From the editor.

• Author: Kiernan, James Patrick
• Position: Editorial

In the dwindling rain forests of Costa Rica, the once-lush cacao plantations of northeast Brazil, and petroleum camps of Venezuela, people are all facing the same question: Can they live fulfilling, productive lives and leave something behind for future generations? In this issue, Elizabeth Johnson describes how some residents of Itacare, Brazil, have come together to breathe new life into the local economy once dependent on a single crop, cacao, and Joyce Gregory Wyels explains how, in Costa Rica, a combination of sustainable agriculture and ecological awareness may greatly restrain the destruction of the rain forest, for decades now the centerpiece of that country's booming tourism industry. As Louis Werner reflects on the meaning of the Louisiana Purchase at the start of its bicentennial year, he grapples with the multitude of influences, personages, and events that constitute the history of this vast territory...