From the Editor

This issue once again demonstrates the variety and richness of geographical research on Latin America. The first article illustrates the impact of disease in urban and rural Northwest Argentina in the early twentieth century, emphasizing its spatial incidence and relationship to water bodies of various types, a truly innovative analysis. Our attention is next moved to Xochimilco, Mexico, where a group research project reports on the environmental impact of the extraction of sub-surface water. Given that very few United States geographers are now working on physical geographic themes, it's good to see that our Mexican colleagues persist in their very practical research.

In the next article we are exposed to the issues of changing production systems in Honduras, where developing cash economies threatening longstanding swidden agriculture and the rural labor force, a key developmental phase that is becoming a critical factor in national integration. From Honduras we shift to eastern lowland Bolivia where we are introduced to the significance of the consumption of river turtles, their market potential and their role as wealth indicators. How rare and good it is to find a researcher assessing the significance of the fauna of Latin America!

Another lowland context, this time in Mexican Veracruz, provides the locale for an analysis of the impact of the coffee commodity crisis on small-scale production systems. The government's attempt to regulate production via the notion of agricultural viability is discussed, and the impact of neo-liberal reforms and globalization effects are seen to be key components of development in the region.

Remaining in Mexico, but now in the northern borderlands, we are offered a detailed survey of the mesquite economy—in economic, social and landscape dimensions. The study demonstrates very clearly the benefits that can accrue from qualitative surveys when one is investigating such opaque phenomena. We remain in the northern borderlands in the next essay that analyzes quantitatively the spatial variation in environmental activism. Four distinctive hypotheses are tested to reveal the factors that affect such activism, a methodology that reveals the complexity of understanding the origins and development of our environmental interests and activities.

The final two articles of this issue are, at least I would argue, exceptional in the sense that the first deals with racial and social issues in early nineteenth-century French Guiana, and the impact of one very significant person. When did one last read an geohistorical article on French Guiana? Equally innovative is the account provided by the technical director of the Naval Museum of Madrid in the final study, an examination of an almost forgotten Spanish expedition to produce an atlas of the Caribbean in the last decades of the eighteenth-century.

Our thanks to all the authors for their collegial acceptance of ideas, suggestions, and criticisms of the editorial team.

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Del Editor

Una vez más, tenemos una muestra de la riqueza y variedad de las investigaciones hechas en el campo de la geografía latinoamericana. El primer artículo demuestra el impacto de las enfermedades, especialmente el paludismo, en las zonas urbanas y rurales del noroeste argentino en las primeras décadas del siglo veinte, enfatizando su incidencia espacial y su relación con varios tipos de fuentes de agua. Igualmente, nuestra atención se mueve a Xochimilco en el centro de México, donde un grupo de investigadores aportan un informe detallado sobre el impacto ambiental de la extracción de agua subterránea. Desde la perspectiva de la geografía en los Estados Unidos, donde pocos son los geógrafos investigando asuntos físicos, es para felicitar a nuestros colegas mexicanos por su interés en asuntos tan prácticos.

El próximo artículo nos expone a los efectos de los cambiantes sistemas de producción en Honduras, donde el desarrollo de las economías capitalistas amenazan la agricultura tipo milpa y la fuerza laboral, procesos que afectan seriamente la posibilidad de la integración nacional. Desde Honduras nuestra atención ahora se mueve a la región oriental de Bolivia donde la autora nos indica con suficientes detalles, el significado del consumo de las tortugas ribereñas, su uso como...