A concise yet thorough overview of the environmental issues, problems, and controversies facing Latin America and the Caribbean-from the tip of South America to the Windward Islands. Snowy Andean peaks. Steaming Brazilian rainforest. Lush tropical islands. Few regions on Earth are as diverse or spectacular as Latin America and the Caribbean. And few are as threatened by expanding populations, industrial pollutants, and unsustainable farming methods. Latin America and the Caribbean, a new title in the World Environments series, explores the environmental problems facing our hemispheric neighbors. Home to the longest-mountain range, largest river, and greatest rainforest on Earth, no region on Earth boasts greater geographic extremes, faces greater environmental dangers, and enjoys more economic potential from its biodiversity than Latin America and the Caribbean. What are the political and economic factors affecting the Amazon's rapidly disappearing rainforest? What is being done to harvest life-saving drugs from the plants of the Orinoco? And what lies behind the mysterious disappearance of Central America's frogs? With essays, chronologies, biographies, and directory of organizations and agencies, Latin America and the Caribbean examines a region waking up to its environmental problems and possibilities.