sábado, 1 de outubro de 2011

Rain Forests





"Art is nature concentrated" Honore de Balzac


"The rain forest is a global treasure that stabilizes the climate and its home to most land life on the planet and to millions of people. It's taken thousands of years to grow and once it's destroyed it's gone forever. Unless laws against these sorts of forest crime are rigorously and urgently enforced to protect the rainforest and its people we'll have a biological catastrophe on our hands" Paulo Adario


"The rainforest is an important element on Earth  its purify the oxygenwe breathe, people get medicine from its plants and it gives different animals a place to live. We should do anything we can to save it" Janine Licare


32 facts about rainforests:

1- Amazon rain forest represents a little over half of the rain forest left in the world.


2-Factors that lead to the destruction of the rain forest include cattle ranching, mining and agricultural practices (WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO VEG!!!)


3- The Amazon river  basin covers approximately 40% of the south american continent.


4- Just in the twentieth century at least 90% different native tribes living in the Amazon disappeared.


5-At least 85% of Africa's tropical rain forest has been so destroyed.


6-Some experts believe that if destruction of the rain forest continues we might have a species extintion rate akin to the dinossaurs.


7-Many products of rain forest includes cofee, chewing gum, chocolate and vanilla.


8- Of the 1.2 billion people around the world living in extreme poverty 90% depend on forests to their livelihood.


9-Rain forests now cover 2% of the planet's surface and 6% of its land surface but in 1950 rain forests covered an estimated 15% of the world's land surface.


10-Every minute about 2000 trees are cut down in the rain forest. 


11- Between 1960 and 1980 Asia lost a third of its tropical rain forest.


12- Approximately six million indigenous people were living in the Amazon before the years 1500.


13- Approximately 60% of the world's forests are found in developing countries.


14- The largest cause of rain forest destruction is commercial loggin.


15-Because of tropical deforestation we lose about 100 species every day (!!!) as well many we didn't know even existed.


16- Of all water 16% flows through the Amazon delta.


17- More than 56 square miles of natural forest are destroyed every years.


18- A great diversity of life exists in the Amazon than anywhere else on Earth.


19-The world's rain forest help regulate temperatures and weather patterns.


20- Of the wood cut in tropical forests an estimated 70% is used in homes for fuel.


21- At one time there were about 6 million square miles of tropical forest worldwide. Due to deforestation there are now approximately 2,6 million square miles.


22- An estimated 90% of rain forest in west Africa has been destroyed.


23- Every second an area of the rain forest the size of football field is destroyed.


24- There are more species of fish in the Amazon river than in the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean.


25- Approximately one quarter of western medecines come from ingredients found in rainforests (as cortisona).


26-Every year about 250 000 parrots are imported to U.S.A to be sold as pet.


27- In the Amazon scientists have discovered 200 species of ant on just one tree.


28-A simple pond in Brazil can sustain more species of fish than all rivers in Europe.


29-Scientists estimate that the canopy of the Amazon rain forest, which is less studied that the ocean floor, may contain half of the world's species.


30-More than 20% of the oxygen used in the world is produced in the Amazon rain forest.


31-If the Amazon rain forest were a country it would be the 9th largest in the world.


32-If forest destruction continues at its current rate it is predicted that rainforests will become extinct in 2060.


Concluding if we destroy all rain forests in order improve our economy and our unbearable style of life there will no livable life for all those animals and for us, humans: no air will be produced so we won't be capable breathe...leading the world to  asphyxia. If you have about my age, early 20, I think you shouldn't have kids without thinking in what kind of world you'll let them: if you're 20 now and have a kid about the age of 30, in 2060 (where is estimated the extintion of rainforests if this all continues on) if you're alive you''ll be 70 and your son 50, you probably would have grandchildren by the time with 20 years or even great-grandchildren. The previous generation after us (our parents) are gone and we inherited this agonizing world from them. This all means that the present and future of the world relies on us! It's such a painful heritage but we have to do all we can to make future possible because now it's not even a certainty it's a hypothesis!!!
This is one of the of the reaons why I think world's population should be controlled, this years will ascend at 7 000 000 000 human beings on earth and the perspectives is of a continued growth...until 9 billions by 2050...and everyone wants a car, drinking water, eat every day, etc, etc. I think if we want to give more to more human more life conditions we should controll human population by just volunteering to not have more than 1 child or none at all. These perspectives is for a world that continues with this high exploration of natural resources but what happens is that with the increase of human population and developing economies (as China, Brazil, India) this will be worse...much worse!
I really don't think that if I have children I'll offer them a peaceful and good for living world...the same way I and my generation inherited this dying world.


