Brazil: Profit and Poverty Fuel Amazon Deforestation

[callady]

Brazil: profit and poverty fuel Amazon deforestation

By John Levine
15 January 2005

This growing environmental disaster is the product of the desperate poverty of Brazil’s farmers, the irrationality of isolationist national development, and the destruction wreaked by global markets dominated by multinational corporations. Without an internationally coordinated management of forests and wildlife, along with a guarantee of a livable wage to all people, no country can maintain threatened ecosystems.

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A few facts will illustrate the importance for humanity of maintaining this forest. The Amazon River Basin represents a third of tropical forests in the world, covering 2.3 million square miles. It stretches over parts of Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It covers about 60 percent of Brazil’s surface. The Amazon River itself contains 20 percent of the joint volume of all the rivers on Earth, and the Amazon rainforest produces about 20 percent of the world’s oxygen.

About half of the world’s plant and animal species are native to the Amazon forest. Many species at risk of extinction have never even been discovered, much less studied. Many scientists consider it the most diverse ecosystem, with at least 60,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds and more than 300 species of mammals. Two and half acres of the Amazon contain more plant species than all of Europe. Among these plants and animals are 33-foot long Anacondas, 10-feet-long, half-ton manatees, and the vitória-régia, the world’s largest flower with a diameter that reaches over 6 feet.

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The wealthiest 10 percent of the population takes in almost half the national income. In contrast, the poorest 10 percent barely survives on 0.7 percent of the income. The richest fifth of the population controls 60 percent of the wealth and the poorest fifth accounts for 2 percent. Less than 3 percent of the population controls two thirds of the arable land. In the late 1990s, when this measurement was last taken, about 20 percent of the population held 88 percent of the land, while the poorest 40 percent owned just 1 percent.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/amaz-j15.shtml

[texpatriot2004]

1. There's got to be a better way, a smarter way. n.t