It is a sad --but avoidable-- tragedy when a people resort to dismantling
their greatest national heritage piece by piece simply for money. Poverty
and the quest for economic growth are leading the Brazilian Nation to
just such a needless situation: to 'cash in' on the wealth locked up within
the Amazonian Rainforest - cited by many as the most important rainforest
on Earth in terms of biodiversity [genetic variance], size [amount of
water transpired and carbon fixed annually], and for future medical discoveries
[novel drugs and materials].
..
From man's point of view, this apparently endless sprawling carpet
of lush financial greenery is ripe for profiteering by the logging industries,
primarily to satisfy an all important (sic) import demand from China for
hardwood chopsticks. That is - a major slice of the Brazilian Rainforest
pie is currently being sold piece by invaluable piece to the Chinese people
for use as food utensils!
Consider the following:
Q. Can you imagine that America would
sell Yosemite to Japan for ornamental garden stones and fence posts?
Q. Do you think that France would sell the Lascaux Caves
to Russia for use as a vodka cellar?
Q. Can you believe that Brazil are selling the Amazon Rainforest
to China for use as chopsticks?????
Consequently, the Brazilian Rainforest diminishes in size each year by
an area ten times that of the Isle of Wight, a moderately sized island
just off the west coast of the UK. Projecting this trend forward in time,
Brazilian and American scientists have jointly estimated that, at current
rates of depletion, the Rainforest could be 30% smaller by the year 2020.
(Where once it took three hours to cross by plane, then it will take just
two hours!) What is most disturbing about such a trend is that, once an
ecosystem has gone there is no bringing it back, and untold potentially
useful branches of the aeons-old tree of life will have been sacrificed
to the God of Short-term Economics, and the capital raised from sales
would no doubt benefit just the few rather than the many - as is the way
of the world today.
|
(NB: It is true that Brazil is only planning
to do what the developed countries have already long since done
in their own homelands. However, the argument is only fully resolved
if we consider latitude. Countries within low latitudes --the tropics
and sub-tropics-- show a far greater degree of biodiversity than
those at higher latitudes, and food webs within such ecosystems
are much more complex and specialised. Certain avian (bird) species
can feed only from certain specific plants that exist within small
areas - often just a few kilometres across. The loss of these plant
species following logging and burning regimes therefore inevitably
leads to the extinction of many dependent, specialised species.
In the higher latitudes (i.e. the deciduous UK, northeastern North
America and most of Canada) biodiversity is considerably less, and
the food webs established between flora and fauna are less restricted
than those in the lower latitudes; higher latitude animals are often
less fussy about what they eat, and many can switch from being herbivorous
to carnivorous --and vice versa-- in the absence of their preferred
food (i.e. during winter). In other words they show greater flexibility
and adaptability. Also, their food occurs over a far greater stretch
of land, and so a major disturbance in one area, although still
causing loss of life, does not usually lead to the extinction of
that species...
|
Unlike most parts of Europe, North America and Canada, extensive
reforestation is not applicable in most parts of Brazil due to soil chemistry.
The soils predominant in the tropics, oxisols, are particularly poor agricultural
mediums compared to the brown earths, etc, of higher latitudes. Consequently,
deforestation usually does not produce high crop yields, and could lead
to loss of soil minerals by heavy rainfall (called leaching) or even to
desertification by wind-induced removal of topsoil. The rainforests have
developed over ten thousand long years; certain flora could be reintroduced
from seed banks, but many others require specific mammal and insect gophers
to transport pollen from anther to stigma in order to reproduce; fauna
which, by then, may be extinct.
Current plans to forge a road through the heart of the Amazon could
mark the beginning of the end for this unspoilt, delicate region of Mother
Nature, an area which serves as the lungs for all oxygen-breathing life.
There are fears that such a road would open up the forest to ever more
logging by allowing easier access to timber, and by encouraging settlements
to spring up along its route. By cutting the rainforest into smaller and
smaller pockets of greenery, major disturbances to habitat would inevitably
lead to loss of floral and faunal diversity (as cited above).
.
..
But this need not be the case. The top G7 countries have pledged considerable
financial aid to the Brazilian Government, called a 'carbon-offset fund',
which aims to compensate for the loss of possible income while ensuring
the relative safety of the areas under threat. That is - the Developed
World is willing to pay upkeep for the rainforest, just as a Nation is
willing to pay upkeep for a National Monument within its own borders.
However, to date, the Brazilian Government has turned down such a fund;
a desirable alternative to the wholesale ruination of areas with uncharted
importance! This they have done despite negative implications from initial
impact assessment modelling by their own scientists. To reiterate then,
consider:
Q. Do you think Brazil will continue to sell
the Amazon Rainforest to China for chopsticks even though the concerned
world offers to pay it handsomely not to?
It is crucial that we begin to see these ongoing chains of events
from an ecological point of view other than an anthropocentric --what
is it worth to us-- point of view. Life is perhaps perpetually in the
balance, and together we can tip the scales either way.
The author is a student of Environmental Biology at the University of
Wales, Bangor. 2001
For more info, go here
(external news item links).
