Environmental degradation in Latin America has become one of the most pressing issues on the international agenda. The volume began to crescendo when space shuttle astronauts photographed five thousand fires on a single night in the Brazilian Amazon state of Rondonia in 1985, and grew shrill when rubbertapper Chico Mendes was shot in 1988 trying to

J. Timmons Roberts is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Mellon Program in Environmental Science and Policy at the College of William and Mary. He is author of Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline, and From Modernization to Globalization. Nikki DemetriaThanos works in MDexico as a Popular Educator and Political Analyst for Witness For Peace, a US-based non-profit organization. She studied environmental policy and Latin American studies at Tulane University, and has conducted research in Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, MDexico and the Andes.

Preface and Acknowledgements 1. The Scene, Its Problems and Roots 2. Pollution Havens on the U.S./Mexico Border? NAFTA, Free Trade, and the Environment 3. Green Revolutions, Deforestation, and New Ideas 4. Hazards of an Urban Continent 5. Bio-splendor, Devastation and Competing Visions in the Amazon 6. Indigenous Peoples, Development Megaprojects, and Internet Resistance, With Leo B. Gorman 7. Building a Global Civil Society: Living What We Know