That's why too, I think rain forests should World Heritage, but not in a way we all could destroy it to get more economical benefits, in a way we could protect them from this atrocious capitalism, together. 
The same way I get so sad when I see that companies like Mattel are paying indonesian poor men to destroy their rain forests in order to Mattel make cheap paper to wrap Barbies, and then a kid gets so happy when she receives a Barbie...and the paper is straight sent to the garbage! This process envolved painful damages to environment and wonderful creatures living there as tigers and orangutans. If you want Mattel to stop this atrocity sign this Greenpeace petition: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific/barbie/

Recently the brazilian congress agreed  to pass a law to allow amnesty fo forest crimes and reduce the size of protected areas (even against the will of the majority of brazilian people (about 79%) and the European Parliament).
Conservative estimates of the new law project 47 million hectares of deforestation- at least the size of California and Sweden!!!
Allowing congress to weaken Brazil's forest protection and legalize miles of deforestation could be a step backwards for Brazil fight against poverty, decads of deforestation in the Amazon has proven to be an ineffective way to lift people out of poverty in rural areas. And the world cannot adress global warming without Amazon!
Sign this petition to ask Brazil causing deforestation in Amazon: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/brazil-without-poverty-is-a-brazil-with-fores/blog/37134/
a message from brazilian activists to brazilian president Dilma Roussef: "Dilma, a Brasil without poverty is a Brazil with forest" 

And there's another recent threat: the brazialian congress aproved (against the will of  the bazilian people) the construction of a barrage that has been delayed for more than a decade: the dam of Belo Monte in the Rivor Xingu, right in the deep heart of Amazon forest! 
The previous three presidents of IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Nature and Natural Resources) resigned themselves because they didn't approved the construction of the barrage, they knew it is an ecologiacal crime! More shocking is the fact that the electricity produced in that barrage is to provide mining industry (of iron, copper, gold and bauxite) what would increase even more the deforestaion.
The construction of the barrage will be an environmental, social, biological, economical cataclysm! Millions of people from a near city would be kicked out from their homes and the river is the livehood of more than 25000 indigenous from 24 ethnicity , the fishes wouldn't be able to go upriver and reproduce, the barrage also would flood a surrounding area bigger that the city of Rio de Janeiro, to divert such a huge river it would be necessary to dig two artificial channels bigger than the panama channel...two artificial channels constructed deep inside the forest!
It's repuslive to know that most part of the money to construct the barrage is from teh brazilian state that is funding the work with public money as pension funds!
The rivers are the blood of the Amazon, let's save them!
http://www.avaaz.org/po/pare_belo_monte/97.php


Well let's just say goodbye with a positive note, people that signed a petition for Greenpeace asking Nestlé to stop deforestation in Indonesian rainforests to extract palm oil to make the chocolates made it! 
So believe it's possible again, sign the petitions and try all you can do to be sure whatever you consume was not from an abusive exploration of rainforests, be in alert to Greenpeace actions and other nature organizations, don't buy mahogany wood, don't have exotic animals as your pets, try to use recycled paper (I don't know why I almost don't see it selling and why it is so much more expensive!), demand true actions from your government, don't buy anything that is from rain forests (except medecines of course), don't eat meat...take action and believe.
Well in the end, all you can do is your part, so that's what you must do! If we all defend the nature we can save rain forests.


TAKE ACTION!





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