Today I decided it was time to spend some hours on a
serious topic, so I collect some pieces of information about the deforestation
of the rainforest in Brazil.
This is what Lourenço told me about it. Lourenço is
doing his B-degree in biology at USP, the Universidade de São Paulo, which is
thought to be one of the best universities in Brazil. He also told me some
curiosities about university traditions, but I’ll tell abut them later on.
Deforestation
in Brazil
The Amazon is a vast and majestic rainforest,
the largest one remaining on the Earth, teeming with an estimated quarter of
all known land species. The jaguar, the pink river dolphin, the sloth, the
world's largest flower, a monkey the size of a toothbrush and a spider the size
of a baseball are just a few of the species that we know about - there are many
more yet to be discovered.
It is also home to over 20 million people
including hundreds of indigenous peoples, some of which have never been
contacted by the ‘outside world’.
And finally, the Amazon stores 80 to 120 billion
tons of carbon, helping to stabilize the planet's climate.
Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate
in the world and as of 2005 till has the larger area of forest removed
annually. Since 1970, over 600.000 square kilometers of rainforest have been
destroyed. This was due to economical reasons: the government lack support to
built highways and colonization programs, so the farmers made their own politic
and went deep into the forest to get new lands for agriculture and animal breeding.
In 2001, the Amazon was approximately 5.4 million square kilometers, which is
only 87% of the Amazon’s original state.
In recent
years, however, Brazilian deforestation rate is considerably declined. Despite
the economic growth (about 40%), the forest has been protected by the enforcement
of new environmental law, incentives in utilizing already deforested lands, a
more severe monitoring from satellites and less profits coming from agriculture.
The last, but not least, factor involved in the change is the expansion of the protected natural
areas and the indigenous reserved. Also the strong criticism that came from
private sector companies and the emerging awareness of the values of ecosystem
afforded by the Amazon play a role in the change of the deforestation trend.
01/12/2012
RispondiEliminaThe destruction of the Earth is a sad reality. I have always heard of Amazon rainforest as the lungs of the planet, but more and more years pass this lung is reduced because it is destroyed by man and the consequences are devastating. Many indigenous tribes living in the Amazon rainforest and they undergo the destruction of their land and their rights are brutally violated.
In particular I was very saddened by the story of the Kayapò, a tribe that lives near the Belmonte river and just in that area was built a dam that is a giant hydroelectric plant.
The consequences of this construction will be the flooding of 500 square kilometres ( for the barrier of one of the major tributaries of the Amazon ) and more than 45,000 people will be forced to abandon their lands, their houses, their history.
All this happens in the name of the usual interests, the scramble for wealth and “progress”.
Man is destroying his house, the Earth, and in the future will not have to wonder if nature will make him suffer the consequences of this devastation.
Isabella J.