of South America 10" !tr AT ATLANTIC NTIC OC OCEAN N 0 10 PA IC AN 20 PACIFIC A7i OCEAN TIC GEAN Tropical Rainy Climates 30 Tropical rainforest D Tropical savanna Dry Climates 100' "'° • 0 250 250 1Q 500 500 750 750 1,000 kilometers ... Tropical rainforest ATLANTIC Deciduous scrub forest Semideciduous subtropical forest Steppe Temperate forest Desert Evergreen scrub woodland OCEAN Savanna with palm forest Humid Mesothermal Climates 40 0 • Mediterranean subtropical (dry summer) Swamp-palm savanna Humid subtropical (warm summer) Savanna (tropical grassland) Marine west coast (cool summer) Prairie (temperate grassland) D • Xerophytic scrub and desert 250 1Qq' 500 750 1,000 miles ....~;;;;;2~ -=== 750 1.000 1o1ome1e,s Undifferentiated high mountains 250 II() I~..._,----- 500 386 PART TWO THE DEVELOPED WORLD Plains, contain agriculturally fertile grasslands known as pampas. A small amou nt of tundra vegetation is found at the very southern tip of the continent and in the Fa lkland Islands, and similar cold-tolerant grasses-locally known as paramos and puna-occupy higher e levations within the Andes. SOILS The soils of South America reflect the influence of several factors, notably climate, vegetation cover, and parent material. From an agricultural standpoint, the richest soils are fou nd in the pampas of Argentina and Uruguay, the narrow and flat coastal plain of Brazil and the Guianas, and intermontane Andean basins. Rive r valleys, coastal plains, and highland basins contain a large amount of rich alluvial soils deposited by streams and rive rs, and these are especially conducive to agricultural production . Even the d1y river valleys of coasta l Peru contain rich alluvial soils that, when irrigated, have proved to be agricultu ra lly productive. The soils of the lush rainforests o f the Amazon Basin-oxisols-are deceivi ngly poor fo r agricultu re, however. The abundance of plant life is maintained by an elaborate system of nutrient cycling within the trees and other vegetation, and once the la nd is cleared for agriculture, the nutrients are leached, or dissolved, out of the uppe r layers of the soil. Ofte n, this process of laterlzatio11 leaves be hind a hardpan, infertile reddish soil- rich in iron and aluminum, but low in plant nutrients. RESOURCES South America has considerable natural resources ra nging from minerals and energy resources including petroleum to rivers that, if dammed, could generate hydroelectric power. Fis h a nd forest products are a lso available, although these, like the othe r resources, must be well managed if they are to achieve the ir full potential. Mineral and Energy Resources South Ame rica is a leading producer o f several importa nt minerals a nd e nergy resources (Figure 11.5). Peru and Chile account for nearly 20 percent of world copper production. The agricultura lly poor, yet mineral-rich oxisols o f the humid tropics have be nefited Brazil, Venezue la, and the Guianas in terms of bauxite (the raw material for aluminum), iron, and manganese deposits. CHAPTER 11 Other important mineral deposits include tin and tungste n (Bolivia), uranium (Brazil), and zinc (Argentina , Bolivia, and Peru). Historically, silver mining was important in the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands. Gold and diamond mining is locally significant in the older Brazilian and Guiana highlands. Colombia is also a small producer of gold (derived mainly from placer mi11i11g) in addition to being the world's leading source of e meralds. Coal deposits are found in several of the countries, and although volumes are relatively low by world production standards, they are of local econo mic importance. 387 SOUTH AMERICA FIGURE 11.S Mineral and Energy Resources of South America ,rr ATLANTIC OCEAN Most of the continent's petroleum deposits are associated with the inte rior flanks of the Andea n cordillera, although impo rtant coastal and offshore fields lie along the Venezuelan and Brazilian coasts. Petroleum exploratio n dates to the turn of the century when Venezuela's famous Lake Maracaibo oil fields were discovered. Venezuela a nd Ecuador are OPEC members, and Peru has also recently joined the list of oil exporters. More populous Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia are also important oil producers, but high internal demand has so far precluded a ny net exporting. u rr .Bx ~"'4' ,I Cu Sn ｾ＠ 4 ' u Cu io Water Resources With ample annual precipitation, and a large interior basin, humid tropical South America is dra ined by several large river systems (Figure 11.2). The largest is the Amazon River and its tribu taries, which drain nearly half of the contine nt. The 4000-mile (6400-kilometer) long river, only slightly sho rter than the Nile yet carrying a volu me 11 times greater than the Mississippi, cuts its way from the high Andes to the Atlantic Ocean approximate ly at the equator between the Guiana and Brazilian highlands. To the no rth, the Orinoco River drains the llanos (plains) of Colom bia and Venezuela. The southe rn lowlands of South America are drai ned by the Parana/ Paraguay river system, which empties in the Rio de la Plata estuary near Buenos Aires. The Rfo Sao Francisco flows to the Atlantic through the eastern Brazilian highlands . In spite of the exte nsive network of rivers, their importance historically has been less than that of rivers such as the Mississippi or ile. The Amazon, although navigable into Peru, flows through what historically has been an undeveloped wilderness. Because of the generally poor soils eroded from the eastern highlands, agriculture only flourished in narrow strips along the lower reaches of the river. The Rio Sao Francisco con- 20" • :ID • c 0 Major oil pipeline ATLANTIC Coal Bauxite Cu Copper Fe Iron Sn Tin w Tungsten Zn Zinc 250 250 Oilfields Oil shale Bx u 0 Oil Refinery 500 OCEAN Uranium 500 750 750 1.ooom,les 1.000 kilometers 11)" . ( 1980) and Goode's World Atlas. SOURCE: Adapted from International Petroleum Encycloped ,a 20" 388 PART TWO THE DEVELOPED WORLD tains rapids close to the coast, and this precluded easy access to the interior. The Parana River served an important role as a transportation artery into the interior, but its shallow waters have severely limited its use in the modern era. The greatest resource value of South America's rivers lies in their hydroelectric potential, especially for po pulous developing nations such as Brazil. The upper Parana contains 11 major hydroe lectric plants, including the famous Itaipu Dam o n the Brazil/ Paraguay borde r, the largest power-generating facility in the world. On the western side of the Andes are man y short rivers that, if dammed, would both alleviate periodic severe fl ooding and yield great hydroelectric potential. Fishing and Forestry Altho ugh subs istence fishing takes place througho ut the continent, especially in the rivers of the interior, commerc ial fishing is largely restricted to the coastal and offshore areas. Shrimping is an impo rtant activity o n the Atlantic coast of Brazil and the Guiana , and Peru has been a world leader in the harvest of a nchovies. Because the west coast of South America is was hed by the cold Peru (Humboldt) Current flowing no rthward fro m Antarctic waters, the upwe lling (replacement of surface waters with colder water fro m greater de pths) associated with this cold current brings rich bounty of plankto n and anchovies close to the sea s urface where the latter are easily harvested. Jn some years, Pe ru has attained the distinction of be ing the leading fis hing natio n in the world, although in o ther years freak warm currents (El Nino, the Christ Child) in winter o r overfishing have led to collapses in the industry . A po tential for greate r commercialization of fishing exists in South America as lo ng as the resources are well managed . Recent progress is apparent in both the commercial development of inland fisheries in the Amazon Basin and the expansion of aquaculture, mainly shrimp fa rming, in Ecuador. Because of the hig h dive rsity of species and re lative inaccessibility, comme rcial lumbering has been relatively minimal in the vast tropical rai nforests. Selective cutting of valuable hardwoods is practiced, a nd atte mpts at tree farming have been made, but the economics of large-scale tropical forest lumbering are not favorable. (The rainfo rests are disappearing at alarming rates, however, but more as a result o f conversio n to low-intensity agriculture and gra zing la nd.) Commercial forestry is more widespread in the temperate portions of the con- CHAPTER I I tinent, especially in southern Brazil where extensive stands of softwoods are found. SOUTH AMERICA FIGURE 11.6 Aboriginal Economies of South America HUMAN ENVIRONMENT Like the physical e nvironment, the human environment of South America exhibits considerable diversity. ative populations, voluntary immigrants from Europe, and invol untary immigrants (slaves) from Africa as well as va rio us mixtures of these groups are all reflected in the po pulation of South America today. Patterns of population den ity and distribution are similarly diverse; South America is the home of some of the world's largest cities as well as large sparsely populated areas and frontier regions. ATLANTIC OCEAN Tropical Forest Farmers Tupi ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS Although a rchaeologists are still in disagreement as to the exact antiquity of humans in the New World, we do know that the Americas were among the last of the major world regio ns to become populated. Estimates of earl iest settlement range as far back as 30,000 years before the present (B.P.), but recent revisions have lowered this figure to between 12,000 and 15,000 years B.P., o r shortly after the last glacial maximum of the Ice Age. By 11,000 years B.P. , however, descendants of the pioneering Asiatic forebearers had reached the southern tip of South America (Tierra del Fuego), and over the subseque nt mille nnia, a variety of distinctive native cultures evolved. AL the time of European contact, perhaps 15 million natives of varying culture levels inhabited South America (Figure 11.6). Most of the continent was inhabited by tropical forest fam1 ing peoples who lived along the numero us lowland rivers and practiced shifting, or slash and burn , agriculture. Cassava (manioc) and sweet potatoes comprised the basic food staples, and protein was derived predominantly from fish but also from wild game and peanuts. Since these people were river o riented , they traveled considerable dista nces; notable examples were the Arawaks and Caribs who respectively had migrated, with their Amazon lowland culture tra its, into the Antilles by the time Columbus "discovered" this New World. Other well-known lowland cultures include the Tupi, Ge, and Guarani of eastern and southern Brazil and adjacent Paraguay. A temperate latitude slash and burn culture-the 10- ATLANTIC OCEAN Hunting and gathering Simple farming Civilizations (advanced farming) 0 250 1111• ~ ~ 250 500 750 1,000 miles 500 ~;:.;;; 750 ~ 1~.000 ~ k"." ,10:: m': ete: ,s= 10 SOURCE: Adapted from Robert C. West. " Aboriginal and Colonial Geograpi~~atin America." in Brian W Blouet and Olwyn M. Blouet. eds.. Latin America· An Introductory Survey (New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1982). pp. . 390 PART TWO THE DEVELOPED WORLD Araucanians--occupied humid, forested south central Chile , and their agricultural basis was more complex. In addition to adopting food complexes prevalent in Mesoamerica and Andean America (including maize, beans, and squash), the Araucanians domesticated what we now call the Iri h potato. Geographe rs a nd botanists argue that potatoes were introduced into the central Andes-and the rest of the world-from this source area. Hunting and gathering cultures inhabited several of the tropical grasslands (campos) of Brazil, the temperate grasslands (pa mpas) of Argentina and Uruguay, and the short-grass steppes of Patagonia. Fishing and shell fishing were important supplementary economic activities along most of South America's shoreline , a nd along the south coast of Chile and Tierra de! Fuego, these activities constituted the dominant method of food supply. Charles Darwin, rounding Cape Horn on the research vessel H.M.S. Beagle in the mid-1800s, commented upon the impoverished appearance of these shellfish gatherers. Two major civilizations existed in South America at the time of the Europeans' arrival: the fnca Empire of the central trans-Andes and the Chibcha civilization of contemporary Andean Colombia. Evidence of plant domestication dates to as early as 6000 years B.P. along the arid Peruvian coast, and by 3600 years B.P. e laborate irrigation works had been constructed, pottery making had become prevalent, and a temple had been built near Lima. Incipient coastal civilizations eventually gave rise to the Mochica Cu lture, which flourished from A.D. 200 until about A.O. 1000. Situated on the coastal plain of contempora1y Peru, the Mochica fragmented into three coastal kingdoms of Chimu , Chancay, a nd Chincha, which flourished until about A.O. 1470. All three kingdoms were supported by elaborate irrigation agriculture, and the most famo us city was Chan Chan, near present-day Trujillo. Cities developed in the Andean highlands contemporaneously with the rise of a coastal plain civilization, and contact between the two areas was widespread in s pite of the fum1idable topographic barriers. Several sites, including Kotosh in the north, Tiahuanaco in the south, and the Cuzco Valley between the two, became important centers of civilization. Political power within the region was eventua ll y consolidated by the Incas of the Cuzco Valley during their empire-building push between 1438 and 1525. Under the family-ru n Inca Empire, an elaborate road network was established to facilitate transport of people and foodstuffs throughout the elongated territory that now reached from southern FIGURE I 1,7 Loci and Routes o f D iffusion of Colonial Settlements In South America Colombia to centra l Chile. Unlike the extensive trade network of the enterprising Mesoamericans, the marketing infrastructure of the Incan Empire was the result of totalitarian policies. The Inca e lite used forced labor in both agriculture and public works projects and instituted a socialistic food distribu tion system that ensured sufficient food supplies. Quechua, the Inca language, was also fo rced upon the conquered subjects, and its present distribution closely approximates the maximum t:xtem of the empire. The Incas established a second capital at Quito in the early 1500s, and perhaps empire building would have continued had not the Spaniard Pizarro arrived in the region soon thereafter in 1531. At its peak, the lncan Empire contained up to 12 million inhabitants, or about half the size of the population of Mesoamerica. A second , much smaller Andean civilization was that of the Chibchas of highland Colombia who numbered only 500,000 inhabitants. Although not architecturally as sophisticated as the central Andean cultures, the Chibchas formed a rudimentary political state, traded extensively with surrounding Indians of lower elevations, and crafted elaborate gold figurines. The fa mous myth of El Dorado (the Gilded One), which later led many expeditions to ill-fated endings in the tropical lowlands, stems from the Zipa (chief) of the Chibchas who annually sprinkled gold dust on his body and went for a swim in the cold Lake Guatavita north of Bogota. Although the Spanish were well acquainted with this story before the ir arriva l in the Colombian highlands, it had become so exaggerated that they did not recognize the source of the myth when they finally conquered the Chibcha in 1536. 10- ATLANTIC OCEAN Tordesillas Line (1494) I .,,. 10"' 'Salvador de Bahia AfLANT,/C COLONIAL IMPACTS After Columbus's eventful discovery of October 12, 1492, territorial rights to world exploration and trade were divided between Spain and Portugal by papal decree. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas established a line of demarcation 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, or approximately 471/2° west longitude, at what was thought to be a mid-ocean meridian (Figure 11. 7). However, a large portion of South America protruded eastward of the line, and while accide ntally sailing too far wes tward on a rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1500, the Portuguese discovered that they too had received a slice of the new world . The Spanish launched their explo rations in search of mineral wealth from their New World base in Santo OCEAN • Loci of Portuguese settlements • Loci of Spanish settlements The Spanish Main .....250 0• . .2~50~ 500 750 Routes of diffusion of colonial settlement Southern limit of European colonial settlement 1.000 miles ~500 ~~ 750~~1.oo ! :o~ ': .