RESOURCES

    Central and South America are home to abundant natural resources.  The fertile soil and rich growth have made it the number one agricultural producer in the world, and by far the greatest supplier of timber. 

The timber industry ran unchecked for a long time, clear cutting left millions and millions of acres of acres dead and lifeless.  However some countries, under strong pressure from eco-groups and with the growing evidence of ecological destructions impact on the global atmosphere, began implementing strict green policies in order to preserve and cultivate the Rainforest.  Some countries have completely banned the removal of old growth, other have instituted policies to encourage new growth while still allowing for timber harvesting.  Of course some countries have ignored the threat completely, and continue to clear cut wantonly with little or no cares for the impact.  The countries, and corporations who profit from such activities, are frequent targets for eco-terrorists at home and abroad.

Agricultural Corporations like Biotechnica and Multi-Foods produce over half the worlds food on their huge farming complexes all over Central and South America, some of the complexes are as dangerous to the eco-system as the timber industry, as huge tracts of land are clear to make way for soy, rice, and other cash crops, or converted into pastures for cattle.  Even more  than their danger to the environment, is the damage these corporations cause to local culture.  Entire rural villages are forced into conscripted labor on these compounds, their villages raised to make way for the farms.  These practices have led to a large underground guerrilla movement.  A movement swiftly gaining ground as free indigenous people who have been raising their own food, primarily corn, are being virtually enslaved and forced to grow cash crops, living off corporate subsidized kibble or fast food, and removed from their homes and confined in corporate labor camps.  All under the guise of progress.  The corporations spend enormous amounts of money on propaganda, even in the urban areas, where they trick people into signing contracts by offering lucrative employment, housing, and benefits.  What they find when they get to the camps, are Co-ed dorms each housing 100 people, with communal showers, rows of bunk beds, each with a television attached at the base of each bed (cable piped in from the corporation, mostly porn and propaganda) and a small storage space.  The health care begins and ends with whatever it takes to keep a worker on his feet and in the fields.  Men, women, children, entire villages fill these dorms, no walls between them, no privacy.  If that weren't enough, many of these corporations have worked out deals with local governments, convicts are sent to these work farms, housed and put to work alongside the "employees".  This has led to an almost feudal society, with each dorm run by the biggest and strongest.  Rape, theft, and beatings are all to common, murder however is punished severely as it hinders the work force.  In minimal effort to combat this, the corporations make designer drugs (the drugs are engineered to be highly addictive and have the effect of euphoria, increased stamina, and cause users to enter a lucid state where they can focus on repetitive actions to the point of ignoring all else) openly available to all.  Not that its always necessary, as the pesticides and preservatives they spray on the crops are more than enough to keep the workers timid and dull witted.  The corporations keep all this tightly under wraps from the media and local governments, and few who are sent to these work camps ever return.  As for their salaries, most are paid with food vouchers, the little money they get is quickly whittled away by "expense penalties" for even minor infractions.

Other corporations are just as quick to ignore any sense of ethics.  Manufacturing and production corporations, like Chill Cola, build huge factories, and have little compunction against dumping hazardous chemicals and waste into the local water supply.

Then there is oil.  With the middle east out of the picture, Central and South America, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, is the number one oil producer in the world.  Venezuela has gone from abject poverty to one of the richest nations in the world, other countries who made hasty deals they would later regret with Petro-chem, Shell, Sov-Oil and other oil companies have not fared so well.

All this pales in comparison to the profits generated by the number one resource in the region, cocaine.  The newest strain, dubbed synth-coke by the media, is completely immune to the virus that nearly destroyed the plants outright.  Cultivation and sale of the coca plant is still technically illegal in most of Central and South America, but in the SAA controlled countries production moves full steam ahead, legally without limit.  

Other major resources include coffee, fish, minerals, and ores.  Pharmaceutical development and manufacture is another main interest in the region, particularly in the rainforests.