Protecting Panama; the land made famous by Noriega needs to protect its rainforests. (Manuel Antonio Noriega)

E, August, 1994 by Nixon, Will

In the United States, the rainforest has become a floral fantasy land, decorating shampoo bottles and candy boxes, selling T-shirts and deodorant sticks on TV commercials, inspiring bad Hollywood movies, and growing in planter pots in offices everywhere. The zoo in hot, tropical Denver, Colorado has even built a $10 million rainforest exhibit under two glass pyramids that draws crowds like tourists to Eden. But in Panama City, where the rainforest starts right in town, the mass mind drifts to other lands. The local buses are carnivals of paint with red lipstick sides, hippie hieroglyphic bumpers, and back doors air brushed with soap opera stars. Above the front windshield appears a panorama of each bus's vision of Shangri La. It's never a rainforest. It's a New England...

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