~~me:,~.,~.= ..,. IIO 711" 1111 •10 . . A I (Madison· University of Wisconsin Press. · L · America An · v L mbardi Latin American History: A Teachmg t as SOURCES: Adapted from Catherine L Lombard, and John . ho of Lati~ America,"" in Brian W Blouet and Olwyn M Blouet. eds.. at,n R b t C West ""Aboriginal and Colonial Geograp y ourvey er (.New York·· John Wiley & Sons, 1982). pp. 34--86. 1983); and S Introductory ,- ................ ---- F 39Z PART TWO THE DEVELOPED WORLD Domingo, following the failure of lheir firsl attempted seulement on the north coasl of His paniola. An abundance of pearls along the north coast of South America (the Spanish Main) led to the establishment of small outposts from eastern Venezuela to Panama. Following Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean (the Soulh Sea) in 151 3, the en trepo t city of Panama was soon established. From this link to the Caribbean, the Spanis h proceeded down the west coast and discovered the Incan Empire. Following Pizarro's conquest of the Incas in 1531, Lima was established as the colonial capital of the viceroyalty of Peru. From this coastal base, lhe Spanish occupied Cuzco and other mineral-rich highland cente rs of Indian civilization, as well as more outlying le rritories within the lncan Empire. By the 1540s, the Spanish had discovered the immense silve r deposits of Bolivia, known as Upper Pe ru because of the high e levations. olable among the mineral deposils was the (still producing) silver mine o f Potosi, near which several senlemenls were eslablished. Explorations were launched bOLh no1thward and southward from Pe ru, and seltleme nt loci were eslablished al Quito and antiago. From these nodes, further o utward explo ralions and expansion look place, including down the Amazon River and across the southern Andes into Argentina. Buenos Aires had been established in the early 1530s by settlers arriving direclly from Spain, but hostile Indians forced an inland re location to Asuncion, via the Parana/ Paraguay rivers . This Paraguayan locus of seule ment subsequenlly served as the hearth of oulward seule ment expansion, including a lale r reoccupation of the site of Buenos Aires. The Chibcha civilization of Colombia was penetrated by the Spanish moving inland from the outposts a long the Spanish Main, and Bogota was establis hed near the highland site of the Chibchan capilal. Further exploratio ns were launched from this base, mostly southward and northeastward, but also eastward in search of El Dorado. Spanis h settlements were primarily concentrated in areas containing mine ral wealth and a readily available supply of Indian labor to extract that wealth. Administrative centers were established eithe r within those seulement loci or at coastal entrep6ts. The mineral-poor Uruguayan grasslands were unimportant to the Spanish, at least until the Portuguese began expanding southward in the late 1700s. Likewise, the no rthern Amazonian lowlands, including the Guianas, had little to offer, and the Spanish subsequently avoided that part of the continent. Like the Spanish, the Portuguese were interested in acquiring wealth, and the recently established trade w ith India and the Orient offered the easiest means to accomplish those aims. Early coastal explorations in the newly discovered te rritory yielded little evidence of minera l wealth, and the colony of Brazil (named after the dye-yie lding brazilwood thal constituted an early export) grew slowly. In 1580, an estimated 150,000 Spaniards had settled in the New World-approximately half of lhem in South America- yet only about 30,000 Portuguese inhabited Brazil. Settlement in Brazil was concentrated in two major zones: the older zone of Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro in the south and Salvador de Bahia/ Recife in the north. Of these two, the northern became more important because of the establishment of a plantation economy. The plantation, an extensive feudal la nd tenure system dedicated to intensive produclion of an expo1t crop, was firs t developed by the Po rtuguese in their African island colonies of Madeira and Sao Tome and Principe. The tropical climate and fe rtile coastal plain of northeastern Brazil were well suited for the growing of sugarcane and tobacco, and a pla ntation landsca pe quickly developed. Although the search fo r mineral wealth and slave labor led to an inland penetration of Brazil well westward of the Tordesillas Line, including up lhe Amazon River and toward the Mato Grosso from Sao Paulo, most Portuguese settleme nt remained concentrated along a narrow coastal ribbon. Other Europeans, including Dulch, French, and British, adapted the plantation system to other portions of coastal South Ame rica, such as the Guianas and no rthern Brazil , that had been ignored by Iberian colo nists. The panish , too, had experimented with sugarcane farming in the Cana1y Islands, and they introduced the plantation syslem to Hispaniola. By the early 1600s, the plantation economy had spread throughout the Caribbean and to the orth American mainland. Foremost among the population changes that took place in South America during the colonial era was a rapid decline in the native population, chiefly attributed to enslavc::menc for work in the mines and on the plantations, introduction of diseases such as smallpox, measles, and typhus to which the Indians had no resistance, disruption of native economies, and psychological despair. The population declines were greatest in the areas of highest and densest population. In Peru, for example, an indigenous population estimated to be 12 million in 1530 rapidly declined to 1.5 million by 1570 and 600,000 by 1620. By this latter date, the population stabilized CHAPTER 1 1 d a pattern of gradual increase began. Due to the an I absence of accurate records for the less Eurov1rtua . I I" ti peanized segments of South America, we . 1ave_ it e knowledge of either the aborigina l population size or tl extent of the postcontact decimation. Orella na, the s~:nish explorer who first descended the Amazon . noted almost contiguous village. settlement along R1ver, I · the banks of the entire course of the river, a popu at1on density that still has not been regained to~ay. Slaveraiding parties from coastal Brazil rapidly decimated the native Tupis, and the search for plantation labor drove the Paulistas (inhabitants of Sao Paulo) e:er further into the interior. Most of the territorial expansion of Brazil-to approximately its modern boundaries-resulted from the search for slaves and gold by these bandeirantes (flag bearers). The demand for labor could nol be met by the enslavement of Indians alone, however, and t~e P~rtuguese began importing Negro slaves from the1_r Afncan territorial possessions, chiefly Portuguese Guinea and Angola. The demand fo r African labor in the N~w World increased rapidly, especially where the plantation economy was dominant. Estimates of the numbers of slaves imported from Africa to all of the Americas :ange from 10 to 15 million. Four to five million Afncans were brought to South America, mostly to Brazil but also_ to t11e Guianas and the Spanish Main where the plantation economy had taken hold . The predominance of bla~ks is still quite evidenl in those areas today. The Span'.sh also used African slaves to augment the declining Indian labor supply in lheir gold and silver mines, but excepl for small enclaves in western Colombia and Ecuador, most evidence of Africans has disappeared through the generations because of intem1arriage with Indians and Europeans in these areas. . The mixing of the races is another 1mportanl result of the colonial impact on South Ame rica. ot only were African and Mediterranean European racial s~rains added to the aboriginal ethnic stock, bul much intermarriage took place as well. Dozen~ of terms ?av~ come into local usage describing the vanous combma~1ons of racial mixtures, most importantly mestizo (Indian and European), mulatto (African and European), ~nd zambo (African and Indian). The mestizo population has become the dominant one in most of western ~outh America, whereas blacks and mulattos are numencally important along the coastal lowl:nds of eastern a~? northern South America. In 1825, )0 percent of Brazil s population was black and 18 percent mulatto. SOUTH AMERICA 393 Whereas the Spanish settlement patterns did not significantly change throughout the entire colonial period, in Brazil the discovery of mineral wealth in 1693 tnggered what has become known as the world's first ~old rush. Centered in a region that became known as Mmas Gerais, the gold rush attracted some 800,000 Portugue~e immigrants during the eighteenth century. Not only did the balance of political power shift back to the south from Salvador but the discovery of mineral wealth led to the first sig~ificant settlement inland of the Brazili~n escarpment. Rio de Janeiro, the closest port to the mterior mines, became the capital of Brazil in the 1750s. MODERN POPULATION The modern period in South America has seen several developments: another influx of European immigran~, dramatic population growth, and various forms_ of '.111gration. The latter includes both rural-urban m1g~t1on and movement to the frontier regions of the continent. Immigration Non-Hispanic European immigration did not beco1:ne widespread until the nineteenth century. Und~r Sp_arnsh colonial rule only Spaniards were allowed to 1mm1grate into Spain's, American colonies. Following independence from Spain in the early 1800s, many of th~ newly independent nations felt a need to improve lhe1r_economies and to populate their sparsely settled ternto'.1es. Immigrants from northern Euro_pe were espeetally sought after because of their perce1v~d strong work ethics. Brazil, too, opened its doors to unm1g~nts as ear\ as 1800, but the persistence of slavery until the end o the colonial period in the late 1880s precluded much demand for new sources of labor during most of the century. ln the Guianas, abolition of slavery w~s f~llowed by the importation of indentured plantation _laborers, especially from lhe British and Dute~ colonies of India and the Easl Indies, respectively. Their desce~. ifi cant percen rage of tht: ethmc . a sign dants comprise composition of Guyana and Su'.iname today. The, few immigrants to French Guiana arrived by for~e, as Fr~nce established several penal colonies- including the infamous Devil's Island-there. ·ca was Temperate, or southern, South Amen. . the destination of the majority of European im11:1~rant_s b~rween 1870 and 1930. ln Argentina, 6.5 m1~hon m:irmgrants, 80 percent of them Italian and Spantsh, arnved 394 PART TWO THE DEVELOPED WORLD as the rich pampa grasslands were transfonned from Population Growth and grazing lands into croplands. Most immigrants were Migration Patterns non-landowning agricultural laborers, and they quickly Oocked to the cities, thus stimulating the rapid growth The total population o f South America is approximately of cities, including Buenos Aires. Today, a majority of 296 million 0990), of which slightly over half is in BraArgentines are descended fro m these largely southern zil. Since 1950, about 135 million people have been European immigrants, and even their pronunciations of added to the continent's populatio n. This high rate of Spanish words reflect Italian inflections. Uruguay reincrease is largely explained by the demographic tranceived an ethnicall y similar influx of immigrants. AJsition model, which forecasts a large decline in the rho ug~ ~maile r in number than in Argentina-pe rhaps death rate prior to any significant declines in the birth one milhon total-the immigrant population was more rate. Not including the effects of (international) immisignificant because of the re latively low population prior gration and emigration, which have been relatively unto mass immigration. Brazil received five million immiimportant since 1950, this signifies that birth rates have grants, mostly from Po rtugal, Italy, and Spain, but also been substantially higher than death rates, and a population explosion has been the result. from Germany, Russia, and Turkey. Here immigration mostly fo llowed the opening of coffee and other agriAlthough present tre nds indicate a gradual drop in the cultural lands so uth and west of Sao Paulo, including birth rates, attributed large ly to increasing practices of the forested lands of Rio Grande do Sul where a small birth control, the pressures of population growth have but locally important colony of Germans became establed to extensive internal migrations of people. First and lished. European colo nies, especially of Germans, beforemost, the re have been exte nsive urba n migrations. came important in Paraguay following its de feat in the Many of South America's large cities are growing at rates infamous War of the Triple Alliance in 1870. Afte r a fi veof 7 or 8 pe rcent per year, we ll above the national avyear battle against the combined forces of Brazil, Uruerages. Many traditional areas of settlement in the Anguay, a nd Argentina, Paraguay experienced a 90 percent dean valleys and along the coasts are at or near their decline in its ma le population. European immigration ~arrying capacities, at least under present technologwas numerically less important in other South American ical levels. In these regions, population growth is usucountries, a lthough small German colonies were estabally offset by out-migration, most often to the cities lished in southern Chile and north central Venezuela . where the migrants seek jobs. Ma ny urban problems, Oil-rich Venezuela continues to attract immigrants essuch as the difficulty in providing basic services, result pecially from Italy and the Canary Islands. from this rapid population inOux, and squatter settlements are integral components of most la rge cities today. Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro are Population Density and Distribution among the most populated urban areas in the world Statistics o n populatio n densities for South America inwith more than 10 millio n persons. Lima, Santiago, and dicate that the continent is re latively s parse ly settled , yet Bogota arc also quite large with populations of more than 4 million each. these statistics mask the uneven distribution of the population (see the Statistical Profile). Ave raged over the Other types of population migration include internaentire continent, the population density is slightly over tional migration, interregional migration, and frontier half of the comparable figure for the United States and migration. Most international migration is restricted to about one-third that of Mexico. On national levels, popthe continent (i ntraregional, if the whole continent is ul,nion densities are highest in Ecuador (over double conside red to be one region) and usually entails the the continental average) and lowest in French Guiana movement of citizens of a re latively poorer country to and the Falkland Islands. When one examines the disa richer ne igh bor. Consequently, there are substantial tribution of the population, which is concentrated in the numbers (in the hundreds of thousands) of Colombians intermontane Andean va lleys, along the coast, and in in Venezuela, and Bolivians and Paraguayans in Argenthe cities, much higher values of localized population tina. Because of distance factors, immigration to the density e merge (Figure 11.8). The contemporary distriUnited States is less important than for Mexico and Cenbution of South Americans re flects patterns established tral America, although large Colombian populations in the precolonial , colo nia l, and modern eras. may be fo und in Miami and ew York City. CHAPTER I I 395 SOUTH AMERICA FIGURE 11.8 Distribution and Density of Population In South America 70 ATLANTIC OCEAN 0 C' 10" 10· /FIG OCEAN ATLANtlC OCEAN POPULATION 00" per sq. kilometer Over100 per sq. mile Over 250 125-250 60-124 •o 50-100 25-49 10-24 25-59 2-24 1-9 Under1 Under 2 250 0 250 1f.l 500 750 500 11000 miles 750 1.000 lolometers 00'" to 20 F and at the fringes of the main zones of settlement in a country comprises a frontier zone. In the United States, the earliest frontier was situated westward of the main settlement nodes along the Eastern Seaboard. As pioneering settlers colonized the often lawless frontier, and converted the woodlands and prairies to agriculture fields, the frontier zone was displaced westward. The historian Frederick Jackson Turner believed that the frontier not only offered ever-present opportunities for an expanding American population but that is also shaped American culture in general. With the possible exception of Alaska, which advertises itself as 'The Last Frontier" on its