THE
LUNGS OF OUR PLANET
The deforestation in
the Amazon has continued to be an epidemic in Brazil way past the 1990s. The
Amazon Rainforest, roughly a third of Brazil’s national territory, is being cut
away for many different reasons. Cattle grassland, the valuable hardwood,
housing and agricultural space and roadways are just the leading motives.
Ranching uses a lot of
land and employs few people, but it accounts for much of the deforestation in the
Amazon Rainforest. Their method of cultivating land is to buy large tract of land
and have little labor hired. These ranchers are usually urban-based speculators,
who farm for a business venture and not for a way of life. When they buy their regions
of land, it is then bulldozed and cleared out. Then they graze cattle until the
land becomes barren. Lastly when the land becomes unusable they simply sell the
land and move on to a different area of the rainforest, to start the process
all over again. This method has forced indigenous people of the land to move
away from their homeland. For the reason that the highly poisonous mercury pollution,
a by-product of mining, enters the Amazonian waterways by hundreds of thousands
of tons and has made it difficult to find fresh water. Also in the Ecuadorian Amazon,
oil drilling created devastation as well. The forest tribes of the area were
decimated by diseases with contacting oil workers in the region.
Currently, the massive soybean
producers are joining loggers and cattle ranchers in the land grab as well, which
in turn has further sped up destruction to the great Brazilian wilderness and
wildlife. One more significant cause of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest
is the cultivation of agricultural commodities such as soya or soybean, which
is predominantly used for animal feeding. Especially for chickens, but not just
any chickens, the chickens used from one of the most popular and adored fast-food
chains in the world, McDonald’s to make the beloved, chicken nugget. Our treasured
McDonald's was and secretly still is fueling the destruction of the Amazon by
using soybeans grown in the Amazon as feed for chickens that end up served in
the fast-food restaurants in the European market.
There have been
measures to restore and retain the acreage of Amazon Rainforest that is still
left. Last October a law was passed which curbs the use of land for farming and
mandates that up to 80 percent of privately-owned land remain untouched and
intact. Also established protected areas have consistently avoided more deforestation
than sustainable-use areas, regardless of the level of deforestation pressure
present in a specific region. While the sustainable-use areas allow for
controlled resource extraction, which has slowly but surely slowed
deforestation.
In summary, Brazil is a
land of extraordinary beauty and unparalleled biological diversity. Hence
deforestation in the Amazon is especially concerning. While environmental
losses and degradation of the rainforest have yet to reach the point of
collapse, the ongoing disappearance of wild lands and loss of its species is
disheartening. Because humans have not yet fully discovered and searched all of
this striking, stunning, and species-rich tropical forestland.
Sources:
Pictures:
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