CONVENTIONAL METHODS
1. Rainforest Reserves:
This is the most popular and widely-put forward solution to preserving
the rainforest. Making and protecting these reserves are mostly taken up
by large private organizations. However, the rainforest covers a vast area
and it is incorrect to believe in the first place that the greater proportion
of the genetic diversity of the Amazon rainforest (where the total number
of individuals of each species tends to be low, and the variety tends to
be great) can be protected by limited areas of reserves. The diversity of
the Amazon makes it inevitable that large-scale projects will lead to the
extinction of large numbers of species. Only by trying to protect the greatest
area of the Amazon rainforest can we preserve the gargantuan genetic diversity
of organisms contained in the tropical rainforest. In addition to being
hopelessly unable to ensure the survival of the Amazon's diversity, the reserve
system is widely used as an excuse by mining and timber industries to exploit
the unreserved areas.
2. Sustained Yield Forestry:
This is a very "in-mode" term to use in questions regarding logging in
the Amazon rainforest. This basically refers to a system of logging where
there is a continual maintenance of a whole ecosystem where logging is done
in a fixed area, the area of the rainforest allowed to regrow, and then logged
again, resulting in a "sustained yield" in a closed ecosystem. However,
as of yet, there are no examples of sustainable, industrial tropical timber
operations in the world. There are three very important reasons for this:
- Bad methods of extraction: Extraction of logs requires heavy machinery
and the continual movement of these machinery along with the cutting of
trees results in the compacting of soil. As explained in the logging section,
it destroys the soil profile, so that the timber trees cannot regrow to their
full extent, so the yield cannot practically be sustained.
- Commercial Pressures: All industries are in the business in the
long run to make profits. And profits are made by the minimization of costs
and fast and efficient production. As such, timber and logging industries
are in no way inclined to waste their time regrowing used lands when there
are more trees all around. Neither do they want to waste financial resources
in reforestation techniques which will lower their profits.
- Corruption: This is an insidious problem associated with most third-world
countries. Government officials are quite susceptible to bribes and when
they're not, its quite easy to remove them from the picture. This makes
it easy for large corporations to legalize their wrongful activities and
gain licenses to more and more land, once what they have is used up. The
cost of bribing high officials or making them disappear is much more cost-
and time-effective for the timber industrialists than applying sustained
yield forestry and reforesting used lands.
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3. Displacement of Indigenous Peoples:
Using techniques such
as rainforest reserves, the government and different organizations displace
indigenous people from their land, failing to recognize their civil
rights over their own lands, and disintegrating these indigenous cultures
in the process. It is undoubtedly a fact that any reforestation or
preservation technique must include the assistance of indigenous people
who have been living in harmony with the Amazon for thousands of centuries.
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4. The Tropical Forest Action Plan:
TFAP was the first major international attempt aimed at tackling the
problems facing the Amazon rainforest. With billions of dollars and international
support, it has failed. A few of the simple reasons for this include:
- It operates on the assumption that giving
monetary value to the rainforest itself will provide others with motivation
to save it. So, this plan aims at promoting the tropical timber industry.
However, lack of proper enforcement has allowed the industry to thrive
using the TFAP's help along with illegal means to bypass regulations.
- It focuses on the wrong problems and
blames the victims for the problems. Basic causes as identified by TFAP
are overpopulation and poverty of third-world South American countries,
but it fails to recognize the role of industrialized countries who use the
Amazon's resources as raw materials, and the essential problem of landlessness
of the poor farmers who have been displaced from what little land they
had by the large timber corporations in the first place.
- The TFAP left no room for grassroots
participation and worked independently of NGOs (Non-Government Organizations).
As such, the concerns of the poor farmers went largely unnoticed, and
a plan where the majority of the peoples problems are not addressed is
bound to fail.
5. The International Biodiversity Program :
A "Biodiversity Action Program" pursued by the World Bank, it aims fails
to confront the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.
- It encourages monocultures, i.e. growing only a single kind
of crop on the same land, year after year, failing to recognize that a key
aspect to biodiversity loss is the replacement of traditional species-rich
agriculture and forest practices with large-scale monocultures.
- It promotes creating reserves as an important way to preserve
rainforests and as explained above, it fails to protect the Amazon's diversity,
and also justifies the exploitation of the rest of the Amazon rainforest.
- Biodiversity is valued in monetary terms, and is not recognized
for its own sake. As long as money is involved, the principles of conservation
cannot be fully appreciated and human values regarding preservation will
not change.
- The program places too much important and uses too many resources
on protecting the genetic diversity of the Northern parts where there is
more civilization and large organizations, like International Bureau for
Plant Genetic Resources, are located, and comparatively ignores the Southern
portions where most of the Amazon's diversity is concentrated.
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