license plates, the frontier in the United States has long been closed. FRONTIER COLONIZATION had moved into the upper Amazon along the lower eastern slopes of the Andes (the montaria). Much of this movement took place prior to the opening of the road, and the direct stimulus for this spontaneous colonization was the increasing population In South America, the frontier is very pressure within the Andean basin setmuch alive although settlement zones tlement cores. The respective governare rapidly encroaching on the empty ments quickly recognized the value of expanses of land nearby. A "coldfrontier colonization, both in terms of weather" frontier similar to Alaska exists occupying the national peripheral rein southern Chile and southern Argengions as well as relieving overcrowdtina, and hardy colonists are continuing in the traditional settlement areas. ing to migrate into the regron. In From Venezuela to Bolivia, quite a few Chile, the construction of a road to the penetration roads were built across the southernmost extremes of the country Andes to allow settlers to move in and is offering new settlement opportunito provide transportation routes for agties. Often frontier areas are only temricultural products to be transported to porarily occupied, perhaps until a valumarket. As the eastern slope frontier able natural resource can be sufficolonization zones grew and even coaciently exploited to make a substantial lesced, they became linked by crude profit. In that case, the frontier may still highways. In I 957, former President function as an empty territory beyond Fernando Belaunde of Peru, an archithe margins of permanent settlement. tect by training, proposed linking all of Only the process of permanent colonithe frontier colonization zones by a zation will change the status of the grandiose 3600-mile (5700-kilometer} frontier. long Carreterra Marginal de la The best example of a frontier in Selva, or Marginal Forest Highway South America is the Amazon Basin. By (Figure I}. Such a road, he felt, would the early twentieth century, pioneer not only open up new lands to settlers colonists from the Andean countries but would provide better transport cor- FIGURE I ridors for marketing produce. From Venezuela to Bolivia, approximately two million settlers were expected to occupy this new frontier, and an overall population of nine million inhabitants was projected. Although the project as envisioned by Belaunde was never built and colonists in the montafia number only in the hundreds of thousands, continued spontaneous colonization has led to increased linearity of settlement along the eastern Andean slopes. As the settlement zones become tied together by roads, one day the Carreterra Marginal will rndeed become a reality. The ~ower Amazon Basin is a frontier for Brazil. Although the Amazon lowlands periodically had been exploited for specific high-demand resources such as gold, slaves, and rubber, true frontier colonization has until recently been rather minrmal. Politically, the Brazilian government has long perceived the Amazon as a vast untapped resource to be developed and populated. This opt1mist1c view toward the interior was reinforced by the relocation of the capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia in I 960 and the extension of roads northward to Belem and westward through the Mato Grosso to Porto Velho. Significant settlement took place along these roads by both small-scale agriculturalists and corporate cattle ranchers (including the King Ranch of Texas). Development and settlement in the Amazon were also encouraged by the growth-pole concept, in which industrial or commercial development is initiated and transmitted to an area around it providing the basis for populating hitherto sparsely inhabited regions. The Amazon region was de- Frontier Colonlzatlon In the Greater Amazon Basin { 10· ATLANTIC OCEAN 0 PACI C OC AN 111 Roads Limits of Amazonian Planning Region 0 D •• Development areas selected under the Brazilian National Development Plan Settlement zones l!O 250 Planned colonization zones 500 2 750 1,000 miles 5iiii;iiiiii 1s0~ 1~.000 ~ ~~1ome ==,.=ra~ •0 . .2~50~500 Industrial growth poles uth American Development: A Geographical Introduction (Cambndge. G. _B.: SOURCES Adapted from Rosemary D. F Bromley and Ray Bromley,_ So d Ch I s M Nissly East from the Andes (Gainesville: University of Florida ar e · · Cambridge University Press. 1982). (repr. 1985)·, an d Raymond E· Crist an Press, 1973) clared a duty-free zone, and cities such as Manaus experienced minor booms in commercial and manufacturing activity. Also, billionaire Daniel Ludwig was able to acquire a Connecticutsized piece of property along the Jarl River where. following an investment of S500 million, he converted thousands of acres to rice and Gmelina arborea trees, a fast-growing Australian pulpwood speoes. The gmelina trees were to supply his pulpwood processing plant, which was towed from Japan. Although Ludwig gave up in 1982 . the growth pole of Jari is now under Brazilian ownership, and 30,000 settlers live in the region. In 1970, after a major drought in the populated Northeast, the BraziHan government embarked on an ambitious Amazonian development program, which was to include extensive road construction. infrastructure building for colonization zones. and industrial growth-pole development similar to Ludwig's Jari. The first step in this program was the construction of the east-west Trans-Amazon Highway, which was to connect the droughtstricken Northeast with the Peruvian border (Figure I) . Along this highway. as well as along the highway to Porto Velho. colonization zones were established and road-fronting land parcels of 2 50 acres ( J 00 hectares) were made available to colonists. In addition, larger tracts of land-totaling 6. 7 million acres (2.7 million hectares)were set aside for private and corporate cattle ranches. It was estimated that one million colonists would be settled by 1980. most from the impover- cHAPTSR 11 as well Globally. rainforests absorb carnists to farm land productively for one ,shed Northeast. bon d1ox1de and produce half of the or two seasons. then sell 1t to a cattle Although much spontaneous rancher as the soil fertility declines. The world's oxygen supply Removal of the colonization has taken place along the forests may w ell enhance the greenonly "success stories" 1n the Brazilian newly opened highways and several house effect and lead to global Amazon have been the vast cattle of the industrial projects are under ranches. establtshed 1n large part to ex- warming. thus stimulating the melting construction. the growth forecast by of polar icecaps and raising sea levels. the 8razilran government has not been port beef for the North American fast· There are signs that rampant defood industry and provide much-realrzed Many problems have plagued struction of the Amazon is slowing Ofneeded foreign revenues for Brazil the development process. 1nclud1ng Beef production has increased in Brazil, ficial Brazilian policy 1n I 989 shifted tothe lack of bridges. washed-out roads. but at the expense of widespread envi- ward greater concern for tropical lack of agricultural assistance. soil rainforest resources. and a new demoronmental destruction. erosion. and depletion of nutrients By The environmental implications of in- cratic government-in place since I 980. only 8000 families had been I 990-has made envtronmental proefficient frontier colonization ,n both settled ,n the colonization zones. and tection a key aspect of its Amazonian Brazil and the Andean countries are only 40 percent were from the North-development program. Forest fires are tremendous. The tropical forests are east. In the m,d-1980s. out-migration now regularly monitored by satellites. disappearing at alarming rates (some was actually exceeding 1n--m1grat1on and violators of ant1-burn1ng laws are worldwide estimates range as high as One of the maJor problems ,n the increasingly being prosecuted. 40,000 square miles 1100.000 square Amazon Basin ,s soil 1nfert1l1ty AlYes. there is a frontier ,n South kilometers! per year). and scientists are though lush. species-rich rainforest ,s America But the humid tropics comconcerned about local as well as extensive throughout the region. the prise a fragile frontier. quite different global impacts. Locally. the lush rainnutrients are rapidly recycled from the from the historic m1dlat1tude frontter of forests are turning into nonproductive humus. or organic debris on the forest the United States With proper technolfloor. through the shallow root systems red deserts. and the amount of rainfall versions of aboogy. such as modified 1s decreasing because of reduced evaof the trees Clearing the land for agriof slash and burn riginal methods potransptrat1on from fewer trees. As culture allows nutrients ,n the topsoil frontier farming and mult1cropp1ng. forests are cut. we lose potentially valuto become rapidly leached deep into colonization can be a viable process. It able species. some of which may have the soil by rainfall so that the root sysnot be seen as the maJor should pharmaceutical value (as does the bark tems of commercial crops cannot tap method of solving the problems of of the cinchona tree in the treatment them With continued leaching. this population growth and economic stagof malaria. for example). Also. not only process of laterizatton can lead to the nation that may characterize the settleis habitat for flora and fauna rapidly formatton of a mineral-rich. yet ment cores of the respective countries. disappearing. but the habitat of abonutrient-poor. cementlike hardpan surriginal culture groups is disappearing face One pattern has been for colo- Interregional migrations consist of migrations from relatively impoverished regions to areas w here o pportunities are greater. Semiarid and highly populated Northeast Brazil is frequently affected by droughts, and the region has become a major zone of out-migration. Regions that attract migrants often result from the establishment of economic development centers, o r growth poles, in previously undeveloped regions. Examples o f growth-pole establishment include the inland relocation o f a national capital such as Orasilia, which has now grown to almost two million inhabitants, and the estab- lishment of an industrial center such as Ciudad Guayana in southeastern Venezuela. In an effo rt to lower p opulation pressures in the greater Buenos Aires area, Argentina h as proposed moving its national capital south to Viedma, on the fringes o f remote Patagonia. Ano ther type of migration is frontier migration, which refers primarily to pioneering agricultural colonization . In South America, this consists mainly of migration into the humid tropical lowlands, although Chileans and Argentines are also settling their cold southern frontiers. The last vast expanse o f land in the continent is the SOUTH AMERICA Amazon Basin, and pioneer settlement !n ~razil a~~. the Andean countries b gradually encroaching in~o th1s. last frontier," often at the expense o f the native inhabitants who are forced out or forcibly acculturated. 399 the great variety o f cultures, including African, Amerindian, Hindi, Bengali, Indonesian, and Chinese. This diversity reaches its epitome in Suriname, w here the official Dutch is less w idely spoken than talkie-talkie (or taki-taki), a lingua franca derived from at least six or seven separate languages. CULTURE Many aspects of South American cu lture includin_g language and religio n reflect the impact of the _col~rnal pe'od although aboriginal languages p ersist in some n ' . areas and elements o f native religions have been incorporated into Roman Catholicism. Similarly , the political history of the regio n has been shaped to a large degree by its colonial experience. Language With over one thousand aboriginal languages, South America exhibits great linguistic diversity. These languages collapse into 118 linguistic stocks fa_lli~g into three major language groupings. All of the existing and extinct native languages ultimately can be traced to one protolanguage dating back at least 11,000 years . Therefore, it might be suggested that all outh Ame~1can_I~dians were descended from the sam e ethno-hngu1st1c stock , and the great linguistic diversity is attributed.to a high degree of isolation of the va riou s individual tribes. Several Indian languages became quite widespread, including Quechua, which was forced upon the subj_e.cts of the !ncan Empire, but also several o f the Braz1han highland and interior lowland languages, _such as Tu~i , Guarani, Carib, and Arawak. Where Indians compnse significant proportions of the total population, native languages are still widely spoken. ota?I~ exa°?~les are Quechua in Peru and Ecuador, Aymara in Bohv1a, and Guarani in Paraguay. The colonial imprint on the South American continent has obscured the great diversity of aboriginal languages under an overlay of a few major European languages that have come to predominate. Po rtuguese is the o fficial language o f Brazil, and because of Brazil's large population, it is also the most widely spoken language on the continent. In the Andean nations and Uruguay, Spanish is the o fficial language. Quechua shares o fficia~ status with Spanish in Peru, however, as does ~uarant with Spanish in Paraguay. English is the o ffic1~l language in the Falkland Islands and Guyana, Du~ch in Suriname and French in French Guiana. On a micro-scale, lingui~tic diversity is greatest in the Guianas because of Religion Most of outh America is nominally Roman Catholic , the religion brought over by the Iberian colonialists. The aboriginal peoples were profoundly religious: most of the lowland groups were classified as being animist ( imp arting spiritual significance to animate or even inanimate objects) , although among the Andean civilizations religion was highly organized and contained a panth~on o f gods and a priesthood. With the forced introduction of Catholicism, many saints were substituted for indigenous gods, and the elaborate rituals of the new religion were blended with those of the past. In the plantation and slave economy o f coastal Brazil, elements of animist African religions were incorporated into local versions o f Catholicism. In the non-Latin countries of outh America, the earliest introduced Protestant religions (such as Anglican in the British colonies) have been augmented by numerous other religions. Indentured plantation laborers brought Hinduism and Islam , and these have become dominant in Guya na and Suriname. Missionizing cffortS, mainly by Protestant sects including Baptists, Monnons, eventh Day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses, a.re ubiquitous throughout South America, and . potential converts are usually those living at the margins of society (Indians and the socially and economically disadvantaged). ome religious groups. including the Menno nites, moved to South America not to make converts but to create a homeland for themselves, usually on the fro ntier. They have become quite dominant in Paraguay's Chaco region. Political Characteristics During the colonial period, settlement took place in several core areas deemed economically important by the colonial powers. These core areas were located in highlands proximate to sources of mineral wealth and/ or a native labor pool or along coasts and/ or rivers where plantation agriculture or cntrep6t cities could be established. Politically, the Spanish colonies were closely 400 PART TWO THE DIIVl!LOPED WORLD administered from Spain, and colonial administrative capitals were established to control vast hinterlands known as viceroyalties. The three viceroyalties of South America were New Granada (comprising rough ly modern-day Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador), Peru (Peru, parts of Bolivia, and Chile), a nd Rio de la Plata (Bolivia, Argentina, Paragua y, Uruguay, and the Falkland Islands). The last two viceroyalties were further subdivided into 23 intendencias and provincias. Venezuela was politically a capta incy-general administered from Santo Domingo. Independence came in the 1810s to 1820s as the Spanish colonies, under the leaders hip of liberation fighters such as Simon Bolivar and Jose de Sa n Ma rtin, endured a long and bitter struggle to remove the yoke of colonialism. Brief attempts at postcolo nial po litical alliances failed, but incipie nt forms of the nine present Spanis h-speaking republics emerged-each centered on a node of settlement. Because the political geography of the new republics could be described easily by the core-periphery model, in which a re la tively populated settle ment core is surrounded by sparsely settled "peripheral" lands, territorial claims to these empty a reas have led