The lungs of our planet are on fire and the doctors sit quiet and watch. As Amazon burns the keyboard warriors are out on social media shrieking their lungs out asking the world heads and billionaires to help. A common meme that is circulating in social media is the cathedral of Norte-Dame de Paris burning where billionaires helped with immediate funds and no aid for Amazon. Let’s take a closer look first at the region and boundaries of this large green field.
Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, France (French Guiana) are the borders of the Amazon forest. If these were not nations, Amazon on its own is a grand green nation of this planet. This vast green field gets its nutrients from Africa, the Sahara Desert. More than 56 per cent of dust rich in phosphorus comes from Chad in the Sahara Desert. The forest constitutes the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world or should I say it did?
The current fires in the amazon forest in the regions of Brazil and Bolivia have been ignored by the world leaders (doctors) with no immediate action been taken. What do they gain if the Amazon burns? To understand this, we need to understand a few important events in the timeline that has caused today’s blaze in the region.
- The role of the cattle rancher
- Trans Amazonian Highway
The role of the cattle rancher
This is a group of people who moved into the amazon during the 70’s with promised agricultural and grazing land. Soon it turned out to be the law of the wild west, ranchers fenced acres of land and claimed it as their own. This also brought in the slash and burn of forest lands for better grazing of their cattle. The indigenous tribes living in amazon began suffering as the land was been mowed down and traditional methods of hunting, fishing and conserving nature was being destroyed. The methods were also soon followed by soya bean cultivators who would set afire hectares of forest land for soya plantation. The soya industry of Brazil was set to outgrow US last year by 117million tones which means a land are of 500,000 to 700,000 hectares per year is required for cultivation.
Jair Bolsonero during his first speech after winning the presidential elections said, “We are the one country that most preserves the environment. No other country in the world has as many forests as we do. Agriculture takes place in no more than 9% of our territory, and it has grown thanks to its technology and farmers’ competence. Less than 20% of our soil is devoted to animal husbandry”.
Keeping that in mind he ignored the fires that blazed in Amazon and spread to neighbouring consuming hectares of land.
In neighbouring Bolivia, the story is the same as the cattle ranchers. According to the Friends of Nature Foundation (FAN) between 2005 and 2018, more than 7.1 million hectares of burned forest have been detected throughout Bolivia. Of this figure, 71% is concentrated in Santa Cruz and 21% in Beni. In 2018 — FAN indicates — the areas burned in Beni totalled 1.8 million hectares. The battle between the cattle ranchers, agro-producers and the Amazon is probably a never-ending battle. Bolivia has a supreme decree that allows controlled deforestation. Now, who is observing and maintaining this control is not known.
Trans Amazonian Highway
The Trans-Amazonian highway is a 5,000km route which is from Brazil to Peru. This project was initiated in the 1970s during this era there was a drought and it was decided the road would run through the heart of the rain forest and open the wilderness for settlement for the peasants who suffered a severe drought. The geological error was huge, the soil of the Amazon was not fertile for agriculture and the land was unstable which meant for 6 months the road was unusable and flooded. The project was dropped but nearly 15,000+ families had already moved into this region with a hope of a new chapter in their lives. The low fertile land led to cattle ranching which further led to deforestation.
The Amazon has been constantly and regularly been deforested by loggers, Agro-producers and cattle ranchers. The world leaders meet and discuss climate but have no say when it comes to vast deforestation. The level of deforestation caused this year in the Amazon by man-made fires will take over a century to recover what is lost. Vegan lovers protest over the beef industry but what about soya, coffee, sugarcane and more. Time to think hard or one day Amazon will be another Atlantis a place of myth long forgotten.
The writer is a businessman based in Lapas, Bolivia.
