The highway, still a dirt and gravel road, is lined with small communities, cattle ranches and plantations of teak, a non-native tree with a high export value that is grown in reforestation projects. Emiliani supports the project as a way of improving the livelihood of the region's residents. And the effect on the remaining rain forest could be devastating. You will have little isolated spots of forest, and a lot more species will vanish. Because they need longer territories, they'll disappear.
Some people say that's the cost of progress.
For others, it's a tragedy. The costs of unregulated development can already been seen around Panama City, where the bay is seriously polluted and new highways have slashed through the metropolitan park and low-income neighborhoods and cut off a fishing community's access to the bay. President Mireya Moscoso, who took office in September, has pledged greater spending on social programs, but the keystone of her economic program is to pay down Panama's enormous debt and attract developers to the former U.S. properties. Investment is expected to lean heavily toward tourism. But it will also threaten the fragile ecosystem of the canal watershed, and force the issue of the cleanup of unexploded shells and mines that still litter former artillery ranges in what used to be the Canal Zone.