As world leaders discuss climate change in Bonn, Mr Jose Cruz will plant dozens of pine and eucalyptus trees in Amatenango village, south-east Mexico.
Mr Cruz once planted his own "milpa", or cornfield, which yielded subsistence crops for himself and his family, but four years ago his crops were destroyed when a prolonged and unexpected drought led to uncontrollable forest fires.
Mexico's heavy, seasonal rains once fell like clockwork from May to November, completing a crop cycle that provided corn and beans for internal consumption and coffee for sale in nearby markets.
That pattern was interrupted and Mr Cruz's annual seeds were destroyed by drought and high winds. The delayed rainy season then produced torrential downpours that carried away huts and swept dozens of people to their deaths, forcing thousands of farmers to seek jobs in nearby towns.
Mr Cruz was one of the lucky few who joined a scheme aimed at recycling the developed world's waste, earning US$200 a month to abandon corn and manage a plantation of pine trees that soak up carbon dioxide.
The scheme forms part of the expanding global trade in carbon emissions, in this case offsetting pollution from Formula One racing in France.
The Kyoto Protocol includes carbon-absorbing forests as one of the "flexible mechanisms" a nation may use in achieving its emission-reduction targets.
The scheme allows an industrialised nation to get credit for investing in forests, transferring technology or creating alternative sources of energy in another country.
The impact of climate change on Latin America has been most severe in Caribbean nations, notably Guyana, where 90 per cent of the population live below sea level.
A national emergency has been declared every year since 1996 as floods and droughts alternate with devastating results.
At least 50,000 people have died in the past three years as a result of climate change in Latin America. The worst disaster was in Venezuela, when a year's rainfall fell in less than a week, sweeping 30,000 people to their deaths. A further 15,000 people died in hurricanes and floods that affected southern Mexico and Central America.
Mexico is the only Latin American country on the list of the world's 15 largest emitter countries, mainly as a result of thermal-energy production.
All Latin American countries have signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The bigger countries in the region have achieved important carbon-emission reductions as a side benefit of policy changes and projects designed to meet national economic, social and public health needs, such as the elimination of fuel subsidies in Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil.
Brazil and Mexico have developed energy efficiency standards for new boilers, refrigerators, small air-conditioners, buildings and electric motors.
Brazil began an aggressive programme to use ethyl alcohol (ethanol) from sugar cane in automobiles. Since this is a renewable resource, Brazil has been able to cut 15 per cent off its fossil fuel emissions.
However, Brazil's efforts to cut emissions have been accompanied by a succession of projects aimed at developing the nation's untapped resources.
A large portion of the region's emissions are caused by deforestation, mainly related to expanding agricultural lands.
The latest Brazilian development project, "Advance Brazil", will spend $29 billion to cut a swathe through the Amazon as highways, dams, power lines, mines, gasfields and oilfields, canals, ports and logging concessions open up a new free-trade zone, which will release vast amounts of carbon.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that Latin America's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is about 902 million tons of CO 2, equivalent to 4.28 per cent, a tiny fraction of the world total.
After several centuries of subsistence farming, Mr Cruz, a Tzeltal Indian, has lost his connection to the land, becoming one more member of the global workforce.
"It's like a death in the family," he said, staring out at the uniform pine trees snaking up the hillside opposite.
On May 30th last, Mexicans were shocked to learn how 13 migrants had died of thirst in the Arizona desert in a failed effort to cross the US-Mexico border. Seven of the dead were former coffee growers who had left their small plots in Veracruz state, southern Mexico, desperate to find a way to support their families.
Mexico's main coffee-producing regions report a new migration, distinct from traditional Mexico-US traffic, in which young men spend several months working in the US between harvests and then return home, cash in hand, to supplement small landholdings.
Series concluded
Coal and oil-burning power plants in the United States and Canada were top polluters in 1998, the Commission for Environmental Co-operation said yesterday.
Some 77 per cent of the air pollution from these plants consisted of hydrochloric and sulfuric acids. The primary metals sector followed closely in the "biggest polluters" sector, then the chemical industry, hazardous waste management companies and paper producers. -- (Reuters)