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1. Curbing the timber trade:
The most destructive problem in the Amazon right now is undoubtedly logging,
i.e. the extraction of timber and subsequent unnecessary destruction that
results from it. To preserve the rainforest, it is necessary to end the
practices of uncaring loggers.
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- The first step towards achieving this would be to end the illegal
practices of loggers and forcing them to recognize and use environmentally
sound procedures to extract timber from the Amazon rainforest. Some major
steps have been taken by Brazil in the past year to stop illegal mahogany
logging, but this enforcement needs to go further and seek out all the other
illegal operations. Forcing the logging industry to use environmentally sound
procedures to extract timber has already been proven possible by a certification
program introduced by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 1993. Made
up of timber users and timber traders from 25 different countries, as well
as human rights and environmental groups, it appointed four international
organizations to certify the timber practices of operators that applied to
the FSC as being environmentally sound. These logs were then marked with
FSC-certified seals, and if consumers can be made aware of the work of the
FSC, then it would undoubtedly put enormous pressure on the other logging
operations whose methods are environmentally unsound to change their ways.
The FSC members all agree upon its principles and certification criteria,
but the FSC itself still does not have the total support of the South American
governments and the international community, so its operations are still restricted.
- The second step, and probably one that should be worked upon in conjunction
with the first step, is to work to curb the wastage and over consumption
of timber products. The most important use of timber is in the furniture
and building industry and in the production of paper. We must work to make
people aware of the harm timber extraction is causing and find better and
more efficient extraction methods where only mature timber trees are cut
and transported from the forest without destroying other trees in the process,
such as RIL, or Reduced-Impact Logging . At the same time, we must try to
find alternatives to timber in the furniture industry through the use of
synthetic products made artificially, using other material to build houses,
like brick, and more and better recycling campaigns of paper (conservative
estimates show that wood logging could be reduced by at least 40% if paper
was efficiently recycled).
- Once these are made possible, thus reducing the world market's dependence
upon the timber industry in the process, the third step can be taken once
and for all to end the import of tropical timber and tropical wood products
from natural rainforests.
2. Subsistence Farmers and Landlessness Faced by Peasants:
As important as it might be to save the rainforest, it can in no way take
precedence over the protection and welfare of the peasant farming majority
of Brazil. A large portion of the Brazilian populace earns their living
from using the Amazon land for agriculture.
- The first step to be taken in this case is imparting upon the uneducated
farmers of Brazil the modern knowledge of soil composition, soil fertilization
and crop rotation. A huge part of Brazilian agriculture is based on growing
cash crops on cleared land of the Amazon. This is usually a single crop
grown over and over on the land for its cash value in the market. What the
farmers fail to realize is that this uses only certain portions of the already
vulnerable Amazonian soil, leaving no room for recovery and generally hastens
soil disruption. Methods of increasing soil longevity must be introduced
using crop rotation, as well as formation of self-cycling soil profile for
agriculture using the aforementioned crop rotation and fertilizers and other
artificial means. This is undoubtedly easier said than done because even
after intensive research, none has been able to come up with a solution for
the unique Amazonian soil consisting of a combination of sandy loam, clay,
etc. However, there are already some researchers claiming that they might
be near to a possible solution to this agroforestry problem.
- An important and integral problem related with landlessness and agriculture
is the problem of the infertile wasteland which has already been deforested
and, because of disrupted soil profile, cannot be reforested. This is a
huge unused land area which could be used for agriculture. But the only
way to make use of this barren land would be to regenerate the soil with
its previous levels of minerals and nutrients. This means finding a suitable
method of reforestation and using proper fertilizers on the disrupted soil.
And once again, we face the same problem as described earlier. No one has,
as of yet, been able to put forward suitable fertilizers or a plan for planting
suitable types of flora to regenerate the soil.
3. Recognizing the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples:
For centuries, logging industries, mining industries, developmental projects
like dams, etc. have managed to deny indigenous peoples their rights to
the forest and sometimes, deny even their existence. Indigenous people
were the first ones in the rainforest and have been able to live in harmony
with the rainforest for thousands of years and know a lot of complex cycles
of the Amazonian ecosystem. Any realistic solution must be able to delve
into the amazingly rich knowledge gathered and stored by the generations
of indigenous peoples. In 1990, the Colombian Government gave back half
of its Amazonian territory to its rightful indigenous owners and acknowledged
that they were the best guardians of the forest. In Papua New Guinea and
Ecuador, the Rainforest Information Centre and other organizations are supporting
small-scale developmental projects in the rainforests involving the original
indigenous people of the area. All of these efforts have proven to be at
least moderately successful, and the only thing that remains is for us to
follow the example and utilize indigenous knowledge in large-scale projects.
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4. Poverty, Overpopulation and Inequality in World Economics:
Brazil and the other South American countries are third-world countries
and are inevitably exploited by the industrialized nations. Our global economy
is based on the continual need for growth of the economy, and the current
state of Brazilian economy is one based heavily on its Amazonian resources.
This is in direct conflict with conservation ideals and must be reconciled.
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- Firstly, we must remember that the troubles in the Amazon is not
one that only Brazil or South America faces, but one affecting the whole
world. Industrial nations must also contribute to this and one of the necessary
contributions would be to reduce the skewed demand for cash crops, like tobacco,
which is hastening the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. They must also
stop giving financial aid to destructive "developmental" projects in the
Amazon, like building roads through the Amazon which only makes it easier
for logging and mining companies and cattle ranchers and farmers to get into
the rainforest and destroy it for their own selfish purposes.
- Second, as described earlier, we must take steps to reduce the demand
for logging in international markets, and the same must be done for the
demand for beef, which comes largely from cattle-ranching plantations in
the Amazonian land.
- Third, problems with changing the current system in Brazil arise
partly as a result of overpopulation and occupational immobility of the
majority of the uneducated Brazilian farmers. Education must be given a
priority right now, and the grants and loans of the industrial nations must
be used to increase literacy rates rather that perpetuate and propagate harmful
"developmental" projects in the Amazon. Education will necessarily reduce
population growth once people learn of contraceptive methods and the advantages
of a small family. Education will also teach them of the need for preservation
and allow people to look for other and better jobs in the secondary and tertiary
(service) industries, thus being able to leave primary industries like agriculture
and reducing the pressure on the Amazonian land.
- Fourth, industrial nations must, for all reasons and purposes, reduce
or forgive the debts of the developing countries in South America. With
the heavy debt dangling on their heads, Brazil and other nations have no
other choice than to destroy and take advantage of their natural resources
(i.e. the Amazon) by selling of tropical timber to make money and pay their
debts. At the same time, this also means that they have no capital left
over to be used on the country's development through education programs.
