ABSTRACT
The Green Continent, as the Colombian historian and educator German Arciniegas called it in the 1940s, attracted millions of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere who expected Latin America to soon increase its technological development. The chapter describes various cases of development in Latin America, the environmental problems and issues that have resulted from them, and the role that globalization processes have played in them. It argues that national legislation and international treaties have attained and are likely to attain their purposes only to a limited extent and in a mixed manner. Such legislation has not been soundly implemented—and, unless current circumstances change, it is unlikely to be soundly implemented in the foreseeable future. During the 1950s and 1960s, environmental policy makers and economists tended to agree that the environmental focus of concern in relation to environmental matters had to do with spillover damage of market activities to nonconsenting third parties.
