article from May 16, 2011 (all links current as of January 2014)
By Jamie Douglas
The Amazon Rainforest covers 5,500,000 square kilometers or 2,123,562
square miles – an immense area! The majority of the forest is contained within
Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, and with minor
amounts in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French
Guiana. I have traveled extensively in the Amazonian region, from rafting down
the Urubamba River to the Amazon, to working on a film for a lengthy period. I
traveled the length of the entire river twice and spent time in the bigger
settlements along the river, such as Iquitos and Manaus, as well as in many
smaller settlements.
The Amazon and its tributaries are the lifeblood of everything
that lives in the region; and whether they are indigenous tribes or European
settlers, they all live by and on the river. The amount of fish and wildlife
that the basin supports is incredible. Many species of flora and fauna have yet
to be discovered, and some will become extinct before being discovered.
The reason for the scenario I am about to discuss is not “global
warming” as it is often confusingly called, but global climate change, and it is not all human-made. Many natural factors come into play when throwing
about expletives like that. Throughout the history of the planet, there have
been many events, long before man discovered hydrocarbons and CFCs. And there
are always natural cycles at play, such as jet-stream shifts and massive
volcanic eruptions that have led to global cooling and starvation within human
memory.
However, there is no doubt that CFCs, coal-burning
industries and internal combustion engines have contributed to a speed-up of
the current climate havoc, which has brought inundating rains and strange snowfalls,
but most disturbingly, extreme droughts in Amazonia. Twice in recent times, the
Rio Negro, during a period of five years, has completely dried up, something
unprecedented in the known history of humankind. There are several particularly
severe consequences to this ecological catastrophe.
The indigenous tribes who have depended on the river for a
good portion of their protein intake were deprived of that, and many had to
migrate away from their traditional areas, intruding on other tribal areas,
which led to sometimes-bloody conflicts. The inhabitants of the rainforest are
very territorial because they have just enough sustenance for themselves. Many
had no choice but to move downstream to Iquitos and Manaus, where there was
nothing for them except meager government handouts, menial labor, crime and
prostitution. But it is very unlikely that any of them will find their way back
to their previous homesteads, as they are seduced by the modern conveniences of
life in the cities and towns along the great river. This is the human disaster
facing the people from the interior.
What is of much wider significance, and has gone largely unnoticed
to the world population, is that with these droughts, millions of trees have
died or are dying. As we all learned in school, the Amazon Rainforest is an
essential living and breathing part of the Earth – the lungs, but more than
that, something like the liver, kidneys, pancreas and lungs, combined,
absorbing toxins along with carbon dioxide and releasing cleansed oxygen back
into the air.
Between the cutting down of millions of acres over the last
few years, along with slashing and burning to accommodate the cattle ranchers,
miners and new settlements sprouting up like mushrooms after a rain, the world’s
lungs were already getting strained. And now this: the dying of millions of
trees along the Rio Negro, the dropping of the water table by 3 meters, well
below the roots of any of the trees in the region, is bringing about a change,
the likes of which humankind has never seen before. All those millions of trees
will decay over a period of years and release many tons of carbon into the
atmosphere, making this great natural resource that we usually think of as a
carbon sink actually carbon neutral – something that, along with the tens of
thousands of jet planes plying the upper atmosphere of Mother Earth and
depositing millions more tons of carbon, will surely have an effect.
So, whether you call it “global warming” or “climate change”
will, in the end, not matter. What will matter is that our descendants will
inherit a less healthy planet (never mind the various national debts that they
will have to pay off!).
I am not crying wolf, but there are some changes in the
works.
Jamie Douglas
Patagonia, Argentina
References:
I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with
any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any
travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free
of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial
counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.
