Chapter 10

Section 1
1. The basis of the economies in many Latin American countries is agriculture.



Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Latin America



2. The causes of Latin America's economically dependent status are the abundance of cash crops that are sold as exports. The consequences of this dependence are an extreme economic crash, should anything happen to the crops or the latifundas they are grown on.

creative writing: The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, is the agreement that gradually, trade restrictions will be decreased, and the flow if people, goods and services will be increased. There are advantages and disadvantages to NAFTA. One of the advantages is that trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States in creased by 10-15% every year, but a disadvantage was that it affected the overall effects on gross domestic product and regional employment very little.


section 2

1. As more and more people move into Latin American cities and towns, more and more housing, farming and work developments are made to keep up with the growing population, which takes up space. This space usually comes from the rain forest, and in using this space, we are depleting the natural resources there.



population growth in Latin America



2. The challenges posed by the growth of Latin America's urban population are the lack of safe housing, the unsanitary conditions of shantytowns, environmental laws that ban a certain amount of expansion, industrial pollution that both destroys the rain forests and beaches and waterways in Latin America, but also smog up the cities.

creative writing: The countries of Latin America are facing many challenges of regional and international significance. Two of the biggest issues are being in balance with the environment, and their economies. In Latin America, most of the wilderness is either beaches and ocean, or tropical rain forest. Much of the resources that powers industries such as fishing and logging are dependent on the ocean waters and the rain forests, but if these locations are changed in any way,  then the ecosystems of that environment would be destroyed and the fish or wood, per say, would no longer be available. in the Latin American economies, much of the money lies on agriculture. But if there were a disease that killed off most of the produce or live stock grown on the farms, then the economy would crash because the product would no longer be available. Another larger part of the economy is industry. but most people who work in factories or farms do not make very much money, and because of increased industrialization, many companies are replacing workers with machines, raising the number of jobless people in Latin America.



Slash-and-burn farming is used to clear rain forest land and make it suitable for farming.