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Ian White
Mrs. Kemmerer
English IV.
6 January 2009
Deforestation of the Rainforests
The tropical forests of the earth are extremely vital for the stability of the global
climate. They are also imperative to water supplies. Water contained within the
vegetation of the tropical rainforests is released into the atmosphere through a process
of evaporation. This continuous cycle of evaporation prevents droughts and floods
throughout all seven continents. However, droughts and floods are not the only
environmental disasters averted through tropical forests. In recent years, global
warming has plagued today’s world. Along with the water stored in the trees and
plants, the Amazon River contains one-sixth of all the fresh water in the world. This
constant flow of fresh water is larger than the world’s next eight largest rivers combined
(McCuen 9-86). Rainforests help prevent this ecological hazard, global warming,
because the trees and plants within the rainforests take in the excess greenhouse gas,
carbon dioxide. The plants and trees use this excess carbon dioxide to produce oxygen.
In fact, twenty five percent of all global carbon missions come from the tropical
rainforests. Without the trees and plants taking in the carbon dioxide, this green house
gas would become over abundant in the atmosphere. Therefore, the unfortunate
progression of global warming will not be slowed by the rainforests. This depletion will
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ultimately lead to more violent storms and heavier rainfall patterns in upcoming years.
This is due to the large changes in the global climate, causing warmer air to meet with
colder air from the north. When these two separate air forms meet, the spin causing a
cyclone to form which is how a hurricane or tornado is formed. Hurricanes such as
Katrina are said to be direct effects of the Amazon Rainforest (Vincent).
Although deforestation in the world’s rainforests can have economic value,
ultimately the deforestation will have serious consequences on the ecollogial balance of
the world: namely geothermal threats such as global warming, ecocide issues, and
mass extinctions of plants, trees, and animals, along with native tribes.
Each year in the rainforests across the world, approximately 2.5 million acres are
destroyed permanently, accounting for ecocide, the destruction a habitats due to
overexploitation of resources, or the dumping of harmful chemicals, on a massive global
scale. The main cause of rainforest deforestation is due to greedy business men,
expanding industries, and new farming techniques. Many of the expanding logging
industries use a technique known as slash and burn to obtain wanted trees from the
forests. This process calls for cutting and burning of several trees, to acquire just one or
two valuable trees. The burning of the trees emits more carbon dioxide into the air
further contributing to global warming. Also, the running of heavy machinery such as
bulldozers and log cutters leads to soil compaction and gasoline or oil leaks. These oils
then sit on top of the compacted soil and are emitted into the ecosystem the next time
a rainfall occurs. This occurrence leads to the mass pollution of plants and waterways.
The loss of land and heavy pollution factors within the ecosystem also takes a large toll
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on the animals. The loss of the animal’s habitat forces them to move into unfamiliar
territory. This move into a new territory often ends up killing the animals off and makes
many species become endangered or extinct. Many farmers in the forests use the same
slash and burn technique as logging industries. For them, the land is cleared to harvest.
To keep their plants healthy, pesticides are sprayed upon their crops. This contributes
to the pollution of air particles and water run-off. In addition, many farmers clear land
in order to ranch cattle. The growing cow populations lead to the overgrazing of land
and complete soil degradation. The land then becomes useless to the rancher, so they
move on to repeat this process elsewhere. Meanwhile, the land left behind is lifeless
and inhabitable for years. (McCuen 88-94).
Throughout the past thousands of years, rainforests have evolved into places of
great biodiversity. They contain the planet’s vastest variety of plant and animal life
known to man. Though these tropical forests cover only about ten percent of the
Earth’s land, they are home to over 50,000 species of plants and fungi, one fifth of all
birds, 3,000 species of fish, and an uncounted number of insects and animals, many yet
to even be discovered. In fact, rainforests are home to over half of all species known to
man. (Kaufman 69). Included in this great biodiversity are plants from which medicines
and vaccines are derived to cure illnesses. However, with the continuance of
deforestation in these tropical regions, plants and animals are at a serious risk of
extinction. While rainforests are disappearing at a rate of 2,500 acres an hour, the
world is losing several species each hour (McCuen 9). It is said that mankind has
increased the normal extinction rate up to 10,000 percent, mainly in rainforests.
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Professional estimates in the late 1990’s had estimated the dying off and extinction of
9,000 species, three fourths of them being rainforest derived. Some believe that we
today are witnessing the largest extinction since that of the dinosaurs, and watching it
happen at a much more rapid pace. (Save the Rainforest)
Power plantations use the Amazon River and its basins to their advantage by
damming the river causing flooding and the extinction of plants and trees to produce
certain forms of energy. With each dam built, water flow into the Atlantic Ocean is cut
off, causing less and less fresh water to be distributed. The main source of power in
Brazil comes from these hydroelectric dams. When these dams are built, a vast area of
land is flooded out, causing vegetation to die off and forcing animal or human life to
quickly move out. Along with this occurrence, the stagnant water dramatically increases
waterborne illnesses. These constructed dams trap valuable nutrients, jeopardizing
downstream ecosystems and aquatic life. These reduced levels of nutrients in the river
silt leads to coastal erosion and land depletion. (McCuen 9).
