The Amazon rainforest serves as the planet’s largest biodiversity hotspot, greatest source of flowing fresh water and principal natural air filter. The exotic plants and animals contained within its seemingly impenetrable jungle are responsible for at least 25 percent of the prescription drugs and antibiotics we use every day.
The mighty Amazon River basin drains one-fifth of the fresh water on Earth to the oceans, providing the lifeblood of the majority of South America’s agricultural industry. Its massive forests absorb and transform 1.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide into oxygen every year. And yet the international community stands idly by as 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest are cleared every day, generating about 6 percent to 17 percent of the world’s human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and driving thousands of plants and animals every year to the brink of extinction.
Any objective view of these facts would necessitate both a sense of indignation and moral responsibility to stem the problem. So why don’t we fix it? The obvious answer remains corporate exploitation. Many businesses employ unsustainable practices in pursuit of short-sighted profits to the detriment of natural ecosystems. Cattle ranching, for example, shoulders the blame for up to 70 percent of Amazonian deforestation, as the growing worldwide demand for beef and other meat products has skyrocketed in recent years. As a result, Brazilians now cut down more than 6.1 million acres of rainforest a year and converting it to grazing land for cows.
Such insatiable international stipulation poses a grave threat to the Amazon’s remaining jungle, especially since the byproducts of cattle farming, including manure and pesticides, are difficult to contain and often leak into the surrounding forest. But how do these corporations get away with such brazen crimes against nature? A closer look at Brazilian geopolitics reveals not only the bribes, intimidation, extortion, etc., but also a broader system of economic dependency on the very industries that are destroying this crucial rainforest environment. Due to the systemic problems of poverty and overpopulation in developing countries, fiscally challenged governments cannot devote time and capital toward conservation and sustainable farming.
Brazil contains one-third of the world’s rainforests, including the vast majority of the internationally renowned Amazon. However, about 21 percent of the Brazilian people live in poverty, with direct correlations between economic desperation and geographical proximity to the Amazon. Because of environmental and logistical limitations in these areas, agriculture remains the only viable method of employment, with many of the indigent villagers maintaining modest agrarian outposts, supplying the resources for the corporations mentioned above.
To clear large swaths of land to support the natural resource of developing countries, farmers have turned to slash-and-burn techniques. Employed by between 200 million and 500 million people worldwide, this process involves the cutting and burning of forests to establish cheap makeshift fields for livestock and crop cultivation. Because of the intrinsically shoddy nature of such enterprises, they offer only an ephemeral financial incentive. Furthermore, slash-and-burn agriculture permanently damages the land on which it is conducted, forcing these farmers to venture farther and farther into the rainforest, ultimately yielding diminishing returns.
As a result, developing nations often indirectly force their most insolvent citizens to conduct deforestation for industrial gain, so these same poor farmers are not only the perpetrators of this dangerous trend, but also the victims.
Because of this vicious cycle of dependency, millions of impoverished citizens rely on destructive economic practices, which ultimately harm both the environment and themselves. They have no effective way of fighting against the system that perpetually pushes them further into poverty. Factor in the political influence of multinational corporations and the distractions of the many other pressing needs of the Brazilian government, and it’s a wonder there’s any Amazon left to exploit.
Reuven Bank is a freshman enrolled in letters and sciences. He can be reached at rbankdbk@gmail.com.
