In a later e-mail, he added, "Dream more about MoMA sculpture garden and less Brazilian rainforest".
In this body of navigable water, the amount of land to be dug and excavated was similar to what would be the case in Panama, but with major advantages, such as greater proximity to the principle ports of the United States and a less dense rainforest, and therefore, a lower recurrence of fatal diseases.
Agriculture became the driving force behind the country's economic boom but it also depleted the rainforest; less than 4% of virgin forest remains in Ivory Coast.
The simultaneous increase in fire activity with the expansion of the less flammable humid rainforest vegetation suggests human fire management practices.
One reason efficiency is important, notes participant Michael Reuter of The Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Virginia, is that growing more food per hectare may mean less destruction of rainforest or other habitat.
That would mean an annual loss of 3,250 sq km a year, a good chunk of rainforest but less than the area of discarded pasture that returns to forest each year.
Oil and gas extraction has the potential, at least, to bring wealth with less impact on the rainforest and its natives than cattle ranching, soya farming or most forms of logging.
The researchers found that in hot years, trees in a Costa Rican rainforest grow less, and the tropics worldwide release lots of carbon dioxide (CO2).
After passing the waterfall, we trekked through the rainforest for less than a km to one of the island's oldest banyan trees (approximately 400 years old) on the archaeological site Hatitheu, where 19th-century Taipa tribesmen left behind stone carvings and relics.
Threatened mangroves and coastal marine ecosystems in general get far less attention than tropical rainforests in climate negotiations, despite the many useful services they provide.
