Stop The Deforestation :: essays research papers fc

"This earthly concern is where we know where to find all that it provides for us--foodfrom hunting and fishing, and farms, building and tool materials,medicines. This land keeps us together within its mountains we come tounderstand that we atomic number 18 not just a few people or sepa mark villages, but atomic number 53people belonging to a kinfolkland" (Colins 32). The "homeland" is the UpperMazaruni District of Guyana, a region in the Amazon rain forest where theAkawaio Indians make their home (32). The vast rain forest, oftenregarded as just a mass of trees and exotic species, is to many indigenouspeople a home. This home is being unmake as miners, loggers, anddevelopers move in on the cultures of these people to strip away theirresources and complicate the peaceful, simple lives of these primitivetribes. However, the tribes are not the only ones who lose in thissitutation. If rain forest invasion continues, mankind as a whole will lose avaluable treasure th e knowledge of these people in utilizing the resourcesand plants of the forest for food, building, and medicine. To prevent thisloss, the governments of the countries housing the rain forests shouldprovide some protection for the forest and its inhabitants throughlegislation, programs. Also, environmentalists should pursue educatingthe tribes in managing thier resources for pragmatic, long-term profitthrough conservation.     Although stiff to believe, the environmental problems of todaystarted a long time before electricty was invented, before automobilieslittered the highways, and before industries dotted the countryside. From ancient times to the Industrial Revolution, humans began to switch theface of the earth. As cosmoss increased and technology improved andexpanded, more significant and widespread problems arose. "Today,unprecedented demands on the environment from a rapidly expandinghuman population and from advancing technology are causing a conti nuingand acelerating decline in the quality of the environment and its ability tosustain life" (Ehrlich 98). Increasing song of humans are intruding onremaining wild land-even in those areas once considered relatively safefrom exploitation. Tropical forests, especially in southest Asia and theAmazon River Basin, are being destroyed at an alarming rate for timber,conversion to crop and grazing lands, pine plantations, and settlements. According to researcher Howard Facklam, "It was estimated at one point inthe 1980s that such forest lands were being cleared at the rate of 20(nearly 50 acres) a minute another estimate put the rate at more than200,000 sq km (more than 78,000 sq mi) a year. In 1993, satellite dataprovided the rate of deforestation could result in the extinction of as many