Image source: Andre Penner, CTV news
RIGHT NOW, the world’s remaining rainforests are being cut down and replaced with palm oil and soybean plantations, and cattle ranches. Here’s an Action Alert from Friends of the Amazon. Please take the action they suggest to send a message to the President of Peru.
“Currently, scammers are cheating native Amazonians out of their land under the pretext of creating REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects. These unscrupulous businessmen have been termed "Carbon Cowboys." While they say that they want to protect the forest, what they really want is to get the land for free and cut down the forest and replace it with palm oil plantations. They lie and say that they are representatives of the United Nations and the World Bank and promise the communities "billions of dollars" from carbon offset credits. Using these tactics, they trick vulnerable and trusting people into signing unfair contracts with hidden clauses giving the scammers a power of attorney that essentially gives these conmen the forest for free, allowing them to harvest the timber and replace the native forest with monocultures of palm oil trees.”
As global population and consumption rates continue to rise, we are running out of space to produce the products we consume. To the dismay of indigenous people, forest inhabitants, and citizens worldwide, we are increasingly turning to the Amazon as a source of land and water to meet our voracious appetites. A place with the most biodiversity in the world is being exploited to satisfy the human population's insatiable hunger for more of everything. Some call it a ‘world of excess.’ Our wants override the basic needs of the people and animals that inhabit our once vast tropical rainforests—that are not so vast anymore.
Throughout the world, tropical rainforests are currently destroyed at a rate of 36 football fields per minute. PER MINUTE! What is driving this rapid deforestation? The money to be made from Palm Oil, Soybeans, and Cattle.
Beef & Brazil: Rising consumption rates of beef worldwide have caused a rapid increase in beef exports from many countries. This is especially true in Brazil where beef consumption fuels rainforest destruction.
Soybeans: Soybean plantations in developing countries are also causing devastation of the rainforests. In the past fifty years, the demand for soybeans has increased rapidly. This can be attributed to their multipurpose use as: food for humans, food for animals, and biodiesel fuel for our cars, trucks and machinery. "Since 1950 the world soybean harvest has climbed from 17 million tons to 250 million tons, a gain of more than 14-fold. This contrasts with growth in the world grain harvest of less than fourfold.” Earth Policy Institute
What is Being Lost?
Indigenous Peoples, Sacred Lands, and Loss of Soil: Along with the loss of acres of lush rainforest go indigenous peoples' homes, forests and sacred places, and an abundance of wildlife habitat, potential medicinal plants, and once-rich soil.
Medicines: "1 in 4 ingredients in our medicine come from rainforest plants" - International Tree Foundation. Recent studies have discovered taxol in Pacific Yew is a treatment for breast cancer, Calanolide A found in Calophyllum lanigerum trees in Malaysia is an effective anti-HIV drug, and twenty types of fungi in sloth fur have disease fighting implications and are referred to as the "next penicillin." The Nature Conservancy has found that "less than one percent of the tropical rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value." Are we actually going to continue clearing out the rainforest without testing more than 99% of species with potential to cure deadly diseases?
Soil Loss: Deforestation causes soil to become more susceptible to fires and lessens the chance of nutrient recycling. Where rapid deforestation occurs, the degradation of soil and the prevention of the same trees growing again follows. Trees are considered a renewable resource, but what happens when they are all gone?
Deforesting the tropical rainforests satisfies the demand of rising consumption rates at the expense of the species inhabiting the tropical rainforests. Newly created plantations and pastures will eventually destroy an ecosystem that existed before our time; an ecosystem that contains wildlife found nowhere else.
Who Is Responsible?
The citizens who live in the industrial world are primarily responsible for the destruction of the world’s rainforests and the deterioration of the natural world. Therefore, the citizens of the industrialized world must be accountable for our past and current destructive behaviors. Together, we must do everything possible to reverse the damage we have caused and to protect these valuable resources far into the future.
What can we do?
Personal Consumption: To stop rainforest deforestation we need to be more aware of the products we purchase and consume. Cutting back, or eliminating eating beef, and reducing our use of products that contain soybean and palm oil will help reduce our consumption that fuels deforestation.
Create and Enforce Laws and Policies: To protect our global rainforests, we need to promote the adoption and implementation of strong and effective local, national, and international policies and laws. Visit the Friends of the Amazon website where you can take action in support of three policy changes to stop the destruction of the Amazon forests.
Also, visit Mongabay's website which links important rainforest reform programs.
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