When author Gabriel García Márquez traveled Colombia’s Magdalena River by steamboat as a child in the 1940s, he gazed in wonder at “alligators lying in the shadows like tree trunks,” at “endless shoals of fish” and at manatees “that gave suck to their young with haunting cries that sounded like singing.” Today, the once-teeming Magdalena is an environmental basket case—and the target of a controversial recovery effort. The program, a top priority of President Andrés Pastrana, is aimed largely at reviving the Magdalena as a river highway and bolstering Colombia’s economy. But it also includes environmental steps ranging from reforesting riverbanks to restoring wetlands. At issue is whether the project’s green components are adequate to bring about meaningful ecological recovery or, more immediately... [Log in to read more]