U of Texas website on Latin America

A useful resource for many of the topics related to this course - and for your own specific interests - can be found here. Just browse around and report back on what you find.

As some of you may know, the Latin American programme at U of T is particularly strong. Who knows? Some of you may consider it for graduate school.

short article on Brazil nuts in Bolivia

You can get an introduction to the harvesting of Brazil nuts in the Pando Department of Bolivia - one of the most important sources of income for the people there, and indeed in other parts of the MAP region - by reading a short article by Jeff Bentley (with whose work I'm not otherwise familiar but who describes himself as an agricultural anthropologist, nicely providing a bridge between the physical and the social sciences as, of course, we ourselves aim to do in this course).

comment on Bolivia's recent recall referendum

There's a fairly comprehensive article about the recent referendum can be found here. It's put out by Upside Down World, an outfit with which I'm not familiar, but which looks sufficiently reliable at first glance for me to sign up for their free newsletter. (Their site also has an article about recent issues in Peru, which I haven't looked at yet but which is also likely to be relevant.)

I know that some of you, whose interests are more narrowly environmental than narrowly political, may think that my posts are getting too heavily into social science. It's obviously my natural inclination, but I should stress that the course itself will strike a balance between the two "narrow" views. Indeed, arriving at a "broader" understanding of the issues is one of our main goals.

So... let me encourage those of you who wouldn't normally "follow politics", to read articles such as the one mentioned above. If you want to follow events in the Bolivian Amazon, some such background (and, of course, other perspectives may be equally valid) is indeed essential.

CEPR article on Bolivia

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (often a somewhat progressive organisation, let it be said) has just published a report on Bolivia that you may find useful. Even if economics and political science are not your main interests, it is hard to understand what's going on in Bolivia unless you have some background of this kind - though other sources, of course, may be equally valuable, yet have different points of view - so I draw the report to your attention.

You may know that tomorrow, 10 August, is the date of an important national referendum, called by the President to buttress his position, but fraught with risk no matter what the outcome. I imagine the poll will be covered in the US press (eg, the New York Times and other major national papers), so I encourage you to keep your eye on the issue.

forestry and sustainable development

A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development on forests and forest-based livelihoods can be found here.

It covers a wider range of territory than our area of immediate interest but, for those of you who plan on digging deeper into forest-related topics when we're in the MAP region, this report may provide some valuable background.

issues raised by IIRSA

If your knowledge of IIRSA comes only from their site, then you may be wondering what all the fuss is about, and why it has been criticised by some. One way into this discourse is through articles such as this one by Raúl Zibechi. Admittedly it's a couple of years old, and much of the introductory material will be familiar to you from the IIRSA site itself, but if you scroll down you'll begin to see some of the issues raised that we need to keep in mind as we prepare to visit the region.

Obviously you don't have to agree with the article (which is, by the way, in English), but I do hope you'll find it useful.

new MAP resource

Let me draw this material, put out by a group out of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, to your close attention.

Some of the links found in the section headed "Economic integration" are closest to our theme, but many of the others are likely to interest members of our group.