What poses the greatest threat to Colombia’s natural environment?
As in many mega-diverse regions of the world, uncontrolled and unregulated development, and natural resource exploitation are the main sources of environmental devastation. Lax environmental regulations for miners, loggers and other enterprises that benefit from resource extraction are also a primary threat. Primary forests are clear-cut to make way for subsistence crops and for cattle farms, with the caveat that tropical rainforest soils are acidic and relatively unsuitable for primary and secondary agriculture. In search of an immediate amelioration of socio-economic conditions for the communities within and around these regions, a vast and unexplored natural resource base is being threatened by development. There have been proposals to build the Pan-American Highway, for example, connecting Central and South America, by way of Panama and the Choco-Darien tropical forest. Fortunately, development projects such as this one have stalled. However, it is not uncommon to have Colombian se
