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
