Day 241 - 26 Apr 96 - Page 52


     
     1        "Tropical rainforests throughout Central America, including
     2        South East of Mexico and Panama, are being replaced by
     3        pasture lands to produce beef, much of which is consumed by
     4        US citizens.  This cycle of destruction of rainforest and
     5        the use of the land to produce beef for export involves
     6        international bank loans to support cattle industry
     7        development, US Department of Agriculture inspections to
     8        control undesirable ingredients and the continuation of a
     9        socio-economic system that concentrates land holdings and
    10        thus power in the hands of the few.
    11
    12        "The destruction of the rainforests and other areas of the
    13        world is sometimes even more dramatic than in Central
    14        America, as in the Amazon Basin, where bulldozing, burning
    15        and chemical defoliation destroyed immense tracts of forest
    16        each year.  But nowhere is the loss of biological diversity
    17        more severe and nowhere is the United States unwitting role
    18        in deforestation more apparent than in the case of Central
    19        America.
    20
    21        "Almost two-thirds of Central America's lowland and lower
    22        montane rainforests have been cleared or severely degraded
    23        since 1950.  At current rates of destruction, most of the
    24        remaining forest will be eradicated during the next 20
    25        years, leaving only impoverished remnants in national parks
    26        and reserves.  Despite the ecological consequences of such
    27        a prospect, some hope remains to break this cycle.  Because
    28        the causes of deforestation in Central America are so
    29        apparent, the measures required to halt it are also
    30        obvious".
    31
    32        Just reading on to the bottom of that page:  "Logging and
    33        colonisation:  While some scientists and many Latin
    34        American politicians blame ... agriculture of Indian and
    35        peasant farmers for the destruction of Central American
    36        tropical forests, in reality, the problem results from a
    37        combination of local, regional and international
    38        activities.  In fact, forest conversion in Central America
    39        usually occurs in stages".  Then he goes on to describe the
    40        stages.
    41
    42        We are relying on the whole article.  I will just read out
    43        a part of the bottom of the next page, starting with the
    44        second to last sentence, "For down these roads", after
    45        "roads have been established":  "For down these roads,
    46        like leaf cutter ants on a forest trail, come landless
    47        peasants from other areas of the country, using
    48        agricultural traditions that are ill suited to the tropical
    49        rainforest.  They clear and burn the vegetation to plant
    50        subsistence crops, corn, beans, rice and manioc, and small 
    51        scale cash crops such as coffee, chiles, bananas and 
    52        cacao. 
    53
    54        "This colonisation has a heavy impact on any indigenous
    55        people who live in the region.  Indian groups have survived
    56        the diseases and destruction, but timber exploitation may
    57        be overrun by colonising peasants who have little regard
    58        for the territory's aboriginal inhabitants and little
    59        ecological awareness of their new forest home.
    60

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