Deforestation in Amazonia
The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest rainforest situated in Brail of South America and consequently suffers the most deforestation in the world. Deforestation is the cause for the destruction of the Amazon and rapidly becoming the most reliable method for access to resources such as wood. The countries of Amazonia are poor, less developed countries that rely on the resources of the Amazon rainforest to become richer, more developed countries. However, some people think that they can only do this by destroying the rainforest forever.
The trees of the rainforest can be sold for wood (timber). This timber is in great demand in economically developed countries like Britain, Japan and USA. Accordingly, as it is in great demand, there are many advantages as well as disadvantages of the deforestation of the trees in the Amazon.
There are many people that have an interest in the rainforest such as the large companies in the developed countries who buy the raw materials such as the wood from the rainforest. The business of trade of the materials would most likely improve the developing countries like Peru and Brazil as the government would profit exceedingly and could use the money to build roads or provide the materials for buildings and schools or hospitals as a way to improve the country. As the company will be a transnational company, there will be many, many jobs created in both the developing and developed countries involved in the business thus improving the standard of living for many people in both types of countries. Nevertheless, the destruction of the rainforest will be vast and this use of the rainforest will not protect the forest.
Other types of people that might be interested in the rainforest are the owner and workers of a saw mill. The owner would gain from his business and would also place many local people in employment. This would improve the local people’s standard of living however, the mill would not help the entire country to become more developed. Similarly, this use of the rainforest will not help protect the rainforest however, the destruction of it would not be on such a large scale as the large companies’ use of the forest.
Landless farmers would be under the impression that they would also benefit from the deforestation of the forest land. One of the government’s plans to improve the country is to give landless farmers a way of living by encouraging them to set up small farms on land which has been deforested. The landless farmers accept the land as the government provides it for the cheaply. However, as a result of deforestation, the land has become useless as the soil is infertile and vulnerable to erosion due to the equatorial climate. This means that Brazil would not become more developed because the landless farmers will not have the land suitable for growing crops therefore their standard of living will remain poor, adding to the poverty of the developing country. Subsequently, Brazil is left with the destruction of deforestation and useless soil that cannot be recovered in addition to the problem of damaged scenery, all of which does not protect the Amazon rainforest. One point to be considered is that the jobs created will economically develop the country because tax will be introduced and the government could benefit from the tax money to improve the country by building schools and hospitals etc. so in one way, the poor countries would become more developed.
If the land that has been deforested due to timber being in great demand economically is turned into cattle ranches and plantations, local people would benefit from this as many jobs will be created. Workers will improve their standard of living from this as plantations will allow vital crops such as sugar, coffee and rubber plants to be grown. These raw materials can be sold to economically developed countries, however, growing these crops will be a slow process and the workers would not benefit straight away.
On the other hand, the local tribes like the Kayapo would be against the deforestation of the rainforest completely as their way of living and cultural traditions are destroyed because they are forced off the land to make way for new developments resulting in loss of homes and therefore poor standards of living ensuing again in the poverty of the country.
Natural conservationists and tourists would be against this use of the rainforest because rare animal species would become extinct, as well as rare plant and tree species being destroyed.
For this use of the rainforest to be sustainable, far less trees would have to be destroyed. Statistically, approximately one in twenty trees is of economic value, while the rest are destroyed for no reason, leading to the extinction of rare species of plants and trees, which the natural conservationists would be against. To maintain sustainability of the rainforest by using it for the timber, large companies who buy the raw materials could only cut down the trees of economic value rather than destroying others. Also, removing the deforested trees results in other plant life to be destroyed as roads have to be built and vehicles have to be brought into the rainforest to remove the trees. Residents of the forest are aware of the circumstances and have found others ways to remove the trees without destroying others. Buffaloes have been used to drag the trees out, without the need to build roads. However, using buffaloes to remove the trees would be slow development for the government so a few roads could be built.