Over the years, the leading cause of deforestation has pointed back to logging
and the industries that support it. In 1993 alone, the World Bank prepared Cameroon
with a 30 million dollar loan to run an 8.6 million acre forest logging operation. An
operation of this magnitude will lead to a severe depletion or possible extinction of
several plants and animal species. In a statement by Jose A Lutzenberger, entitled
“The Biggest Holocaust,” he stated “We are witnessing today in Brazil and in much of
Latin America the biggest holocaust in the history of life. Never in the course of three
and a half thousand years, since the first stirrings of life on this planet, has there been
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such a wholesale, accelerated, violent and irreversible demolition of all living systems as
today. We have passed the point where we only desecrate this or that scenic landscape,
this or that ecosystem. We are now in the process of demolishing whole biomes. Now
we are getting ready to finish off the last large, more or less intact and contiguous
jungle on Earth, the Hylaea, or tropical rainforest of Amazonia.” (qtd. in McCuen 10-11)
Home building has also become a growing problem throughout the rainforest. In
order to build a home, the land must be cleared. To achieve this, acres upon acres of
trees and plant life are cut down and burned. The soil is then cultivated for home
building or planting areas. A house is established and crop gardens are created. Due to
the lack of soil nutrients, tropical gardens are only valuable for one to two years. After
this, the land is deserted and left nearly lifeless. The farmer then moves onto new land,
repeating his or her destruction. This process of clearing is done continuously through
one’s lifetime, leaving hundreds of acres of tropical vegetation useless (McCuen 9).
Today, one fourth of all prescribed drugs in the United States are directly from
plants within the tropical forests. In 1991, Steven R. King wrote “ For 500 years, since
the people of the South America encountered Europeans on their soil, the global
pharmacopoeia has been enriched by a number of important plant-derived medicines
discovered and utilized by indigenous people. The skeletal muscle relaxant dtubocurarine is derived from an Amazonian arrow poison better known as curare,
Chonodendron tomentosum. The anti-malarial drug quinine, obtained from the bark of
several species of Cinchona trees, was first called ‘Indian fever bark.’ One of the world’s
most important anesthetics, cocaine, is derived from the leaves of Erthroxylum coca
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and is still used today as a medicine by thousands of people in the Andean region of
South America. Pilocarpine, a drug used to treat glaucoma, is derived from the plant
Pilocarpus jaborandi and was utilized by indigenous people in Brazil as medicine.” With
the destroying of these plants, medicines and vaccines like these will become nonexistent. (McCuen 15-16)
The tropical rainforests of the world were once said to be home to six to nine
million indigenous tribes and native people. Through the years, deforestation and the
arrival of outsiders has nearly caused a complete extinction of these native people. Gold
mining and foresters, along with governmental decree in the Amazon has greatly
affected the Yanomami tribe of Roraima, a small section of the Amazon rainforest in
Brazil. With the arrival of prospectors and outsiders such as loggers, land has been
cleared for over one hundred airstrips to supply materials. This has greatly vacated the
plants and animals the Yanomami native tribe uses to prevent illness and hunger. The
clearing of the land kills off important plants, and the running of machinery scares away
animals that are hunted for food by the Yanomami. With foreign people coming into the
lands, disease has become a great threat, causing numerous deaths to tribe members.
Malaria has become a widespread disease among the Yanomami, affecting more than
ninety percent of its people. Along with tuberculosis and pneumonia, AIDS has also
overtaken the Yanomami people. Roraima now has the third largest incidence of AIDS
in Brazil, and this is all due to loggers intruding their lands. The government has also
had a great affect on this native tribe by taking away their rights to land for no
apparent reason. Their land has been limited from an original 95,000 kilometers to
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24,000 kilometers, which was then divided into nineteen ‘islands.’ From 1987 to 1990,
an estimated 1,500 tribal members have died or been killed causing their numbers to
fall from 9,000 to 7,500. Under many of the same circumstances, the Kayapo, who
were one of the first people to settle in the Amazon, have had their population
decreased by eighty five percent, due to the arrival of outsiders and land deductions by
government (Park 111-118). Over 50,000 native Pygmies were forced to leave their
homes in which they lived in for centuries due to the World Bank loan in Cameroon
mentioned before (McCuen 9, 55-60). In the 1550’s, an estimated nine million tribal
members lived in the tropical rainforests around the world. In the early to mid 1900’s,
the number of natives living in these forests had dropped to nearly one million. Recent
studies have now placed these indigenous tribe numbers at less than 250,000. Native
tribes have faced extinction for hundreds of years due to the greediness of a selfish
government wanting more land for themselves, and the arrival of outsiders.
