Word: mi.
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Necessity has spawned invention in marginal farmlands around the world. The Chinese, threatened by a desert that is spreading at the rate of 600 sq. mi. a year, are planting a "green Great Wall" of grasses, shrubs and trees 4,350 miles across their northern region. In Peru archaeologists have revived a pre- Columbian agricultural system that involves dividing fields into patterns of alternating canals and ridges. The canals ensure a steady supply of water, and the nitrogen-rich sediment that gathers on their floors provides fertilizer for the crops...
That Bryant did not rush headlong down this slippery ecological slope is in part testimony to Costa Rica's commitment to its dwindling natural resources. The country has more than 20 national parks, wildlife preserves and other protected areas covering 2,577 sq. mi., or 13% of the land. Moreover, the nation's stable democracy has attracted hundreds of scientists and ecologists, making Costa Rica a laboratory for finding out what is possible in terms of sustainable development in the tropics...
...that is under assault. Currently, the pulp factory produces 200,000 tons of cellulose fibers a year, and its effluent, discharged directed into the lake, has created a polluted zone 23 miles wide. Clouds of yellowish smoke belching from the factory's smokestacks have settled over 770 sq. mi. of Siberian wilderness and have killed an estimated 86,000 fir trees...
...prospect of a military invasion of the Republic of Maldives would seem to be almost as remote as the Indian Ocean archipelago itself. A collection of some 1,200 coral islands that together make up only 115 sq. mi. of land, the country lies several hundred miles southwest of India and Sri Lanka. Its 195,000 citizens, most of them Sunni Muslims, earn their living largely from fishing and tourism. Possession of guns is outlawed, except for the fewer than 2,000 lightly armed members of the National Security Service, and violence is virtually unknown. Yet last week the capital...
...city of Venice, built on an archipelago in a 212-sq.-mi. lagoon, has long been perched on the edge of disaster. The magnitude of the threat became clear on Nov. 4, 1966, when a storm on the Adriatic Sea inundated St. Mark's Square in nearly 4 ft. of water and pounded the facade of its revered basilica. But Venetians have come to accept periodic flooding -- acqua alta (high water), they call it -- as a way of life, while city officials and the Italian government have been slow to realize that Venice's artistic and architectural treasures...