to numerous boundary disputes and redrawing of political boundaries. Bo livia is a good example of a victim of South American geopolitics, having lost its Pacific coastline to Pe ru and Chile in the War of the Pacific 0879-1884), its northernmost Amazonian lowlands to Brazil in 1867 and 1903, and portions of its Chaco to Paraguay in 1935 during the Chaco War 0928-1935). Boundary disputes a re still quite prevalent in South Ame rica today, especia lly in areas suspected o f be ing unde rlain by valuable mineral resources. The viceroyalty of Brazil was politically divided into about 12 ca ptaincies-general and subordinate captaincies, which had evolved from o riginal large coastal land grants (donatarios). As the armies of apoleon swept through Europe in the early 1800s, the seat of the Portuguese monarchy was moved from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, and in 18 15 Brazil was granted equal po litical status with the mother country within the kingdom of Portugal. After Prince Regent Dom J oao returned to Lisbo n in 1821 , his son Dom Pedro I stayed behind. The following year he established the independent monarchy of Brazil a nd had himself pronounced emperor. The Empire of Brazil , ruled o nly by Dom Pedro I and Dom Pedro II, lasted until 1889 at which time a republic was proclaimed. Unlike in the Spanish colonies, very little political fragmentation took place, and a geopol- itically strong and expansionistic Brazil has managed to e nlarge its te rritory since independence one cen tury ago. Although Brazil and the Spanish-speaking South American countries were proclaimed republics, their political histories have varied considerably. Political instability, stimulated by fi ghting between factions of oligarchical power brokers or between various socioeconomic classes, has characterized all of the countries to va rying degrees, and military rule has prevailed throughout much of the postindependence period. Military dictators hips have ranged from conservative-even repressive-defende rs of the oligarchical status quo (as in Paraguay, where martial law was in effect from 1954 until 1989 when Gene ral Stroessner was ousted in a coup d 'etat) to progressive, socialistic governments (Peru during the early 1970s). Although Chile and Uruguay have had the lo ngest histories of democracy in the twentieth century, both experienced military coups d 'etat during 1973. Since the 1950s, only Colombia and Venezue la have consistently maintained civilian democratic governme nts. Although the future political status of the individual countries is difficult to forecast, the 1980s saw a trend to return government control to civilia n-and democratic-hands; Peru 0980), Bolivia 0982), Brazil 0985), Uruguay 0985), and Chile (1989) have followed that route. Ecuador, a shaky democracy for a numbe r of years, announced in 1988 that it would follow a more socialistic path of democracy and reduce its ties to the United States and Western Europe. Among the Latin natio ns of South America, only Paraguay retains a conservative military dictatorship, although elections are scheduled for 1992. The colonial he ritage of the Guianas and Falkland Islands is much more recent, and sparsely populated French Guiana and the Falklands remain European colonies. French Guiana is officially an overseas departement of France, and Britain reasserted its sovereignty over the barren Falklands following the Falklands War of 1982. The Falklands, known as the Islas Malvinas to Argentines, have long been claimed by Argentina, and the 1982 invasion was an ill-fated attempt to assert sove reignty. Currently, 4000 British troops protect the 2000 inhabitants of these islands. Guyana received independence from Britain in 1966, and the development of local political factions along ethnic lines led to much political turmoil. Officially known as the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, the former British Guiana has followed a socialistic political path, and economic ties with the So- CHAPTER 11 . strong. sunna · me was granted inde. t Union remain v;ndence by the Netherlands in 1975, and ~emocrac~ ~riefly reigned until a 1980 milita~ c_o~p d etat. Sunname has headed down a similar soc1ahsttc path as Guybut political frictions remain strong, and by 1985 ana, fully one-third of the entire popu Iat1.o n h a d em1·grated to Holland. . . Political unity among the Latin Amenca n nauons_exists primarily through the Organization of ~ encan (OAS) which was formally inaugurated tn 1948. S tares , bl" h . political Nineteenth-century efforts at esta ts mg unification, dating to the Panama Congress called by Simon Bolivar in 1826, were largely unsuccessful. PanAmericanism, an idea promoted by t~e U~ited States a century ago to establish a special re lat1onsh1p be~een North America and Latin America, led to an r_n ternattonal Union of American Republics being formed tn 1890. The OAS developed out of this organization _as an effort to promote greater unity within Latin Ame nca, rather t~an unity vis-a-vis the United States, although the United States remains a member. Although the membe_rs agreed to the expulsion of Cuba in 1962, the_re re~1ams m~1ch resentment against U.S. intervention tn Latin A.menca, including the 1962 Bay of Pigs invasi?~ of Cuba, the 1965 military occupation of the Do minican Republic, and the invasion of Panama in 1989. The OAS has h~d limited success in settling mino r dis putes among Lattn American countries as well as in establishing intraregional economic associations. 401 SOUTH AMIRICA Although efforts in the 1960s by the Cuban-~acked guerrilla fighter Che Guevara to foment a Marxist r~volution among the peasantry failed, left-wing guernlla movements are active in many South American countries. Groups such as the M-19 in Colombia and the S~ndero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru espouse Marxist/ Leninist or Maoist philosophies and use violence to control vast portions of national territories. Outside arbitration has had little success in bringing peace to t_he guerrilla-held mral territories, _and the national ar~t:s are largely ineffective in assercm_g co~trol_- T~e poltttcal role of drug cartels in these regions is sttll little understood, but evidence of "protection money" paid to guerrillas has surfaced. HUMAN LANDSCAPE Like the other features of South America, the human landscape exhibits a variety of patterns. Some have persisted from the precolonial period, others are a legacy of colonialism, and still others are a product of the modern era. Agriculture With the exceptions of southernmost South Ame rica and several expanses of Brazilian savanna, agricultural_ econ- omies prevailed throughout the continent at the time of European contact. The lowlands east of the Andes supported primarily shifting cultivation, or slash and burn agriculture, and the Andean basins and valleys supported a variety of agricultural systems. These rang~d from slash and burn subsiste nce to pennanent subsistence farming and to elaborate market agricultu:e. The most elaborate agricultural technologies, including terracing of mountainsides, irrigation , and "sunken gardens" (to tap low water tables) developed in the Incan Empire. Although the intensive system of surplus f~od production of Peru was quickly aba~doned following th<: decimation of the native population, many of the subsistence farming patterns survive to the present day. The distribution of present agricultural land uses reflects the influences of aboriginal, colonial, a~d modern agricultural practices (Figure 11.9). Th~ hum_id_ foreste? tropical lowlands still support primarily shifting c~lttlocally known as roza (ro~a in Brazil). Dunng . vauon, ·t1 memthe respective dry season, a farrner-usua 11y wt 1 bers of his family or friends-selects a one or two acre plot of land, girdles or cuts several of the trees, and 40Z PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD CHAPTER 11 FIGURE 11.9 Agricultural Land Uses in South America ao Caribb dO ATi NTIC :EAN 10" 20 PACIFIC OCEAN ATf.A 0 burns the entire field. The ashes provide natural fertilizer, and at the onset of the rainy season, a locally specialized complex of crops is planted. The famous M esoamerican trilogy of maize-beans-squash has been adopted along portions of the Andean montana, but the crops of the Amazon lowlands are primarily root crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes. Because the fertility of the soil lies in the thin, easily leached upper humus layer, the agricultural plot is only productive for o ne or two seasons. As a new agricultural plot is selected e lsewhere in the tropical forest, the old fie ld is abandoned, and perhaps after 20 years or so it again reaches a stage of vegetative maturity a nd is ripe for renewed slashing and burning. Many of the humid tropical Andean slopes contain bener soils, and the fallow time for shifting cultivation may be only 5 years or so. The inhospitable Paraguayan Chaco and the colder and drier portions of the Andes, including much of the dry Pacific coastal plain, are not suitable for agriculture. Within the intermontane basins and valleys whe re fe rtile alluvial and volcanic soils have accumulated , a rudimental sedentary agriculture is practiced . This may be considered a fon11 of subsistence agriculture, although slight surpluses of market crops maybe produced to provide a small amount of income for basic necessities. The staple food crops vary by region and elevatio n: maize is most important in the northern Andes at inte rmediate elevations (up to pe rhaps 8000 feet; 2440 me- SOUTH AMERICA ters), and potatoes dominate in the southern Andes and in the highland basins of Peru and Bolivia (8000-12,000 feet; 2440-3660 meters). Wheat has become an important highland grain, especially in the northern Andes, and specialized grains such as quinoa (which can be grown up to 14,000 feet; 4270 meters) are found in the central Andes. Commercial agriculture incl~des plantation agriculture, mechanized grain farming, and specialized crop farming. Plantation agriculture includes the traditional plantation crops such as sugarcane, canon, and tobacco, as well as newer ones such as coffee (southe rn Brazil, Colombia), bananas (Ecuador, Colombia), and rice (the Guianas). Traditional sugar-growing regions along the east and north coasts of South America remain important for plantation agriculture, and new zones have been added in interior locations (e.g., sugarcane in Argentina and Colombia) and along the Pacific coast (e.g., bananas in Ecuador, sugarcane and cotton in the irrigated valleys of Peru). Mechanized grain farming is commercially most important in the pampas of Argentina and Uruguay, where crops such as wheat, sorghum, and alfalfa dominate. Soybeans are also becoming widespread, both in Argentina and in Brazil. Specialized crop farming includes truck famling around urban areas, fruit and vegetable growing, vineyards (especially for the Chilean and Argentine wine industries), and Mediterranean agriculture (dry grain farming, especially wheat). c Floodplain agriculture and relict terraces in Valle de Tanna, Peru. Usually, floodplains are quite fertile and , whenever possible, are used for agricultural purposes. :AN 100 Shifting cultivation Rudimental sedentary agriculture Livestock ranching Commercial grain Livestock, crop farming Plantation agriculture Specialized horticulture 0 ~O 250 ~ ~ ~ ;;;;;;;;;'§ 500 ~ ~ . , :7~50~ ~ 1,000 m,tes 250 500 750 1,000 ktlometers 110 403 Mediterranean agriculture Nonagricultural w ... .__ ---- 404 PART THR•• [jJ TH• DEVELOPING WORLD he concept of spatial connectivity may be applied to the flow of illicit drugs throughout the world. Increased demand for narcotics has been accompanied by an increased supply of narcotics. and since the major centers of demand and supply are usually widely separated. patterns of intercontinental drug flows have become established. The dominant world pattern in 1990 is one in which consumption of drugs is greatest in developed nations and drug cultivation and production is greatest in developing nations. A prime example of this pattern is coas a means to escape the realities of caine. of which South America is the their harsh existence. The tradition of exclusive source. coqueo, or coca chewing. has perCocaine is derived from the coca sisted to the present day, especially plant (not to be confused with Cacao. among poor male laborers. and only from which cocoa and chocolate are 1n Peru and Bolivia is the growing of made). which grows in the humid coca legal. tropics. Two species of coca are cultiThe production of cocaine hydrovated in South America: Erythroxylum chloride /HCLJ from coca leaves is a lacoca. which grows 1n the valleys of bonous two-step process discovered in the eastern Andean slopes up to the 1850s. The first step entails the reI 0.000 feet 13000 meters) in elevation. duction-at a ratio of 250: 1-of coca and Erythroxylum novogranatense. leaves into a coca paste by adding sowhich is a hardier species more prevadium carbonate and kerosene. agitatlent in lower and often drier environing. and even stomping. In the second ments. When coca leaves are chewed step. the paste is refined into cocaine in conjunction with an alkaline subvia the addition of various chemicals; stance (such as legia in Bolivia). the skilled chemists employ several varianarcotic is released. thus providing the tions in the production of the final user with a mildly euphoric effect. Traproduct. ditionally. coca chewing was a culture Initially promoted as a miracle drug trait of the highland Indians of Peru in the late nineteenth century (even and Bolivia, and under the Incas only Coca-Cola began as a cocaine-based the elite classes were allowed to par"brain tonic" in 1886). cocaine was take in the custom. After the Spanish classified as an illegal drug in the crushed the lncan Empire and enUnited States in the early I 900s followslaved the Indians to work in the ing numerous deaths from overdoses. mines. coca chewing became quite Its usage was confined largely to a widespread among the Indians. in part small sector within the entertainment THE COCAINE CONNECTION CHAPTER 11 FIGURE Z industry until it became popular in the I 960s. By the I 980s. cocaine had become the "recreational drug" of the decade for all social strata in the United States. and estimates of regular users range from 6 to 20 million. At prices of S I 00 to $200 per gram of cocaine (diluted to only about I 2 percent purity). upwards of $35 billion are spent on the illicit drug annually within the United States alone. The increased demand for cocaine since the 1960s has not only significantly boosted production in the traditional coca-growing regions. but has also spawned many changes in the geographic distribution of coca cultivation. cocaine refining. and international marketing Until the 1970s. virtually all cocaine production took place in Colombia-at refineries located in major cities such as Medel/In, Cali, and Bogota and in remote locations such as in the eastern llanos (Figure 2). Coca paste was imported into Colombia from the primary and traditional growing areas- Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley and Boliv1a·s Yungas and Chapare districts-that still today produce 80 percent of the world's coca on perhaps 250.000 acres ( I 00.000 hectares) of land. Colombians. who became adept drug traffickers on the basis of the lucrative-and slightly older-marijuana trade. came to dominate much of the coca paste production process. especially in Peru. From the traditional primary and secondary source areas. where coca cultivation and coca-paste stomping provide lucrative employment opportunities. the paste was transported-usually by air-to the Colombian refineries. from which cocaine would be shipped to North America 405 SOUTH AMERICA Geographical Aspects of Coca and Cocaine Oanbbear Sea To North America and Europe ATLANTIC OCEAN To Europe 0 t 10 PACI . Brasfli a OC AN Primary Sao Paulo, 20 Secondary 0 Rio de Janeiro Tertiary p - - :icr 250 0 0 250 500 Known cocaine-processing laboratories (locactions approximate) Generalized flow of coca paste Generalized flow of cocaine 500 750 ATLANTIC 1.000 miles OCEAN 750 1.000 kilometers 30 . A Geography o f Cocaine ,.. Focus 35( 1)·22-29, 1985. SOURCE: Adapted from Tim Hudson, "South American High: , F 406 PART THREE THE DIIVELOPING WORLD and Europe by various carriers often a substitution of E. novogranatense for The balance of supply and demand. via intermediate points in Central the traditional E. coca. Second cocoupled with the illicit nature of the America. Mexico. and the Caribbean. caine refineries are being cons~ructed cocaine industry, has led to changing Because the potential profits From in the new and traditional zones of patterns