Amazon General Information
6/8/94
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Following is as good of general introduction on Amazon
rainforest issues as I have seen in a while. It would work well
as a general campaign information piece. The article orginated
with the Rainforest Action Network and was found in the econet
conference rainfor.general.
g.b.
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
/* Written 3:21 pm Jun 8, 1994 by rainforest in
igc:rainfor.genera */
/* ---------- "Amazon Fact Sheet" ---------- */
THE AMAZON RAINFOREST
OVERVIEW:
The Amazon Rainforest lies within the Amazon Basin, the 1.2
billion acre area drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries.
This enormous region, representing 30% of the world's tropical
forest area, encompasses large sectors of Brazil, Venezuela,
Guyana, Surinam, French Guyana, Bolivia, and Columbia, as well as
the eastern regions of Ecuador and Peru. Once a virtual sea of
tropical vegetation, large areas of the Amazon now resemble
something more akin to large, moth-eaten carpets - the dense green
pocked and scarred by roads, farms, ranches, dams, and the like.
For numerous economic, political, and social reasons, the Amazon
Rainforest is disappearing at a staggering rate. The destruction
is having devastating effects on the region's ecology, as well
as on the people who live in and around this region. Deforestation
is also seriously effecting global climate and robbing the world
of crucial biodiversity.
The Amazon Basin formed somewhere between 500 and 200 million
years ago. Although the Amazon is referred to as a rain 'forest',
it, like similar tropical regions, is comprised of a variety of
unique biomes including grassy savannas and plateaus, swamp land,
open and dense scrub land, wetland areas, low forest areas,
rivers, and lakes.
Unlike their equivalents in temperate zones, tropical forests are
enormously rich in plant and animal life. The presence of much of
this biodiversity is attributed to the fact that parts of the
Amazon served as 'refuges' to plant and animal species during the
last Ice Age. Rainforests are home to approximately half the
world's 30 million plant and animal species!1
By 1991, an estimated 10.5% of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest had
been razed.2 The rapidity of the rate of destruction becomes
apparent when you consider that only 2.4% of the Amazon had been
deforested by 1970 (also the year during which building of the
Trans-Amazonian Highway began).3
In the 10 year period between 1978 and 1988, the Brazilian
rainforest was destroyed at the alarming rate of 22,000 sq. km. a
year - an area approximately the size of Massachusetts.4 (There
has been a relatively sharp decrease in the rate of loss in
Brazil over the last few years, but this is widely attributed to
the country's worsening economic recession rather than to any
measures taken to preserve the forest).
During certain years so much of the Brazilian rainforest was
burned down that the smoke choked major cities and forced airports
to close.
FLOODING, DROUGHT AND EROSION
Deforestation has a significant affect on climate, in part because
the forest plays such an important role in the water cycle,
'recycling' rain back to the clouds. At ground level, the
rainforest acts as a sponge, releasing ground water slowly over
time. When land is cleared, flooding and drought result as
rainwater travels quickly through the ground without vegetation to
regulate it. Mud slides, desertification, and the erosion of
precious topsoil also result when forest land is denuded.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
Tragically, the indigenous tribal peoples who inhabit the
rainforests are often regarded as obstacles to 'development'. This
sentiment is reflected in a Brazilian official's statement that,
"Not until all Amazonas is colonized by real Brazilians, not
Indians, can we truly say we own it."
For countless generations indigenous peoples have lived in the
forests of the Amazon engaged in a complex and sustainable
relationship with the land involving hunting, gathering, and
subsistence farming. They have developed technologies and
resource-use systems, such as agroforestry, which are just now
being suggested as models for efficient rainforest management.
The greatest threat to the Amazon's tribal people, most of whom
live in the rainforest, involves the conflicts that inevitably
result when their territory is invaded by ranchers, miners, land
speculators, and oil companies.
There is somewhere over one million indigenous people living in
the Amazon today. Based upon accounts of continuous tribal
settlements along the Amazon river by the first European
explorers, anthropologists have estimated there may have
been as many as six to eight million indigenous people in the
Amazon 500 years ago. Of the estimated 900 indigenous groups that
are thought to have inhabited this region in 1500, approximately
180 survive today.
Indigenous people have organized regional and national Indian
organizations to press for their rights. Among their priorities
are recognition of territorial reserves, economic self-development
on a community level, and bilingual education programs to sustain
their culture.
OTHER TRADITIONAL FOREST PEOPLES
Over the past century, many non-Indian people have migrated to the
Amazon, married Indian women, and settled in the forest. These
'riverine' people have adopted indigenous methods of forest
management, learned the uses of hundreds of plants, and like
indigenous people, have maintained a close spiritual connection
with the forest.
