Os pulmões de Gaia: ajuda precisa-se!

emparelhamento:

"Can we Still Retain the Potentials of the Amazon?
by tomakint on 26 May 2004 @ 07:04 PM
Once upon a time, there lies a 2 million square miles seemingly fertile, green, untapped paradise of intact forests covering part of the western Brazilian states of Amazonas, Acre, and Rondonia, stretching into the lowlands of south eastern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. This once named paradise, harbours over half of the world's remaining tropical rainforest, but now harbours the lengthy Transanazonica highway and some others.(Deforestation in Brazil: This image of the southern Amazon uses satellite data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite collected in 2000 and 2001 to classify the terrain into three separate land surface categories: forest (red), herbaceous (non-woody) vegetation like grasses (green), and bare ground (blue). The Amazon’s numerous rivers appear white).


Precisely in August 2002, the idea of Tumucumaque National Park in the Amazon was borne, making it the largest world's tropical forest protected area. The park covers more than 3.8 million hectares almost the size of Swirzerland, protecting a significant part of the Amazon forest. Its creation is a significant step towards fulfilling the pledge made by President Cardoso in 1998 to fully protect 41 million hectares. A reliable source was once quoted as saying that, "the Amazon forest contains 60-80 billion cubic metres of timber, enough to meet the world's consumption of tropical wood for several centuries." The Amazon's biodiversity is greater than any other biodiversity that could be found anywhere in the world, with an assessed 20,000 species of flowering plants, 2,000 species of fish, 1,000 species of birds and 60 species of primates. According to the 1993 estimate, the Amazon region is home to 17 million people with more than 140 indigenous groups engaging the products of this vast jungle for their survival.

Although a larger percentage (about 90%) of the Amazon original forested area still remains today, the region faces numerous threats, such as illegal logging, road construction, human settlement and agricultural expansion, gold mining, and oil and gas exploration. Though the remoteness of most of the forest has insulated it from the worst development pressures so far, yet the rapidly increasing development plans from the three countries sharing boundaries with it may soon put this great opportunity behind us. The chief responsibility for most of the massive deforestation of Amazon lies primarily with the government and its development strategy of the past three decades as a result of credit, tax, and other incentives which enabled large scale agricultural and cattle raising schemes to be established. The promotion of mining and hydro-electric projects, including mammoth dams in the Amazon and efforts to increase exports to pay the huge external debt, have also contributed to deforestation of the Amazon. Deforestation in the Amazon eliminates the production of Brazil nuts (Berthollestia excelsa), natural rubber (Hevea brasiliensis), rosewood oil (Aniba dickel) and timber. Large tracts of forest are being cut to provide small and medium iron smelting plants with cheap charcoal. Mercury that is normally used to separate the gold from other materials destroys aquatic and forest habitats and the local populations whose diet depends on fish are now threatened by mercury poisoning.

A worrisome factor bedevilling the region now is the issue of persistent violence over land. A large percentage of Brazilian farmers are now landless. The more extensive landse pattern associated with large landholdings and cattle ranching exacerbates deforestation by its emphasis on large areas and the removal of knowledgeable farmers and native peoples from the forested environment. It must be noted that a very large percentage of farmland are held in trust by just 4.5% of the population which include the state corporations, multi nationals and private Brazilian firms. The spate of violence brewing in this region is not the best for now, a group of NGOs estimated that over 800 persons were killed in land-related conflicts i the year 1989, and even now the killing is still on.

The potentials of this vast jungle should be paramount in our eyes and struggles and therefore should not be left in the hands of bad-managers. It may be summarized that victims of environmental degradation from the emotional, personal, and life threatening perspectives are generally the poor, native (indigenes), women, and children, since they are least able to protect their rights. Retaining the potentials of the "paradise" should be a total reversal of governmental policies and their national interests ideologies, activities of multi nationals and market-oriented global trade."

desabafo:
Onde pára a consciência humana???