o f spatial connectivity bethe cocaine trade are so high /totaling coca cultivation as well as in locations tween the regions of cultivation and at feast $4 billion in direct income). optima/ for distribution to the major production and the regions of conseveral new trends had become apparmarket areas. Although Colombia still sumption. Econom ically. cocaine is ent by the late f 980s. First. the growdom'.nates the North American market. very important to the source areas- in ing of coca has spread to new areas. cocaine from Peru. Bolivia, Ecuador Bolivia. half of the government's forespecially in southern Colombia near an~ the Brazilian Amazon is capturi~g exchan ge earnings are from cocaeign the cocaine refineries and also along an increasing market share. Recently, products and over 500,000 peobased the Amazon River and its tributaries in cocaine refineries have been discovple are employed in the industry-and adjacent Brazil. The highland-toered in Paraguay and northern Chile ,n response to both sustained demand /ow/and shift of coca. attributed both the market areas being the urban ce~and eradication efforts. the geography to increased global demand for coters of Rio de Janeiro. Sao Paulo. Bueof the cocaine industry remains evercaine and to eradication efforts in tranos Aires. and Santiago in addition to changing. ditional coca-growing zones. has led to Europe. A_ltho ugh the production of s pecialized crops is partly directed at local markets, exports to North Ame rica and ~urope are quite significant, especiall y since the growseason is. during the northern hemispheric w inter w , e n food prices are highest in those ma rkets Ch'I · · 1ean and Ar gentme apples, grapes, pears, and plums a re ~; mmonl~ fo und in North American supermarkets durg the w1nt~r mo nths. Other examples o f specialized crops (sometimes e:en plantation grown) arc marijuana and c~ca, from which cocaine is refined. The Andean countries, from Colombia to 801·IVla, . h ave ga med . . s ubstant1a_l foreign exchange earnings from the export of these illegal narcotic crops. Liv~stock ranching is widespread throughout South .. pe n10sula . Ame I nca, from Colombia's hot • dry Gua11ra to t 1e cold, w indswept s te ppes and tundras of Patagonia a_nd the Falkland Islands. Whe re crop agriculture is feasible, the ra ising of beef and/or dairy canle is often a seconda . m . d uscry m . partic. . ry use of the land · The d a1ry ular is concentrated near major urban areas s uch as in sou_chern Brazil, southern Chile, and the de la Plata region. In drier parts of the continent, including the wet-and-dry llano_s and campos, livestock ranching is often the only ma1or economic use of the la nd, and annual cattl~ drives across vast roadless landscapes are still co':1mon 10 man~ interior locations. As frontier colonization advances mto the humid, tropical lowlands, the mf Ri; raising of beef cattle is becoming a major activity and extens!ve cattle pastures have replaced dense tr~pical fo rest m much of the Amazon. Industry :he explo itation of mineral resources in South Ame rica '. s. ol~er tha n the earliest established Spanish mines· civt1_ 1zat1o ns such as the Chibcha and Inca had held , prec10us_ m~tals in high esteem. With the arrival of the Spant~h 10 the sixteenth century, explo itation of gold a nd s'. lver ~ccelerated, and mining landscapes evolved especially m Pe ru and Bolivia. By the e nd of the seve nte~nth cen~ry, precious minerals were discovered in Brazil. The Mmas ~erais gold rush, allegedly the first modern gold.':1sh , tnggered extensive searches througho ut ~he ~raz1ltan highlands, and several ve ins of highqu~hty diamonds were discovered in the ancient crystallme rocks. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, deposits of ~the r valuable. eco~omic mine ral ores were discovered 10 South Amenca , including copper, bauxite coal iron ' fi ore, and manganese. Like petroleum wh1'ch' · d · , was rst . Is exp IOtte. 10 Venezuela in the 1890s, these m10era were _mmed primarily for export in raw form to North ~ enc~ ~nd_ Europe. Until the mid-twentieth centu mdustnahzat1on in South America remame . d quite . ru d?'• 1- CHAPTER 11 mentary in spite of locally abundant raw mate rials. During the colonial era, the mine ral resources were seen as the raw material for home-based industries. This pattern continued after independence, as fo re ign-owned companies were usually behind the major mining operations. It was in the interests of those companies to establish manufacturing facilities in the ir home countries near the major markets for the products. Industrializatio n is normally considere d the key to economic growth, as industries p rovide jobs a nd di versify the economy. North America, Europe, a nd Japan have achieved high standards of living, as measured by annual gross national product (G P) per capita. Because the industrial revolution began in Europe and quickly spread to North America, those regions have had advantages in maintaining the ir early leads in industrialization. For developing countries, including those of South America, making the transition from be ing suppliers of raw materials fo r ind ustrialized natio ns to be ing inclustrialized nations the mselves requires considerable government investment in terms of capital outlay as well as infrastructure including highways, pipe lines, e lectricity, and labor supply. Industrializatio n also requires a minimum threshold of p roduction to be economically feasible, and countries with low po pulatio ns a nd purchasing power do not provide a sufficient consumer base. One method of overcoming this proble m is the formation of common market linkages w ith neig hboring countries, but even arrangements such as this favor more populous countries. Although processes of industrialization are com plex and not well unde rstood , one simplistic means enta ils a simplified threestage model of industrial development. Tn the first stage of industrializatio n, low-technology industries are established. These include crude r eduction-in-bulk type industries, such as the reduction of coppe r ore or tin ore to a bulk product with a higher concentration of minerals to ore, a nd also manufacturing industries aimed at local markets (such as textiles or soft drinks). Although the first example sho uld not be considered true industrialization, but rathe r a convenie nce fo r avoiding exorbitant shipping costs, the second re presents incipient industrialization. As local consumer classes became established in South Ame rica, especially in those countries populated by recent European immigrants and characterized by rapid urbani zatio n, the production of consumer goods increased even more. The second stage of industrialization consists of imp o rt s ubstitutio,i, by which items that we re previously SOUTH AMERICA 407 imported now are produced domestically. To e nter this stage, government assistance is nonnally required , pe rhaps in the form of directly subsidizing a product, establishing protective taxation policie , or offering tax incentives for fore ign companies to establish industries. Brazil may be considered the fore runner in South America in this regard, as an iron-and-steel industry was deve loped by the 1930s and 11 fo reign motor vehicle assembly plants-using mostly domestically manufactured parts-were built by the 1950s. In spite of having a much smaller total consume r base, Argentina q uickly followed Brazil's lead , and the remaining South American countries have also undergone import-substitution industrialization to some degree. Tn countries such as Pe ru and Colombia, howeve r, where production of steel must be government subsidized to com pete with imported steel, the economically be neficial effects of ind ustrialization have not yet been realized. The third stage of industrialization, or general industrializ ation, entails the expansion of all types of industries, including domestic and export-oriented cons umer goods and eve n highly specialized products such as machinery parts. Brazil, with its domestic compute r industry, is well into this stage, and Argentina is not far behind. In Brazil, major government support for industrial development has made this possible, and in view of the recently establis hed industrial growth poles in Amazonia (see the box on Frontier Colonization), the industrializing tre nd is sure to continue. The government has embarked on an ambitious power-generation project, and in addition to the world's largest hydroelectric plant at Itaipu on the Parana River, more plants are slated for several of the Amazon River tributaries. During the oil crisis of the 1970s, Brazil, a major oil p roducer yet a net o il importe r, embarked on a program to distill ethano l from suga rcane, which could in turn be substituted for impo1ted o il. With the exception of industrial growth poles in frontie r locations, most industrialization in South Ame rica has clustered in and around major urban areas (Figure 11.10). Although this tre nd makes economic sense, it also paints a national picture of apparent urban wealth and rural pove rty that gove rnments quickly like to dispel. And in view of the large numbers of rura l inhabitants fleeing the countryside and moving to urban areas in search of jobs, many governments, notably Brazil a nd Venezue la, are establishing growth-pole cities closer to the raw materials than to the urban markets to fos ter industrial develo pment in those peripheral zones. 408 PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD CHAPTER 11 SOUTH AMERICA FIGURE I I. IO TABLE II.I Industrial Core Areas of South America Contribu tion of Manufacturing to GNP In South America, I 985 'O f 10" ATLANTIC OCEAN COUNTRY VALUE ADDED TO GDP BY MANUFACTURING (MILLIONS OF U.S.$) MANUFACTURING AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP Brazil Argentina Venezuela Peru Chile Colombia Uruguay Ecuador Bolivia Paraguay $58,089 17 ,954 6,157 3,426 no data 5 ,565 no data 2,369 817 5 13 28% 31 23 20 no data 18 no data 19 13 16 SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Report 1988 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). SOUTHEAST BRAZIL PAC/,-/C Sao Paulo Rio de Janeiro Belo Horizonte OCEA/\J CENTRAL CHILE Santiago Valparaiso RIO OE LA PLATA ,c Buenos Aires Montevideo Rosario 'AN 4 o• ~=--soo ~,--=::::1:S.000 miles 0 500 1,000 kilometers 1IO . Although Brazil and Argentina have made great strides manufacturing and industria lization, the remainder of the South A_mcri.can countries still have far to go (Table 11. 1). Despite high .levels of urbanizatio n, econo micall y many of the countries are still mostly agriculturally orie nte~, and overall income levels are still quite low. Economic t~a~e associations were established in the hope of allev1atmg the low levels of industria lizatio n in the countries with lower consumer bases, but so far this aim has n? t been accomplished. A large proportion of South Amen ca's p opu lat1on · ·is engaged in · economic activities 10 • 80 70 Major core areas lO that ~ ay be categorized as an "informal" economic sector, m~lL~ding sidewa lk vending, lottery-ticket selling, cab ~nvmg, and various forms of legal and illegal hustling. Urbanization Unlike most developing nations in Asia and Africa the South American countries are highly urbanized. Latin An1erica as a. whole is 69 percent urban, considerably more than Asia (29 pe rcent) and Africa (31 percent) and only slightly less than Europe (75 percent) and No1t h Ame rica (74 percent). Within Latin America, tropical South America is 71 percent urban and tempe rate South Ame rica is 85 percent urban. This re latively high urban percentage of population may be attributed to the immigrants, both the Ibe rian immigrants of the colonial e ra and the European immigrants of the post colonial period. Although several urban centers exi.sted in aboriginal South America, most were restricted to the Central Andean region, and only a sma ll proportion of the overa ll Ind ian population actua lly lived in cities. The arrival of Iberian colonists reoriented the pattern of settlement toward urban foci. Cities were established as administrative centers, mining cente rs, and port and entrep6t towns, and most Iberians lived in the cities. These cities also had a distinctive urban mo rp hology, a legacy of the Roman city, in which the city was laid out on a grid orientatio n (the streets running north-south and ease-west) around a noda l plaza. The plaza represented the central focus of the city, and on its sides were usually located the major governme nt buildings, military barracks, the Catholic chu rch, and perhaps the residence of the top administrato r. Unlike in North America, where agricultu ra l pio neers comprised much of the immigra nt stock, the Iberian immigrants-especially the Spanish-were urban dwelle rs who came to exploit the natural resources or to admi nister. Even those colonists who were granted large pieces of rural real estate tended to maintain the ir permanent domiciles in urban areas. Censuses taken d uring the colonial period indicate very few nonurban Spanish settlers. In the Spanish colonies, the rum! pop- Farmers offer a varlety of produce for sale at a periodic market in the central plaza in the village of Chincheros near Cuzco. Peru. , ..... ~- ---- 410 PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD CHAPTER 11 TABLE 11.2 The Mllllona lre Cities of South America fGreater Urban PopulatlonsJ POPULATION 1 Sao Paulo 2 Rio de Janeiro 3. Buenos Aires 4 Lima 5 Santiago 6 Bogota 7 Belo Horizonte 8 Caracas 9 Recife 10. POrto Alegre 11 . Salvador de Bahia 12. Fortaleza 13. Medellfn 14 Curitiba 15 Brasilia 16 Guayaquil 17 Montevideo 18 Cali 19. Maracaibo 20 Belem 21 . Valencia 22 Quito 23. C6rdoba 24 La Paz 25 Rosario NOTE est. 16,832,000 (1989 est.) 11 , 141,000 (1989 est.) 10,750,000 (1985) 6,054,000 (1988) 4,858,000 (1989 est) 4,550,000 (1985) 3,446,000 (1989 est.) 3,373,000 (1989 est.) 2,945.000 (1989 est.) 2,924,000 (1989 est.) 2,362,000 (1989 est.) 2.169,000 (1989 est) 2,095,000 (1987) 1,926,287 (1989 est.) 1,803,000 (1989 est) 1,573,000 (1987) 1,550,000 ( 1987) 1,400,000 (1985) 1,365.000 (1989 est.) 1,296,209 (1989 est.) 1,227,000 (1989 est.) 1, 138,000 (1987) 1,055,000 (1987) 1,050,000 (1988 est) 1,045,000 (1985) estimated If no est given, figures are from actual censuses. SOURCES Data complied from Edward B Espenshade Jr. and Joel L Morrison, Goode 's World Atlas (Chicago Rand McNally, 1990). Europa Publications. The Europa World Year Book 1990 (London Europa Publications ltd .. 1990). John Paxton. ed .. The Statesman's Yearbook (New York. St Martin's Press. 1990). United Nations. 1988 Demographic Yearbook (New York: United Nations. 1990) ulations were mostly Indians, but in Brazil and the Guianas the majority of " rural " inhabitants were black slaves confined to the plantations. Following emancipation, a large rural exodus led to a corresponding increase in the populations of the coastal cities from Rio de Janeiro to the north coast of the continent. Another major burst of urbanization took place during the period of European immigration, primarily between 1880 and 1930. Millions of laborers, mostly from Mediterranean countries, arrived in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina to work in the expanding agricultural sectors. They were not granted land, however, and most of those who did not return to their homelands drifted to cities such as Sao Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Rosario. A lthough the largest urban agglomerations are in the southern part of the continent, large cities are found in all countries except Paraguay and the Guianas (Table 11 .2). Half of the 20 largest cities are located in I3razil, most of them along the coast. Many of the rest are primate cities, which tend to domi nate their respective countries economically and politically. Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay arc prime examples of countries dominated by primate cities. All of the large urban centers are growing quite fast, several at rates of 7 to 8 percent per year, and the large influx of poo r rural residents in search of jobs in the cities is causing severe strains on municipal services. All of South America's major cities contain extensive squatter settlemenL'> where conditions of housing, nutrition, and health are quite poor. To ease the burden of urban overcrowding, new growth in industry and even government is being encouraged in more remote locations. In addition to the remote industrial growth poles already discussed, the moving of Brazil's capital to Brasilia in 1960 is a prime example of redirecting population growth to a relatively sparsel y settled area. Argentina is planning a similar relocation of its capital from Buenos Aires to Viedma at the northern bo undaries of Patagonia in the future. REGIONS O F SOUTH AMERICA The divisio n of South America into subregions o f relatively homogeneous cultural and physical traits provides a useful means for understanding the geogr'c1phic variability of the continent. Tradition,11 efforts at regionalizing South America usually place the major political units into four or five regional groupings and thereby mask the extensive physical and cultural variables found within even small areas. Peru, for example, contains landscapes of Amazonian rainforest, an eastern Andea n agricultural frontier, barren glacier-capped Andes, densely populated intermontane basins, and dry and desolate coastal desert interru pted by irrigated floodplains. Rather than placing Peru in a broader region of "Andean America," for example, it would be more accurate to identify several distinctive regions that cut across the po litical borders of Peru . Accordingly, using a combination of physical (climatic, vegetative, and physiographic) and cultural (econo mic, ethnic, linguistic, and technological) characteristics, South America can be divided into two dozen subregions (Figure 11.11). Perhaps the most prominent subregion is the Andean cordillera, w hich may be subdivided into northern, cen- 411 SOUTH AMERICA , d outhern sectors. The intermoncane valleys_and tra 1, an s . d f h A des contained b . s of the northern two-thir so t e n t~m, . aboriginal centers of populatio n, and these ;~;a:;~~r also attracted the Spaniards. _ Becaus: ti~~ Northern Andes were flanked by ins~ct-ndden_ _umi,_ . , I lowlands. the Spaniards establtshed their settle tropica f C 1· Caracas · . numerou.s Ande·m ments m ' basins rom a i to This orthern Andean seulement core rem_ains the most opulated region in northern South Amenca . The Ce,~P d , tral Andes, corresponding approx .'.ma t ｾ＠ ,1y to the .maximum extent of the Inca Empire, ltkew1se compns~ a . locus of '-ipanish colonial settlement, especi~lly maior · · . , · Yet high following the establishment of mmi~g _centeis. densities of Indian populations within the numero~is valleys and basins, including the Altiplano, are_refle~ted in a distinctive Indian cultural landscape in this region, which extends from southern Colombia to no rt~ern Ar. The Southern Andes, by contrast, remain prach · ,I gent ma. tically unpopuhited because of their adverse p ys1ca geograph y. Extn:me• dryness , in the north • the narrow. ness and high devations of the cordillera, extensive glaciation (especiall} toward t he sou th) ' and an absence . of inhabitable basins and valleys have all rendered thts region relatively unsuited for human habitati?n. The continent's dry west coast compnses another subregion, one v.ith a Jo ng record of a?original and colo nial settlement Although sparse in rainfall and natural vegetation, the Desert Coast of Peru and norther~ Chile was considered an improvement over the dtseaseridden tropical lowlands of northern South America. In Peru much colonial senlement- including the pnmate city of Lima-focused on the aboriginally irrigated v~lley floodplains. Today, all of these valleys-mostly_tn Peru-are irrigated, and these "oases" produce a hig~1 propo rtion of the national agricultural output. ~ he Chilean part of the Desert Coast is drier and cont~1.ns very little coastal plain, yet several important port etttes (notably Antofagasta) are located here, in part to export copper from the Andean hinterlands. Chile's settlement core area, extending north and south from Santiago, may be considered Mecliterra11ea11 Chile because of its climate and its cultural landsc.ape that has come to resemble the Iberian homeland. _rhe Central valley of Chile, sometimes compared to_Caltfornia's Central Valley, is characterized by dry gram farming, livestock grazing, and vineyard~ (which _pro~~ce the highest quality wines of the c~ntment). This region is home to the vast majority of Chileans. The temperate and heavily forested Soutbem -~'bile, including the large island of Chiloe, was the t~ad1ttonal homeland of the fiercely independent _A~ucanian _(Ma_puche) Indian ' who still comprise a significant _minonty of the population. This region was still a frontter as _recently as the late nineteenth century when several tm- A shantytown (Morro da ravela) in Rio de Janeiro, Bra zil. Mosl major cilie~ in the developing world have shantytowns inhabited by person~ who have migrated to. urban centers seeking economic opponuniry, but for a host of reasons have been unable to find meaningful employment and are resigned to a cycle of poveny. 412 PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD CHAPTER I I FIGURE I I . I I Subregions of South America A 'LANTIC OCl:AN Amazonia 10 PACIFIC OCEAN 100 -40 ~llr~2~505.iiiiii.500 ~~~ 75~0= 0 250 10- 500 ~ 1.000 miles 750 1,000 kilometers migrant groups, especially Germans, settled there. A very scenic region, similar to southern British Columbia, Southern Chile is the site of several lake resorts that attract domestic and international tourists. Poleward of the region Chileans re fer to as Southern Chile is the sparsely inhabited modern frontier zone of the Southern Archipelago. Consisting of heavily forested and fog-shrouded islands and Andean ridges separated by fjords, the archipelago wraps southeastward around the tip of the continent. Although lumber resources are extensive, the agricultural potential is limited, and the wet weather and lack of transportation rende r this region not very desirable for human habitation. The only notable city is the port of Punta Arenas, which lies on the southern margins of this region astride the Strait of Magellan. East of the Andes, the two loci of early Spanish settlement were Paraguay and the rim of the Rio de la Plata estuary. Although Paraguay has witnessed nume rous boundary alterations throughout the course of its turbulent history, the portion east of the Paraguay Riveralong with the small adjacent province of Misiones in Argentina--comprises the subregion of Misiones. This was the heartland of the Guarani Indians, many of whom were resettled in the nume rous Jesuit missions that formerly were active. The mostly mestizo inhabitants share this agriculturally fertile regio n with Guaranispeaking Indians and a small minority of European immigrants, mostly Germans. The land west of the Paraguay River is the agriculturally poor Gran Chaco subregion, a largely thorny, scrubby land subject to prolonged desiccation in the dry season and flooding in the rainy season. Extending into adjacent Bolivia and Argentina, this subregion is re lative ly devoid of human settlement, with the exception of several Mennonite colonies. The Rio de la Plata subregion, extending up the Parana River to Rosario and including the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, contains the majority of the inhabitants of Argentina and Uruguay. Control of the mouth of the river was important during the colonial period, but the great growth in this area resulted from massive immigration during the pe riod of the opening of the agriculturally rich Pampas. Argentinians distinguish between a "Spanish pampa" and a "gringo pampa" on the basis of chronology of settleme nt and origins of the settlers. Most of the recent immigra nts from Spain and Italy, however, regarded as "gringos" by the longer established Argentines of Spanish heritage, worked in the pampas but became urban dwellers. ot only do the major cities of Rio de la Plata exhibit SOUTH AMERICA 413 an ambience reminiscent of Mediterranean Europe, but a cultural tradition of seaside resorts also blossomed. The northern and southern limits of this subregion are marked by Punta de l Este and Mar del Plata, res pectively, although scattered smaller resorts occur even further along the coasts of Uruguay and Argentina. The twin subregions of Rio de la Plata/Pampas, essentially representing an urban core and an agricultural hinterland, are encircled by three other subregions with limitations for human settlement. To the north lies an amorphous subregion we might call Gauchos in hono r of the South American "cowboys" (gauchos). Largely a grasslands environment similar to the Pampas but with slightly inferior soils, this subregion-encompassing much of northern Argentina, most of Uruguay, and southernmost Brazil--came to be dominated by a ranching economy that persists to this day. The rural gaucho culture, which prevailed in Argentina and Uruguay until the waves of mass immigration, is very romanticized in music and literature of the respective countries. Commercial grain agriculture is replacing the traditional ranching economy in parts of this area, especially in Entre Rios province between the Para na and Uruguay rivers (which is locally known as the Argentine Mesopotamia). To the west of Pampas and Gauchos lie discontinuous arid basins which extend along the inner flanks of the Southern Andes. The earliest settlers in this region crossed the Andes from Chile and established cities such as Mendoza and Tucuman in the numerous Desert Oases. Most of the oases occupy low basins within the eastern Andean piedmont, although the southern reaches-extending all the way from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean-are characterized by ribbonlike oases within the fl oodplains of several large rivers. Today, the dozens of urba n and agricultural oases are important cente rs of sugar, frnit, grain, vegetable, and wine production. Sometimes referred to as the "other Argentina," the Desert Oases resent domination by Buenos Aires within the national politico-economic framework. South of the Rio Colorado was the home of the fierce Tehuelche Indians (patagones, or big feet), and the steppe lands of Patagonia were not settled until the Indians were forcibly removed in the 1850s. This colder, windswept, and oasisless (adjectives that also aptly describe the offshore Falkland Islands) southern extension of the Andean piedmont became important mostly fo r grazing livestock, especially sheep. Sparsely populated except for a few coastal ports and a recreational enclave at Bariloche at the base of the Andes, this region is still perceived as a frontier in Argentina. 414 PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD The semiarid Andean foothills in northwest Argentina. Much of the western portion of Argentina lies on the leeward side of the Andes Mountains; consequently, it receives much less precipitation than southern Chile, which is located on the windward side of the Andes and receives more than 60 inches (150 centimeters) of precipitation annuall y. The earliest impact o n the ew World la nd cape by the Portuguese was along the Braz ilian Coast whe re tl_1e plantation economy first developed and the,first Afncan slaves were impo rted . Altho ugh a labo r-intensive plantatio n economy no lo nger prevails, blacks comprise ｾ＠ la rge proportion of the total population, and African mflu~nces remain stro ng in music and religion. The core of t~1s subregion extends from about Recife southward to RJO de Janeiro, a lthough Dutch and French influence was weal a long the no rth-facing coast during the earl y c?lo 111al ~ra, and architectural vestiges of that era surv'.ve to this day. During the present century, this subregion has been extended to Belem , at the mouth of the Amazon River, and much tropical forest has been replac~d b~ agriculture. This area, perhaps epitomized by Carnival m Rio de Janeiro o r alvador de Bahfa is often the Brazil e nvisio ned by many outs iders. ' Inland of the Brazilia n Coast lie several distinctive subr:gio ns. Formerl y these comprised the legendary serf~~· an. an~orphous frontier region romanticized by Brazilians 111 literature and history. The sertao most often refers to the Dry Northeast, a semiarid , yet highly populated area _th~t is periodicall y subject to prolo nged droughts. This is the most impoverished region in Brazil o ne from which o ut-m igration and resettlement in ne; frontiers such as the Amazon are e ncouraged by the government. Betwee n ~he Northeast and Sao Paulo lies the highland subregion ~f Mi~as Cerais, site of the 1697 gold boom and the nch hmterland of Rio de Jane iro. This region, which includes an area slightly greater than the state_ of Minas Gerais, is characterized by its mines, includmg gold, diamo nds, manganese, and iron o re. Although the o riginal capital of Ouro Preto is now but a scenic colo nial to urist attraction, the newer capital of Be lo Ho rizonte-since 1897-has become the seventh largest city in South America. South Brazil, fro m Sao Pau lo westwa rd to the Rio Parana and southward to the land of the Gauchos, contains most_of Brazil'~ temperate lands. The urba n metropolis of Sao Paulo 1s the major industria l center of o uch America, but the region as a whole is defined on the basis of rich agricultural soils (largely volcanic soils on lava flow plateaus) and a high proportion of inhabitants descended from European immigrants. The northern part o f the regio n comprises essentially the state of Sao Paulo, which is the prime coffee-growing area in the country. Toward the southern reaches of the regio n the former!~ heavily forested landscape supports a l~rge lumber tndustry as well as a dairy industry. Many pockets of Ge rman immigrants, and preserved German culture, are found in Santa Catarina state. Alo ng the no rth coast of South America, the Caribbean Rim/and is an extension of the same subregion CHAPTIIR 11 that prevails throughout the Antilles and the eastern shores of Ce ntral America. In many ways q uite similar to the Brazilian Coast, the regio n is marked by a plantation economy and great ethnic and ling uistic diversity, and a high proportion of the population is descended from African slaves. Most of the population is concentrated in a narrow coastal plain belt. The Guianas, especially Guyana and Suriname, epitomize this subregion, which extends along the coast, in discontinuo us fashion, westward to Centra l An1e rica. Although the north coasts of Colombia and Venezuela we re historically less plantation o riented, coastal and Andean foothill plantations of bananas, sugar, coffee, and other products transformed the landscape-especially of coastal Colombia-<luring the present centu ry. The Paci.fie Lowlands subregion o f Colo mbia and Ecuador may be considered a west coast extensio n of the Caribbean Rimland. Although the extreme ly rainy west coast of Colombia is sparsely inhabited by Indians and blacks who placer mine for gold in the many streams, southernmost western Colombia and coastal Ecuador have witnessed the development of a banana plantation landscape in the twentieth century. The remaining humid tropical lowlands of the continent, situated inland of the regions previously discussed, are frontier zones. Those areas subject to a prono unced seasonality of rainfall and natura lly supporting 415 SOUTH AMERICA a savanna grassland have developed into major cattleranching areas where cro p agriculture is a secondary economic activity at best. The Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela comprise o ne such area, which accounts for much of the beef production of those countries. Another small cattle-ranching area is the Roraima Savannas within the southern Guiana Hig hlands. A seasonally dry, upland tropical grassland environment, this sparsely settled area supports a small but important beef industry in northern Brazil and adjacent Guyana . Venezuela, with its extensive llanos, has not yet seen a need to develop its beef productio n potential in this regio n. A southern arc of savannas and savanna woodlands characterizes the Matos and Campos subregion of eastern Bolivia and what is conside red the "interior" of Brazil. Typifying th is regio n is Mato Grosso state in Brazil, one of the major beef productio n regio ns in the country. Although this area is an active frontier zone in Brazil bordering o n the national capital of Brasilia, its potential for extensive permanent agricultural settlement is limited by less-than-optimal soils. Nevertheless, the gove rnment of Brazil is actively promoting infrastructural development and encouraging colo nization in this area . The last of the interior subregions are the humid, forested tropics epitomized by the Amazon Basin lowland. Amazonia consists of a vast network of tributaries and associated floodplains separated by interfluves (a reas A savanna la ndscape in the Roraima territory in northern Brazil. Savanna-type climates have a dry season in the winter months, and typically the landscape is one of grasses interspersed with trees. ~.....,- ---- F 416 PART THREE T HE DEVELOPING WORLD CtlAP'TmR 11 SPATIAL CONNECTIVITY ECONOMIC LINKAGES Rice farming i~ the Rio Mayo Valley of northeastern Peru. Rice, together with vegetables, fruits, and wheat, is