Now, rubber tappers, whose primary source of income comes from
tapping rubber trees and gathering forest products which do not
require the cutting of trees (such as Brazil nuts), have become
champions of the forest's survival.
Chico Mendes, perhaps the best known rubber tapper leader, was
killed by cattle ranchers in Acre, Brazil because he opposed their
plans to clear the Acrean forest.
It is estimated that as many as one million people throughout the
Amazon still earn a living by extracting renewable forest
resources including medicinal plants, dyes, palm fibers, and plant
oils.
Many of these people have lived deep in the forest, and have been
subject to coercion and debt slavery by unscrupulous merchants and
their hired gunmen. Now, they are organizing to create
cooperatives to market products, and have succeeded in promoting
the first 'extractive reserves' where they manage their
traditional forest areas.
CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION:
%SMALL-SCALE FARMING AND THE NEED FOR LAND REFORM
Landlessness is a problem throughout Amazonia. It is due not to
population size, in fact, but to gross inequality in land
ownership. In Brazil, for example, a small handful of landowners
possess nearly half of the country's arable land. The region's
governments avoid the need for land reform by allowing millions of
peasants to colonize the rainforest.
The soil in a tropical forest is thin and surprisingly infertile
(the vast majority of the nutrients are found in the vegetation
itself). When settlers plant and clear an area of rainforest, the
land becomes useless for crop production after a few seasons,
forcing farmers to move deeper and deeper into the forest,
clearing more land every few years.
In Brazil, over the past two decades, 24 million farmers have been
forced off productive farmland. With no other recourse, many of
these displaced people feel compelled to migrate to the Amazon to
take part in the rainforest colonization schemes. These programs
are promoted by the government and funded by the World Bank.
%CATTLE RANCHES
The majority of the destruction in the Amazon Basin is not due to
the slash and burn agriculture of peasant farmers, however, but to
cattle ranchers and land speculators who burn huge tracts of
rainforest before planting the areas with African grasses for
pasture. In Brazil, government figures attributed 38% of
deforestation in the years between 1966 and 1975 to large scale
cattle ranching, 31% to agriculture, and 27% to highway
construction.5 (Many ranchers actually received tax breaks from
the government in return for their investing in the Amazon).
These ranchers do not produce much beef for the international
market, however. Due to the presence of hoof-and-mouth disease,
only pre-cooked beef is allowed to enter the U.S. or European
community. In fact, the ranchers principal motivation for
occupying and clearing the Amazon rainforest is land
speculation.
%LOGGING
Various Asian logging companies have recently begun stepping up
their operations in Amazonian Guyana, despite the opposition of
local indigenous communities. This activity has led to the
pollution of water supplies, the forced resettlement of
indigenous people, and the bulldozing of crops without the
provision of compensation to farmers.
One Asian timber company recently received a 50-year logging
license from the Guyana government. This firm plans to export
300,000 cubic meters of raw logs the first year, while increasing
its annual export to 1.2 million cubic meters after 10 years. (The
total Guyanese national export of raw logs in 1989 amounted to
only 94,000 cubic meters).6
%LARGE AND SMALL-SCALE MINING
Amazonian mining operations play a major role in the decimation of
this region. Apart from forest destruction in the area immediately
surrounding a mine, roads are built, wiping out trees and allowing
settlers to pour into an area.
Countless numbers of rainforest trees are also felled to produce
the charcoal required to operate iron ore smelters in the Carajs
region. Mercury used in the ore extraction process poisons rivers,
affecting aquatic life downstream. Many large Amazonian fish
populations have perished as a result.
Mining is having drastic consequences for Amazonian Indians as
well as for the forest. Since 1987, when gold was discovered on
the land of Brazil's Yanomami Indians, tens of thousands of miners
have illegally entered the area. The Indians have been forced to
abandon traditional villages and are dying from diseases brought
in by the invaders. (The Indians have no natural immunity to
viruses brought in from the outside world).
In 1993, the world was stunned when 19 Yanomami were brutally
massacred during a series of attacks by gold miners.
%OIL DRILLING
Widespread oil development has had devastating effects in the
western Amazon. The growing world demand for this resource (26% of
all petroleum is used by the U.S.) has lead to the colonization of
previously inaccessible rainforest regions, the usurpation of
indigenous territories, contamination of water supplies, massive
deforestation (due to the construction of roads and pipelines),
and the extinction of some indigenous groups, who are given no say
as to whether or not the oil frontier pushes forward.
Approximately one dozen international oil giants currently conduct
drilling operations in the 'Oriente', the upper Ecuadorian region
of the Amazon where most of the South American oil reserves are
found. For the past 20 years spillage from these oil fields has
been entering the Oriente's formerly crystalline rivers - ones
which comprise the headwaters of much of the Amazon's river
system. Oil is extremely toxic. Once it enters the food chain it
eventually leads to the contamination of human food supplies.
