Deforestation in the Rain Forest

...

say a big agricultural farming company is growing bananas in a certain part of the tropical rainforest (most commonly Brazil), once the market for bananas goes down, companies will stop production. All of the laborers from different regions now have no job and are now classified as “peasant farmers.” So in retrospect, peasant farmers are a factor of forest deforestation but people need to understand what fuels the population growth of peasant farmers in tropical rainforests.

Source: earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Location: Rondonia, Brazil Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Export Agriculture

The export of agriculture is clearly the root to the population growth of peasant farming/deforestation. The problem doesn’t stop here. On the contrary to popular opinion, modern agriculture is not the direct factor to forest deforestation, in fact most agricultural companies claim they only use land that had previously been used for agriculture. For most environmentalist, it’s a hard notion to swallow. Even though I believe we should solely focus on the exportation of agriculture in the tropical rainforest, the structure in which “big” agriculture is based on is undoubtedly the underlying problem with deforestation.

The structure is heavily misunderstood in modern societies. If you were to bring up agriculture and farming to an individual living in an urban environment, more than likely that individual would visualize a romantic scene of a family farm, with lush vegetation and positive growth of healthy fruits and vegetables that feed the human civilization. In reality farming and agriculture are two different processes for growing vegetation. Farming is the family company who owns a pistachio farm and distributes their products to local markets. Agriculture is the financial decision by a big company to invest in this seasons pistachio production. The production uses tractors, chemicals for enhanced size and color, and the sale of commodity to processing factories.

Local ecologies have been highly affected by the evolution of modern agriculture. For example, the banana export business. From the very beginning of agriculture, peasant farmers would grow the bananas and sell them to the shipping companies. Eventually these shipping companies realized they had more power and money than all the peasant farmers combine, greed kicked in and the shipping companies became the new producers of Bananas. In order to grow a modern agricultural plantation in the tropics, a hydrological control of soil is needed. The leveling and drainage leads to the obvious altering of soil in the tropical rainforest. To avoid fungal diseases, many chemicals are used for pest control. All of the artificial tampering causes great complex disturbances on the interior and exterior of the tropical forest. Once the international market for bananas sink, the big agricultural companies fire the workers and leave them with no direction. This goes to show that the cutting and burning of the rainforest isn’t the direct cause of deforestation in the rain forest. There’s a bigger picture to view in regards to deforestation

Source: www. Tumlbr.com/deforestation

Local Government

The local government plays an important role when discussing deforestation. We must not forget that the modern industrial system in Europe was based on logging. In today’s interconnectedness, we must understand the dynamics of the third world. The owners of the production factories objective is to lower the production by all means necessary. That type of business structure leaves the employees at great risk of being fired when the market is down. Also the factories mark the value of the products as high as the individuals in the first world can comfortably purchase. The factories aren’t worried about the people in their own country being able to afford the product. This type of arrangement leaves the developing third world in a great disadvantage economically and allows the developed worlds to continue purchasing produce at a fair market price. For example, the owners of an Avocado company can care less if his or hers employees are able to afford avocados; the owner is only worried about the people in the developed world’s (USA) purchasing power. This goes to show the true difference between the third and first world. When examining this system from another angle, one can conclude that the export of agriculture plays a big role in many nations economy. Now, should we be pointing fingers to the third world governments for allowing these type of harsh labor and greey trade deals to expand in the export of agriculture, or should we be taking a step back and try to understand the power of the world banks on the third world governments.

Source: www.greenpeace.org

International Agencies

Currently a great issue amongst American politics is the transition of big business moving their factories to offshore locations. The main reasons being are cheaper cost of production, especially when it comes to labor and land. The best places for any business in agriculture would obviously be in the Third World. As times get rough in the developed world, investors turn to the underdeveloped world as a plan B. The market gets better for the developed world while the underdeveloped world get worst and continues to have a disarticulated economy and laborers paid with virtually nothing. In order for any change to arise within this world structure of agricultural export, the international agencies (International Monetary Fund and Food and Agriculture Organization) must focus on better regulations towards deforestation of rainforests in places like Brazil.

Reflection

After stating all the factors that are involved with deforestation, Loggers, Peasant agriculturalist, export agriculturist, local governments, and international agencies programs, one can conclude there isn’t one primary factor to deforestation in the rainforest, there’s a web of causality. This web is very important when trying to understand the destruction in the rain forest on a bigger platform. Political action needs to be forced upon on all the factors contributing to deforestation. The only way for change is action. As I stated before, the saddest thing besides the obvious ecological effects is the tampering of the indigenous civilizations. Change must be established and most studies state that deforestation is lessening every year. The only problem is deforestation is never ending.

More people need to contribute their voice in regards to deforestation.