grown in Peru. Cotton and sugar are important export products. ~e~wecn th~ .streams) of poor soils yet luxu riant vegetat.10.n. Trac!1t1onally, settleme nt was alo ng rivers, and s hifting agncu lture and fishing were-and fo r the most pa~ st'.ll are-the major economic activities. Except fo r periodic boom-a nd-bust cycles of natural resou rce exploitation, huma n interest in this regio n was insignificant until the late 1960s. A rubber boom in the late 1800s a.n d early 1900s brought a temporary wave o f prospenty to the region, and Amazonian cities such as ~ a~aus ~nd Iquitos briefly flourished. Today, only Brazil is actively trying to develop the Amazon in terms of road building,. na~ural resource exploitation , and agricultural colo ni za tion, bur the environme ntal impacts and problems have been great. Fringing Amazonia along the foothills of the Andes is a narrow ribbo n of naturally high luxuriant rainforest known as the Montana . This area represents the zone of active fro ntier colonization for the Andean countries fro m Colomb ia to Bo livia. Although environmental and infrastructural proble ms are many, the soils are somewhat more conducive to agriculture than those of the lower Ama zon (bylea/ If .present trends conti nue, one day the entire Montana will be settled and linked by roads. A final humid tropical forest subregion is Guiana, which extends from eastern Venezuela almost to the mouth of the A1~azon ~iver in Brazil. Physiographically within ~he Guiana Highlands, vegetatively most of this region is cl~nse tropical fo rest and consequently not very attract1~e fo r human settlement. The occurrence of gold and diamo nds has attracted a variety of adventurers and bauxite and iron ore mining are locally important ;t the northern .fringes of this area. For the most part, howeve.r, Guiana remains among the least inhabited s ubregions. Throughout the colonial period, the economic and trade linkages of Brazil and the Spanish-speaking te rritories of South America were almost exclusively w ith the respective mother countries. And although evidence shows a fair amount of trade with pirates and e nterprising capitalists from northern European countries, these economic linkages were highly illicit a nd officially nonexistent. Beginning in the nineteenth century. South America's economies became more closely tied to the more developed countries-notably the United States and Britain, but also Germany and France. These economic linkages were characterized largely by the export of raw materials and the import of manufactured products. The dependence of South America on the developed nations fo r both markets fo r its primary products and sources of manufactured consumer goods eventually led to local efforts at industrialization and economic integration. Regiona l economic integration in Latin America in the postcolonial era has largely been dominated by the United States. The South American liberator Simon Bolivar eloquently proposed the forma tio n of a Latin American confederation at the Panama Congress of 1826, but his plans d id not materialize. Seeing itself as the "big brother" in the western hemisphere, the United States in the latter part of the century encouraged PanAme ricanism, which culminated in the 1890 formation of the International Union of American Republics Clater known as the Pan American Union), which came to be based in Washington D.C. Recognized as being essentially an instrument of U.S. policy toward Latin America, this inter-American organization was rechartered as the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948. Only Cuba has been formally barred from the organization, following its official conversion to communism in 1960. It has been argued that movements for Latin American unity have developed in response to domination by the United States. Trade and economic development were spurred on by the 1948 establishment of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), which adopted a policy of industrialization. Also, during the 1950s, intraregional trade dropped significantly while imports from the rest of the world increased. In response, a Latin American common market known as 417 SOUTH AMERICA the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) was created in 1960; its signatory members included all 10 South American re publics as well as Mexico. As the more industrialized and economically more developed members of LAFTA-Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico-quickly began to dominate regional trade, an Andean subgroup comprised of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru signed the Andean Pact in 1969. Venezuela joined in 1973. More ambitious than just a common market arrangement, this regional allia nce promoted common foreign investment policies and planned industrialization, a lthough with only limited success. Meanwhile, the United States tried once again to boost its role in the region through President Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progre s program, which was stimulated by a desire to promote democracy and prevent Cuba-style conversions to communism. Although much aid and foreign investment resulted from this program, the domination of the United States in economic and political policies was much resented. In 1980, LAFTA was disbanded in favo r of the similar, but supposedly more powerful Latin American Integration Association (I.AJA). Among the changes in the new organization was a shift in e mphasis from economic growth to defense of trade, i.e., protecti ve barriers. Guyana and Suriname, trad itionally tied to the Caribbean region, belong to the Caribbean Common Market (CARJCOM). Guyana is a full-fledged member, while Suriname maintains observer status. TRADE International trade in South America reflects both external (extraregional) and internal (intraregional) economic linkages (Table 11.3). By value, external markets are much more important than internal markets, in spite of the recent efforts at regional economic integration . As a generalization, primary commodities still comprise the bulk of extraregio nal exports, and manufactured goods make up most intraregional exports. In overall terms, the leading industrializing countries are slowly increasing their shares of exports of manufactured goods (Table 11.4). The only major increase in the export of primary commodities involves the export of o il (the leading export by value); Peru has joined OPEC members Ecuador and Venezuela as net exporters. Additional primary exports from South America include coffee, copper, sugar, beef, iron ore , bauxite, cotton, and bananas. In regard to the top 15 primary commodities, South America's share of the world market F 418 PART THREE THIE DEVELOPING WORLD CHAPTER 11 TABLE 11.3 TABLE 11.5 South American Imp rt o sand Exports fMHllons of U.S.$) Structure of South American Merchandise Imports fin Percent), I 965 and I 986 TOTAL INTERNATIONAL TRADE, 1987 Imports Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Guyana Paraguay Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela French Guiana Exports $ 5,819 1965 +$ 541 569 26,225 5,102 4,642 1,989 207' 275•• 2,577 53· 1,189 8.402 54 200 + 9,926 + 1,079 + 735 63 48 234 309 325 59 451 340 + + • 1985 data •• 1986 data. FOOD AND OTHER PRIMARY COMMODITIES FUELS Balance $ 6,360 769 16,299 4,023 3,907 2,052 255· 509.. 2.886 338* 1, 130 7,951 394 419 SOUTH AMERICA Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela 10% 1 21 6 1 9 14 3 17 1986 9% 1 27 9 6 2 18 21 0 MANUFACTURED GOODS AND MACHINERY 1965 1986 1965 1986 27% 22 29 30 18 14 16 22 23 17 17% 12 22 15 14 8 16 16 11 18 63% 72% 78 51 77 81 90 76 84 67 81 77 50 65 80 77 70 75 60 83 NOTE: Totals may not equal 1Cl0 percent due to rounding. SOURCE: World Bank, World Development Report 1988 (New York: Oxford University Press) 1988. . SOURCE: International trade data are from United N . York. United Nations. 1989. ations. lnterna/lonal Trade Staltsllcs Yearbook 1987 (New amounted ~o about 16 percent in 1983, a figure that has been steadily declining. Several South American countries have been able t l~wer their imports of food and othe r primary commod~ it1es by boosting agricultural production (Table 11 .5). Effort~ at reducing imports of manufactured goods and machinery have been less successful. Furthe rmo re, the PL'.sh t~wa rd industrialization, coupled with world o il pnce ht ke~ since the early 1970s, has greatly increased the countries' shares of fuel imports. Only the major o il exporte~s have ~e nefi ted from increases in world petroleum pnces, which rose until 1982, then resumed their up_ward climb after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In s pite of the oil crises, ann ua l trade balance figures ap- TABLE 11.4 Structure of South American Merchandise Exports fin Percent), I 965 and I 986 - - - FUELS, MINERALS, AND METALS Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela OTHER PRIMARY COMMODITIES MANUFACTURED GOODS* 1965 1986 1965 1986 1965 1% 92 9 89 18 2 0 45 0 97 1986 4% 90 19 66 12 54 0 60 0 90 93% 3 83 7 75 96 92 54 95 73% 8 41 25 70 43 81 18 58 1 6% 4 22% 2 41 9 18 3 19 23 42 9 • Not including textiles and clothing. NOTE Totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding. SOURCE World Bank, World Development Report 1988 (New York: Oxford University Press. 1988 ). 9 5 6 2 8 1 5 2 pear favorable (Table 11.3). However, these figures mask the extensive borrowing incurred during the 1970s in the push toward industrialization. National debts and interest payments on money borrowed in the past have fina ncially strapped some of the most economically promising South American countries. During the 1980s, even the oil exporters experienced economic hardships resulting from the drop in the world market price for oil after 1982. Ecuador has recently announced a suspension of foreign debt payments, and Venezuela has experienced rioting over belt-tightening austerity measures. Examination of South America's trade linkages to the rest of the world reveals a continuation of the traditional strong ties to the developed nations of orth America and Europe (Table 11.6). The United States remains the primary source of imports as well as the chief destination for exports. The United Kingdom , forme r West Germany, and the Netherlands comprise the main European trading partners, although Japan's share of the market has been steadily increasing. In addition, several Middle Eastern and African countries have become dominant fuel exporters co several oil-dependent South American countries. The relatively low importance (by value) of intraregional trade is seen by the paucity of regional trading partners. Exceptions include Trinidad and Tobago, which is a major trading partner of the Guianas (a reflection of the CARICOM connection), and several member nations of LAIA and the Andean Pact that trade extensively with their immediate neighbors. TRANSPORTATION Except for the Incan Empire, precolonial transportation patterns were rather rudimentary. In the lowlands, travel was primarily by canoe through the labryinth of streams and rivers. In higher and drier lands, simple trails functioned as the conduits for regional connectivity. Within the Incan Empire, two major north-south arteries connected the far reaches of the empire. These roads, one highland and one coastal, were allegedly more elaborate than the roads of Rome. Joined at various points by east-west trans-Andean roads, an extensive Jncan highway network was centered on Cuzco, the Incan capital. During the colonial period, the Spanish expanded upon the Incan highway, extending a camino real (royal highway) from Lima to Caracas. Mountainflanking roads also ran north-south along the Andean chains in Colombia, and in temperate Argentina, a colonial highway connected the Andean colonies with the port of Buenos Aires. Although these roads were known as cart roads (the Spanish had introduced both the wheel and the mule), a high proportion of trade between the colonies was by ship. In Brazil, road networks also gradually evolved in the hinterlands of the major coastal ports. Roads penetrating the interior of the continent were virtually nonexistent, especially in the humid tropical lowlands and the barren steppe lands of Patagonia. Railroads were the first significant form of mass transportation to penetrate interior portions of the continent. F CHAPTER I I i' :a i :a,, .. t A 0 A. IC Ill ,s c ..• t 1 'I! !.. ... t .. ..• c Ill ! ..c• Ill ;; ｾ＠ • c •.. .!! ｾ＠ .... ｾ＠ ｾ＠ • .. .c :a 0 "'..0 . I 0 w \:, ｾ＠ zw ｾ＠ w !=. N Although most of South America had achieved independence by the time the Railway Era began in 1850, the construction of rail networks by European and orth America n interests brought o n a new form of "colonial ism." Most rail lines in South America were built primarily to facilitate the export of raw materials (foodstuffs and mineral resources) to the rapidly industrializing nations of Europe and North America. In terms of spacial connectivity, the railroads were not very successful, as many were built exclusively to exploit a singular resource in the hinterland, such as copper and silver in Chile and Peru. Only in the flat and temperate areas of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and southeastern Brazil did extensive rail networks evolve. Here too, the main stimulus for rail development was the opening of agricultural lands such as the Argentine pampas and the coffee lands of the Parana plateau in Brazil. Today, rail transportation has greatly declined in importance, especially in comparison to highways . Highway development became an important concern of the South American nations as early as the 1920s. Expansionist countries like Brazil realized the value of providing a highway infrastructure fo r a rapidly growing po pulation. Unlike the railroads, the highway networks were better planned and incranational spacial interconnectivity was vastly improved. The Pa11-Amer icati Hig hway, the major north-south linkage in the Americas, has been essentially complete since the 1940s. Actually consisting of multiple routes in its southern reaches, the Pan-American Highway follows the Andean backbone through Colombia and Ecuador before dropping into the Peruvian coastal plain. The highway continues along the desert coast into Chile, although a branch cuts back into the Andes in southern Peru towa rd La Paz; from there one branch cues eastward across Bolivia and Brazil toward Sao Paulo, and another branch cuts southeastward across Argentina co Buenos Aires. Although the proportion of paved highways is still relatively small, most are graded , all-weather roads. Oilrich Venezuela boasts the highest percentage of paved roads--41 percent of its national total. The number of passenger cars on South American highways increased from 4 co 13 million between 1968 and 1980, a trend that will undoubtedly continue and stimulate both highway improvements and new road construction. The greatest gaps in the highway network have been in the humid, tropical lowlands such as the vase Amazon Basin. In recent decades, however, road penetration into th is territory has been accelerated co promote fron- SOUTH AMERICA 421 tier colonization. A north-south highway built through the Amazon lowlands in 1976 allows one co drive from Caracas co Manaus on an all-weather road, cake a ferry across the Amazon River, and continue on co Rio de Janeiro on paved highway. The east-west Trans-Amazon Highway, though unpaved and lacking bridges, will one day allow automobile traffic between Lima, Peru, and Recife, Brazil. Air transportation has a long history in South America, a face partly explained by the difficulty of overland transportation. The Brazilian Santos Dumont was a pioneer aviator before World War I, and commercial services date to soon thereafter. Avianca Airlines of Colombia lays claim co being the oldest commercial airline in the western hemisphere, having begun service in 1919. Prior co World War II, German, French, Italian, and American interests helped many of the individual countries establish national airlines, which came under domestic control by the end of the war. Air service has greatly improved spatial connectivity with remote national hinterlands, neighboring countries, and orth America and Europe. Within the continent, the role of air transport has increased even more for freight than for passengers because of the difficulty of providing overland transportation in adverse terrain. Overall, the development of integrated transportation networks is crucial to economic development, and South America has come far in providing infrastructure for rail, road, and air transport. Nevertheless, the transport system is still far from perfect, especially in overland linkages, and it remains to be seen co what degree new frontier highway infrastructure will stimulate development and spatial connectivity. TELECOMMUNICATIONS Although advances in telecommunications have greatly increased spatial connectivity both within countries and between countries in South America, the levels of participation in the media of mass communications still need improvement (Table 11.7). One measure of newspaper readership is the number of daily newspapers published, and Brazil and Argentina rank quite high using this method of measurement. The less Europeanized Andean and interior countries have the least accessibility to telecommunications, and rates of telephone and television ownership reflect this. Radios are ubiquitous throughout the continent, yet certain countries (Suriname, Guyana, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Ecuado r) show 4ZZ PART THREE THE DEVELOPING WORLD CHAPTER t t SOUTH AMeRICA 4.Z3 TABLE 11.7 TABLE 11.8 Selected Telecommunications Data for South America - RADIO RECEIVERS COUNTRY (THOUSANDS IN USE/ Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Falkland Islands French Guiana Guyana Paraguay Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela I ? 