The Decline Of The Latin American And Caribbean Region

For the Latin American/Caribbean region, one human induced environmental problem would be the severity of deforestation due to mining practices. According to Lisa Naughton’s lecture, the price of gold has skyrocketed due to the stock market crash, leading to a higher demand of gold and driving roughly 7,000 miners into the forest, making this a global resource demand. Gold mining has a significant history South America. According to page 281 of the textbook, Spain demanded that their colonies provide gold and silver for the Spanish crown during the 1500s, with the crown itself demanding 20% of all mining profits. Also, outsiders are no strangers to destroying South America’s natural resources for their own benefit. As stated on page 281,†¦show more content†¦Fish makes up about 80 percent of protein (Where Have All The Fish Gone? Film) in the Khmer people’s diet, and the downstream impact of the Yali Dam has led to high toxicity levels in the streams tha t have killed off the fish. Not only does this affect their diets, but it also affects their economy, since fish is a main export of Southeast Asia. The Mekong River Commission estimated that $200 million of fish migrate up the Hou Sahong channel a year (Biard, Lecture). The Don Sahong dam would block this channel, which would impact thousands of people. This problem is a result of local resource use, since the purpose of this dam is to generate electricity specifically for Cambodia. Southeast Asia becoming so dependent on exports, such as fish, has increased the severity of this issue. According to page 404 in the textbook, during the 1970s and 1980s, many southeastern countries have shifted their focus to developing products that could be exported all over the world. Similarly to those demanding gold from Latin America, the corporations in charge of the dams care about benefiting from its profits. According to Baird’s article, the main objective of building the Don Sahong D am is to generate revenue by exporting electricity to Thailand or Cambodia. Those who consider this Dam to be a problem would be the people of Cambodia and Laos who depend on the river for food and survival. Part B. Activists, such as Kuti