Throughout the past thousands of years, deforestation of the rainforest has
become a serious problem. While a small number of business men or farmers thrive for
a small amount of time, local tribes, plants, and animals fight for their survival. Not only
are they the ones feeling the direct effects of this destruction, but all the people of
today’s world. When studies were conducted, they failed to show the amount of
destruction being done, because they never considered the amount of land left, but
only the amount of forest being destroyed. By doing this, only the logging process an
industry was completing was looked at, not all of the other amounts of forest that had
already been destroyed. More recent studies considered these factors, and revealed the
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discovery of more missing species than ever thought (Stevens 4). These increases in
temperature due to rising carbon dioxide levels have contributed greatly to global
warming. With the clearing of each acre, the amount of carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere is increasing. A study in the 1980’s showed that approximately 1.4 billion
tons of carbon dioxide was released during the process of deforestation in the tropics.
Other estimates show that deforestation is approximately twenty five to thirty percent
of all greenhouse emissions, totaling to account for more than half of global warming.
Along with the mass production of carbon dioxide being produced, other non-friendly
gases like methane are on the rise. This is due to the large amounts of livestock in a
farmers herd, which release the toxic gas methane in their waste products. The
combination of these gasses along with others is creating one giant global disaster. The
plants and animals in colder areas of the world are dying, or being forced to live under
new, unusual conditions. With the running of every machine and the burning of every
tree and plant, pollution is almost certain. The heavy machinery required to cut down
trees or build the hydroelectric dams leads to the spilling of oils and chemicals into the
ecosystem. Farming pesticides are sprayed on heavy, and in return spread through a
large area of land in the forest. With all these components together, the amount of
ecocide in a rainforest is an unstoppable killing force. In 1993, researchers finally
realized that the amount of species being lost was much greater than expected. (Park
102-103)
While there are organizations and fundraisers out there to help try and save the
remaining rainforests, simply not enough is being done. Many plans and ideas of
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reforestation or the regrowth of plants and trees, more efficient wood stoves, and
government regulations have dwindled in the air for many years. The main problem
with these proposals to stop or at most slow down deforestation is they are not being
followed through by the people who present them. This is mainly due to a lack of
knowledge on what is truly happening, and the amount of expenses business men
would lose. The depletion of the remaining rainforests is a problem of the present, not
the future, and needs to be acted upon quickly. In 1990, at Kew Gardens in London,
Prince Charles lectured his people telling them “we are literally the last generation
which can save the rainforests from total destruction…if we don’t act now, there won’t
be much rainforest for our children to be concerned about….For hundreds of years, the
industrialized nations of the world have exploited – some would say plundered – the
tropical rainforests for their natural wealth. The time has come to put something back,
quickly.” However, the severity of deforestation is never realized until new statistics
come out, showing the amount of land that has been cleared. Researchers, scientists,
and ordinary people are then amazed at how fast the rainforests are truly disappearing.
In 1999, an estimated 142,000 kilometers of rainforest were destroyed. Another study
in 2000 showed that another 170,000 kilometers of rainforest had disappeared. The
largest amounts of forest being slash cut and burned, were those of the Amazon
Rainforest in South America. Pinpointing the main cause of destruction in the rainforest
is very difficult to stop, because no one problem will resolve deforestation. Efforts to
make certain parts of the rainforest untouchable natural reserves or parks have been a
short term and common problem resolver. This plan could work, but much larger areas
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will be needed to be set aside to provide protection to the many species of the
rainforest. Another factor limiting the amount of land set aside lies on the shoulders of
those in charge in foreign countries. In many countries, protestors of deforestation are
arrested by government officials, and sometimes beaten or killed for their beliefs. The
government see’s these people and feels that they do not want their country to thrive
for the wealth that lies within the rainforest. Without the cooperation of the
government, efforts to set up a reserve or park are nearly impossible. (Warhol 35-50)
So is the deforestation of the rainforests a catastrophe or just simply an
inconvenience? Ultimately, deforestation has the potential to leave our world in ruins.
The extinction of plants, animals, and native tribes is itself a serious consequence of
deforestation. With nearly 2.5 million acres of rainforests being permanently destroyed,
the entire globe is experiencing an ecocide. If an ecocide does not account for a global
catastrophe, than neither does genocide. Deforestation must come to a halt in order to
prevent a world of serious, harmful change.