In its 500, 000 hectares of cultivable land, the Chapare has nearly 40, 000 under coca.

ECONOMIST: Bolivia goes to war against coca

On some estimates, an area of cultivable land the size of France, Germany, Italy and Britain combined will be ruined.

ECONOMIST: Africa's population

The pressure of a desperately poor and growing population has led to the indiscriminate felling of trees, for fuel as well as to increase cultivable acreage.

ECONOMIST: From the archive