"Vogt spent ten months in Mexico, much of it with Juana, at the behest of the Mexican agricultural ministry, writing a guide to conservation for Mexican schoolchildren, and struggling with his cane and braces through twenty-six national parks. Although statistics showed that the country was Latin America's wealthiest, its landscapes were enshrouded by suffering: impoverished subsistence farmers, scratching at depleted soils, taking down the last stands of timber for their cookstoves. "Unless land-use patterns are radically altered," Vogt said, "most of Mexico will be virtually desert within a hundred years."