1983 1984 3 4 1985 1986 20,0003 n.a. 75,0006 4,0003 5,0005 2,9005 n.a. n.a. 3075 6455 5,0005 2455 1,8004 7,5504 5 6 1987 1988 7 TV RECEIVERS (THOUSANDS IN USEJ 6,5003 n.a. 34,0006 1,7503 3,250 1 8005 n.a. n.a. 155 925 1.7505 355 5204 2,5004 1989 TELEPHONES (THOUSANDS IN USE) 2,5802 205 1 9,08~ 629 1 2,5472 33g3 0.65 267 335 934 n.a. 31 5 3374 1,1663 NUMBER OF DAILY NEWSPAPERS 1882 102 32~ 403 31 2 222 n.a. 11 11 51 TOURISM The tourism industry is still not exte nsively de veloped in South America, and opportunities fo r greater interconnectivity as well as economic development exist. I listorica ll y, few scenic or archaeological attractio ns were developed for tourists, and travel agencies and a irlines primaril y promoted the ma jor cities o f South Ame rica as tourist destina tions. Now, however, both to attract mo re internatio nal to urists and also to keep their own citizens from spe nding their vacations abroad , several governments are developing a more complete tourism infrastructure. Statistics from 1985 (Table 11.8) indicate that revenues generated from tourism are importa nt to the respective national economies. Vario us types of tourist attractions exist in South Ame rica, and some of the opportunities for development are only now slowly being exploited . The north coast of South America is also the southern shore of the Caribbean Sea ("Ame rica 's Mediterranean"), and a beach resort/cruiseship port to urist landscape has developed in parts of Colombia and Venezue la. Distance to the United States, the major tourist marke t area, is not Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia• Ecuador Paraguay Peru· Uruguay Venezuela TOURIST ARRIVALS TOURIST RECEIPTS fU.S.$/ 1,503,099 127,027 1,735,982 418,050 715,277 238,105 262,689 278,783 702,100 239,030 $ 673,000,000 36,000,000 1,739,000,000 112,000,000 209,000,000 118,000,000 80,000,000 258,000,000 129,000,000 367,000,000 307 21 147 25 7 SOURCESEuropa John Publications Paxton. ed. Ltd., The Statesman 's Yearbook (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990): Europa Publications. The Europa World Yearbook 1990 (London 1990). relati vely low levels of radio owne rship. As a generaliza tion, countries with strong historical o r present ties to Europe have higher participation rates in te lecommunications than the o ther countries. Tourist Arrivals and Tour sm Revenues In South America, 1985 Loo great for continued "winter playground" touris m de velopment. A more recent trend in South American touris m has been the de velopme nt of specialized tourism and ecotourism. These focus upon archaeological attractio ns, Indian and colonial cities, exotic natural settings (especially selvas), seasonal events such as Carnival in Rjo or Salvador, seasonal sports activities such as s kiing, o r re mote lands such as Antarctica . Package tours, ofte n oriented around specific themes (birdwatching, penguin watching, Incan archaeology), are becoming more po p ular and are introducing tourists to portions of South Ame rica previously relative ly untouched. Do mestic tourism is important in the more afflue nt countries of So uth America, nmably Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Vene zue la. Beach resorts seaso nally catering to national to urists line the shores of the countries. Some of these beach resorts also attract citizens of neighboring countries (such as Argentines vacatio ning in Vina de! Mar, Chile), and the level of intraregional tourism is significant. Domestic tourism has also been promoted by the establishment of duty-free zones, whe re cons umer ite ms such as televisions, videocassette recorders, and automobiles can be purchased relative ly tax-free. Although duty tech nically must be paid upon return to one's domicile, Colo mbians flock to offshore San Andres Island, Venezuelans to Margarita Island, a nd Brazilians to Amazonia in search of bargains. 1984 data. . •SOURCE· James W. Wilkie and Enrique Ochoa, e d s., Statistical Abstract of Latin America, Vol. 27 (Los Angeles: UCLA Laiin American Center Publications. 1989). As the savings often exceed the price of trave l, this form of tourism may well increase. PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS POPULATION GROWTH . .on o f education in rural Although advances .m prov1s1 . h' led lo a s and promotion of family planni ng ave. area . h . South Amenca, overgeneral decline in the bi.rt rate mh still ma ke it difficull all high rates of populatio n ~~oq :te sta nda rds of living. for governments to e n ure a te of natural ·ca the average ra I A In tropical Soul 1 men , . that the population will increase is 2.1 percem (meaning . such as Paraguay 10 double i~ 33 y~ars), and e~~:~ltr~~~ubling time of 25 the rate is as high as 2.8 p h !though fa lling in ) Tl se high rates of growt ' a years . 1e . . f. or Middle Ame rica, often comparison with Asia, A nca, . e nts to romake it difficult fo r the respective gover~m The ! rst d' I care and education. h . lack of employme nl vide adequate me ica aspect of high population gr~wl t ｾ ｾ＠ me ntion the threat opportunities in rura l areas no the r natural ca. lf food s hortages during droughts or o . o h' h in turn stimulates m1grat1on to a tastrophes), w ic b s False hopes of rising cl crowded ur an area . . h urban "paradises" reduce peorea y over . . 10 standards of ltvmg t ｾ＠ h tytowns and perhaps pie to living in unsanitary s an r g to make e nds meet. begging or _stea tn d large families paradoxicall y Rural attitudes towar . . d this comtencl to pe rsist fo r seve ral generations, an ouncls the problems that governments face. Instead of p . . children as financial liabilities (more mouths ~oe~~:~:~d more clolhes to buy), rural migranlsh~~ urban shantytowns often maintain that the more c I rcn ' h , that one or mo re a fa mily has, the greater t e c1:,mce b If this unli kely ·11 the n supwill eventually land a well-paymhg. lJdO . scenario becomes rea l'1ty ' these c i ren Iw1 •d siblings. ort the arents and less fo11unate unemp oye . p p . f rural attitudes toward fa mily size help . rates ,an d h'ig h unemployment levels These types highobirth maintain h A e ·ca's urban centers. in S~ut m n. rates also preclude gove rn- m:.:!hfr:;o.:~:=g~;:;cantv!%7i'ｾ ｾ ｾ ｾ Ｚ Ｚ Ｇ ［ ｾ ｯｾ ｾ＠ production and st1mulatmg o b nks in the 1970s b · g from Western a · rican nations deeply in debt, Extensive orrowm . . t the counhas put several South Ame d be lt-tightening measures designed to pu 't an . g d rops in the pe r cap1 a tries back on course are cau~mn violent demonstrations. living standards, no~to men~~tion growth would alleCurtailme nt of high pop . ' envi ronmental of South America s viate at least some I ·ew of the promising mic problems. n v1 . . d an econo . . last 10 to 15 years, 1t is trends established w1tl~1~ : e ro~th rates will drop to quite likely that. ~o puflat~o ｾ＠ American or European levels charactenstic o Ort nations. ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION . I de radation in South America . . the days of preAlthough e nviro nmenta . g I b k to soil erosion m may be .. tracec . ac the greatest. cl es tru ction in areal lncan c1v111.zat1ons, Fl 424 CHAPTER 11 PART THR•• THE DSVELOPING WORLD terms is occurring in the present day. Human movement into the tropical rainforest environment- in search o f mineral wealth, lumber, fanning opportunities, hydroelectric development, or military security-has been accompanied by rates of forest clearing unequaled in human history. Although the respective countries have undoubtedly gained certain economic advantages, the environmental damage in terms of soil laterization, species extinction, oxygen depletion, hydrologic alteratio n, and cultural survival has not yet been adequately measured. The promised frontier is witnessing substantial degradation, even in regard to its most essential activity-subsistence agriculture. Governments are providing access into this "forbidden jungle," but migrants unaccustomed to such environments are not taught proper agricultural and soil conservation practices. The degradation of the tropical forest environment is destroying not only the natural ecology, but also its potential for properly managed human exploitation. In recent years, the respective governments have shown a greater awareness of the problems, and one may be cautiously optimistic that better management practices will be instituted. The movement into the frontiers, especially the Amazon lowlands, for purposes of growth-pole establishment and economic development should be carefully monitored by the respective governments to ensure a minimum of environmental destruction. Economic development in such marginal lands should be viewed as a long-term, not a short-term, endeavor. Short-term exploitation of natural resources is not compatible w ith long-term economic development, and although many problems characterize development efforts in the humid tropical environment, proper planning and management can minimize these problems and maximize future economic development. Decline in agricultural fertility due to poor conservation practices or overgrazing is also a problem in other parts of South America, particularly densely settl ed ones. These regions are often quite vulnerable to enhanced degradation by natural catastrophes such as droughts or floods. The Brazilian Northeast has been subjected to several prolonged droughts that have led to desertification of the soil, starvation, and outmigration by the inhabitants. Continuing efforts by national and international scientists to provide technical assistance and education to rural agriculturists arc making gains in conserving South America's agricultural lands. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT South America has made great strides in economic d evelopment over the past several decades. Among these are the development of manufacturing and industrial facilities, which have accounted for a reduction of the proportion of raw material exports to the developed nations of orth America relative to manufactured con sumer items. In spite of efforts at economic integration, many nations still maintain closer economic tic:: · to major European or American powers than to their own neighbors. The promotion of stronger intraregional spatial connectivity, facilitated by improvements in avenues of overland tr.insportation, should reduce the percentage of raw material exports even further and strengthen a continental consumer goods industry. Regional imbalances in economic productivity are currently respo nsible for inequitable distribution of revenues, and incentives must be offered to stimulate both manufacturing infrastructure and market demand. POLITICAL STABILITY Except for the Guianas, the countries of South America have been independent republics since the nineteenth century. This long period of independence has not yet created an atmosphere of political stability, however, in part because of a continuing struggle to achieve the perfect balance of free enterprise and social welfare. The legacy of the colonial era can still be seen as local o ligarchies whose members are of European descent have concentrated wealth and political power, often at the expense of poor, uneducated Indian and me tizo masses. In the past, political stability was maintained by autocratic military dictatorships, but democracy coupled w ith social reforms appears to be the popularly desired political path. ocialism and communism have occasionally enjoyed brief periods of success (as in Chile between 1970 and 1973), but popular backlash has caused these regimes to quickly lose favor. Ca tro's 1960s attempts to export the "Cuban Revolution" to South America via his Argentine lieutenant Che Guevara were also unsuccessful. Colombia and Venezuela have had democratic governments for three decades, and most remaining South American nations are now following their examples. Guyana and Suriname, both recently emerging from under colonial rule and characterized by outdated plantation economies, have experienced much political instability and extensive flirtations with Marx- . Many residents of those countries have fled to En1slm. d Canada ·ind the etherlands as socialism has g an • ' ' I d French come to dominate. The relatively un.popu ate . Guiana and FalklJnd Islands will continue to remain European colonies, the latter especial.l y _in the wake of_d~e 1982 Falklands War between Britain and. Arge~~ma. (The loss of that war, started by the then-ruling military junta partly to defuse civic di~content at h~m_e, led to the toppling of the military regime and the reinstatement of democracy in Argentina.) The continued inequities in the social structure are perhaps the greatest threat to political stability in S~ut~ · Where Indians and peasant-level mestizos . Amenca. compri e the bulk of the population, there are great inequalities in wealth and education between the upper and lower classes. Economic benefits have not reached the masses in countries such as Colombia, Ecua?or, Peru and Bolivia, and now various guerrilla facu~ns flyin~ the banners of a multitude of ideologie~ are claiming to be taking up their cause. These gL'.ernlla gr~up.s, espousing the philosophies of Marx, Lenin, and Mao 1~ addition to those of local populist heroes, control vast territories within their respective countries. Some ha~e strong ties to the illicit narcotics industry as well. Poli~~ ical violence in ,treas where these groups are strong is not only endangering the lives of i~~ocent ~e.ople bu~ is threatening the economic and pohucal stab1h~ of the region. Improvements in intracountry ~patial hnkag~~· especially highways, would better integrate these guerrilla-held territories with the rest of the country ~nd bring them under national control. But even more importantly, r'aising the standards of living of the poor~st classes might remove incentives to support ~uemlla groups that threaten to totally offse~ t~e social, economic, and political gains and aspirations of outh American nations. 425 SOUTH AMERICA Selected Readings 8louet, 8. W., and O. M. Blouet, eds. Latin America: An in troductory Survey. 'cw York: John Wiley & Sons, 1982. 11,e Cambridge Encyclopedia of Latin America and the Caribbean Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Collier, S. 11. 13lakcmore, and T. E. Skidmore, eds. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2 volumes. antiago, Chile: United ations 1989. Europa Publications, The Europa \'(lorld Year Book 1990, 2 volumes. London: Europa Publications Ltd., 1990. Goodwin, Paul 8., Jr., Latin America, 4th ed. Guilford, Conn.: The Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc., 1990. . Jndusllialization and Urba nization in Latin America. 13ahimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986. Gwynne, R. James, P. E., and C. W. Minkel, Latin America, 5th ed. York: John Wiley & Sons. 1986. ew Lombardi, C. L., and J. V. Lombardi. Latin American Histor)': A Teaching Atlas. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983. Merrick, Thomas w., Population Pressures in Latin America, Population 8111/etin 41, 3. July 1986. Paxton, John, ed., The Statesman's Yearbook. Martin's Press, 1990. ew York: t. Skidmore, T. E., and P. II. Smith. Modem Latin America. York: Oxford University Pres.~. 1984. ew United arion~. 1988 Demographic Yearbook. (40th issue) cw York: United Nations, 1990. w. and Enrique Ochoa, eds., Satistical Abst.racl of Latin America, Vol. 27. Lo!> Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1989. Wilkie, James World Resources [nstitute , \'(lorld Resources 1990-1991. York: Oxford University Press, 1990. ew I