Ecuador's economy is heavily dependent on oil, which provides over
half of the country's exports and finances a large percentage of
the interest payments on its $12 billion debt. Unfortunately, the
economies of other South American countries, including Venezuela,
Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia, are also dependent on this finite
resource and have announced plans to increase oil exploration in
the future.
%THE WORLD BANK
The World Bank can be blamed for financing the demise of enormous
tracts of rainforest. This international lending organization is
notorious for it's history of backing ill-conceived 'mega-
projects', such as the Tucurui Dam, which displaced 25,000
people and submerged some 900 square miles of Amazonian forest.
Two additional World Bank funded operations frequently sited as
inappropriate include the Greater Carajs Mining Project, which
created a mining zone the size of France and Germany combined in
the eastern Amazon, and the Polonoroeste Project, which promoted
the colonization of the rainforests of Rondnia, Brazil by one
million migrant farmers.
%OTHER CAUSES
Brazil's foreign debt currently exceeds $112 billion, and the
country must pay a sizable portion of its GNP each year just to
service the interest. In order to earn the foreign exchange
required to service this massive debt, the governments of Amazon
countries promote agribusiness, oil exploration, mining, and other
export-oriented enterprise. Unfortunately, these types of
development projects are ultimately unsustainable and, more often
than not, result in rainforest destruction.
The Amazon is also seen as a region of geopolitical importance by
powerful military establishments. Virtually every Amazon country
has suffered a period of military dictatorship in recent decades,
and the armed forces still wield significant civil authority.
The Brazilian military has established posts throughout the forest
near the borders with Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, and Surinam as
part of an operation known as the Calha Norte Project. Large
factions of the military justify the army's occupation and
destruction of the rainforest as being vital to 'national
security'. The apparent goal of the operation is to gain control
of the frontier by establishing a physical presence in the area
with the construction of military bases, schools, clinics, and
airstrips.7 Some critics say that the military's real interests
lie in the exploitation of strategic minerals, which in turn will
require the de-population of indigenous communities in border
areas.
In Ecuador, the military refuses to acknowledge the land-ownership
rights of indigenous peoples in border areas. The Peruvian and
Colombian military have fought guerrillas in indigenous regions,
and native people report human rights violations from both sides.
SOLUTIONS EXIST:
Non-governmental organizations like RAN are working closely with
indigenous communities in the Amazon through the Protect-an-Acre
program to develop and implement programs in defense of the
forest and of the human rights of its inhabitants. Areas of focus
include demarcation of indigenous territories and of extractive
reserves, the development of sustainable economic alternatives,
including cooperatives and agroforestry, and the creation of
programs designed to strengthen traditional cultures.
There is hope. The Amazon rainforest is arguably the world's
greatest natural treasure. Its fate depends on using its resources
wisely, and confronting those who would destroy the forest for
short-term gain.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
%Educate yourself further about rainforests and the forces
destroying them.
%Contact and join the Rainforest Action Network.
We'll be glad to give you more information about any f these
issues and about how you can get involved.
%Support the Rainforest Action Network's Protect-an-Acre program
which aims to preserve rainforest areas and support the rights of
indigenous peoples living on the land. (Call or write for more
information).
%Spread the word and voice your concerns: Talk to your friends,
family, and co-workers. Write letters to newspaper editors, to
your senators and representatives, and to government officials.
%Avoid tropical timber products that do not come from local
cooperatives.
%Support appropriate development projects managed by forest
peoples such as community-based eco-tourism and extractive
reserves.
%Support the rights of indigenous peoples.
%Contact organizations which deal with indigenous issues
worldwide:
Survival International AmanakaUa
310 Edgewane Rd. 339 Lafayette St., #8
London, W2, UK New York, NY 10012
Tel: 071-723-5535 Tel: (212) 674-4646
Email: survival@gn.apc.org Fax: (212) 674-9139
Cultural Survival International Indian
215 First Ave. Treaty Council
Cambridge, MA 02142 123 Townsend St., Suite 575
Tel.=(617) 621-3818 San Francisco, CA 94107
Fax= (617) 621-3814 Tel: (415) 512-1501
Email: coltsurv@igc.apc.org Fax: (415) 512-1507
SOURCES
1 Myers, Norman. The Primary Source. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984.
2 Fearnside, Philip M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: The
Effect of Population and Land Tenure". Ambio, vol. 22, no. 8, Dec.
1993.
3 Fearnside.
4 Fearnside.
5 Fearnside.
6 "Asian Loggers Move in on Guyana". Rainforest Action Network
World Rainforest Report. Vol. XI, no. I, Jan. - Mar., 1994.
7 Bridges, Tyler. "The Endangered Amazon". Christian Science
Monitor. Four-part series: Sept. 22, 23, 26, 27, 1988.