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By Kellie Cobb

JONESBORO -- Very little has been written on environmental issues concerning Latin American and Caribbean countries, but Dr. Aldemaro Romero wants to change that.

Romero, chairman and professor with the Arkansas State University Department of Biological Sciences, has edited a book that addresses these issues.

"Environmental Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean" was released earlier this month by Springer, the world's second largest academic publisher. Co-edited with Sarah West, an environmental economist at Macalester College in Minnesota, the book is a collection of 12 essays, including one co-written by Romero on the exploitation of marine mammals in the Caribbean.

The essays are organized according to theme and approach into five parts -- conservation challenges; national policies, local communities and rural development; market mechanisms for protecting public goods; public participation and environmental justice; and the effects of development policies on the environment.

"We have experts writing in this book from the United States, Canada, Europe and Latin America. It helps to give different perspectives about these environmental problems. The reader will find that the book provides a rich variety of points of view about what's going on in the region on this topic," Romero said.

"This book pretty much emphasizes something we are trying to develop at ASU which is called interdisciplinary studies -- training a student to look at a problem from different perspectives ... to have a better understanding of what's going on in the world," he added.

"Environmental Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean" has been in the works for approximately three years, Romero said.

"It required finding and inviting the appropriate experts to cover a wide variety of topics and many different perspectives from around the world. It took a lot of coordination to get this done," he said.

Two common themes found in the book are the two major reasons for environmental problems in Latin America and the Caribbean -- poverty and the lack of law enforcement.

"It is interesting to see that all those countries have environmental laws for the most part. But this lack of law enforcement makes the laws kind of void. In terms of poverty, you're having a lot of people have to resort to exploit natural resources without any control or regulation just to be able to survive.

"These are two problems that are not the kind of problems you find in a developed country," Romero said.

The textbook will be used for a new course under the same title in the spring at ASU, Romero said. The course will also include a week-long field trip to a Latin America country.

"It depends upon the number of students and the resources we can get for that," he said about the possible location.

Romero added that he would like to visit Cuba.

"We know very little about what's going on in that country from an environmental standpoint. Being the only Communist country in Latin America it will be interesting to see on the ground how the political system affects the management of natural resources," he said.

kb@jonesborosun.com