Mining has also made huge ugly scars in the rainforest, as the rainforest soil is full of minerals such as iron, manganese, gold, bauxite, copper, and lead. In one of the tin mines the tin is worth £6000 per tonne. And 3,000 tonnes of tin were being produced every year. The tin is extracted by using high-pressure hoses to wash it out. This is very not enviromentally friendly because all the muck washes into the rivers. Some of the minerals are hard and picks and shovels are used. The local people who are played very small wages pay for very hard work fill this job.
Cattle ranching has damaged the rainforest dramatically. In the 1960’s the government started to offer farmers free land for cattle. A small ranch is about 3,000 hectares whereas a large one is about 15,000 hectares. The cattle are only bred for consumption of the people of Brazil, as it is not of good quality. The farms can become huge because the land is very poor and no fertilizers are available. What the farmers will do is graze their cattle on the poor grass available and when that runs out they clear more forest and start again.
The government also gave out free land to city folk so they could reduce the number of people in the cities and stop overcrowding however none of these people were trained and even though the government promised them fertilizers and good prices for their produce none of this happened. The government wanted to exploit the rainforest for money only. Many of the farms have been deserted because the land is so bad nothing can be produced.
The government also started making HEP dams because they wanted free energy. However they have made quite a few mistakes, as no one cleared out the plants or animals before they built the dams and now the plants are rotting and making the water polluted. They are also finding that their turbines have started to rot.
I think that everyone has some part to play in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. The government should not give out, as many licences for logging they also should much more closely regulate how many trees are being felled. They should pay all the workers better wages. However other countries such as England can also be blamed, as the demand for wood is so high they have contributed as well. The government should have helped all the people who went to find a better life through farming as they were neglected. They should only allow cattle ranches to become a maximum size otherwise the ranchers will slowly but surely eat into the rainforest I think that the government has quite a big responsibility towards the rainforest and I don’t think they have quite realised what an amazing thing they are destroying.
