For a long-time the magnificent Amazon Rainforest was looked upon as a vestigial appendage,
a raw material, for a hungry and all-devouring economic system, “narrowly framed around
price-making markets and capital accumulation”. (1) But we, at Maathru, see it differently: Amazônia has the solutions for the problems we are currently facing and is also the solution
for the problems that have yet to come.
Many people try to describe and often discuss the Amazon Rainforest, but few understand what the Amazon Rainforest actually is, and so,
LET'S START AND
FIGURE THAT OUT
The Amazon Rainforest - the largest on Earth - “lives” in the Amazon River Basin, which is roughly the size of the entire 48 contiguous US states representing the body and bulk of that nation. It covers 40% of the South American continent, approximately 7,050,000 km2 in area. Of this, approximately 5,000,000 km2 had been covered by high tropical Forests which had represented both the gradient and the source of the Amazon’s movements and sediments. (2)
The massive Amazon River Basin is made up of a mosaic of ecosystems and vegetation types including rainforests, seasonal forests, deciduous forests, flooded forests and savannas.
The Basin is drained by the Amazon River, the world’s largest in terms of water flow and discharge. The force of the current is so strong that it causes the Amazon River to continue flowing up to 200 km (125 miles) out to the sea before mixing with the salty Atlantic Ocean. Early explorers and sailors were drinking the Amazon’s freshwater well-before sighting the South American continent. (3)
Millions of years ago with rise of Andes Mountain Chain, the Amazon Region and River was a vast inland sea, which gradually became a massive and swampy freshwater lake with many marine inhabitants adapted to life in both brackish and freshwater, some close relatives of which can be found in the Amazon River even today.(3) Around 10 million years ago, the inland sea receded and the Amazon River began to flow eastward - the Rainforest was born.
The Ice Ages caused much of the Amazon Basin to revert to savanna and montane forest, dividing patches of tropical rainforest into “islands”. This occurrence separated existing species for long periods of time, so long in fact, that this allowed for genetic specie differentiation to occur. When the Ice Ages finally ended, the now genetically diverse forests of the Amazon Basin merged, which serves to explain the tremendous biological diversity of the Amazon and its species. (3)
AND WHAT ABOUT TODAY?
IN THE MEANTIME
In the meantime, the Amazon Rainforest - with all its life giving and medicinal potential - is getting destroyed at an unprecedented pace: One football pitch/field is lost EVERY MINUTE (11).
Harvard's Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist, Edward O. Wilson, estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species EVERY SINGLE DAY in the Amazon. That's 50,000 species a year!
We now know and understand that Amazon Rainforest plants are complex chemical storehouses that contain many undiscovered biodynamic compounds with as yet unrealized potential for use in modern medicine. We can gain access to these materials only if we conserve the species that contain them. (9)
The conversion of the Amazon Basin to pastureland and plantations for the production of agricultural commodities, and especially for soy, is the chief driver of deforestation and destruction. Cattle ranching has the greatest impact on Rainforest deforestation in Brazil, which alone is responsible for 80% of deforestation throughout the entire Amazon. (12)
Can the destruction of Amazônia be justified economically? Absolutely NOT!
Examples and facts to ponder:
Combining the economic output of wood, meat, and soybeans by each area, the Amazon has an average yield of 125 USD per hectare per year.
Net income from açai (an indigenous fruit, commonly known as the açaí berry) production alone ranges from 200 USD per hectare per year (in unmanaged systems) and up to 1,500 USD per hectare per year in managed agroforestry systems. Related açai pulp production already exceeds 250,000 tons per year, which benefits more than 300,000 producers and adds over 1 billion USD to the Amazon economy each year.
Moreover, research from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has shown that the anthocyanin pigment in the açai, can reduce tooth plaque, giving it the potential to bring substantial oral health benefits at a low cost. (13)All this…all these current and possible benefits from JUST ONE Amazonian Plant, an Açai palm - Speaks Volumes!
We have already destroyed around 20-25% of the Amazon Forest. We continue to destroy Amazônia knowing nothing about 99% of it! Many species are being lost forever without even being discovered by modern science.
With the current rate of destruction, the Amazon Rainforest will disappear as soon as 2050. It will be gone…with all of its knowledge, with all of its medicines, and with all of its life giving potential.
That loss, that immense potential, is what we will write about in our blog.
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Sources used:
1) Of ecosystems and economies: re-connecting economics with reality. Clive L/Spanish and Tone Smith [Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; Rethinking Economics, Norway] Copyright: Clive L. Spash and Tone Smith 2019. http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue87/whole87.pdf
2) https://www.projectamazonas.org/amazon-facts
3) https://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/
4) https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/issues/brazil-and-the-amazon-forest/
5) https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-animals-live-in-the-amazon-rainforest.html
6) https://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon-rainforest-facts.html
7) https://www.projectamazonas.org/amazon-facts
8) http://www.medicinehunter.com/amazon-rainforest-facts/
9) http://csc.columbusstate.edu/summers/Outreach/RainSticks/fRainforestFacts.htm
10) Plotkin, Mark J. Tales Of a Shaman's Apprentice : an Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest. New York :Viking, 1993.
11) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48827490
April 7, 2020
Viktoria Miranovich & Erick Miller, (Ed.)