This article is based
on possible increase in deforestation taking place in Brazil. The article states that recent satellite
imaging and information gathered from Imazon, A Brazilian research institute, have
detected an increase in the amount of deforestation taking place in the
Amazon. More than the amount of
sustainable deforestation that should be happening. According to the article this has not been
completely confirmed as other factors need to be determined first before this
becomes a fact. While Brazil has been
making great progress in the terms of protecting the rainforest and enforcing
laws to prevent deforestation there have been several recent indicators that
deforestation of the Amazon is likely to to start up again and at an increased
pace from before. One reason given
includes the push in Brazil to start building several hydraulic dams in the
country. The construction of a new dam,
while environmentally friendly would bring people into areas of the forest that
could otherwise remain untouched.
Another reason has been because of Brazil’s president, who has been pushing
to revitalize Brazil's once booming economy, something that environmentalist
fear will result in an environmental backlash because of people potentially
harming the forests in trying to meet new demands.
A downside to this article was that it served more to
discuss the fears that more deforestation will happen rather than saying that
something has actually happened. It mentioned
in the article that the potential sites that have been noted to have seen
deforestation may also be simply because of natural thinning and are no cause
for alarm (though it is heavily implied that it is not because of
thinning). That being said, the article definitely
brought up some good points about the potential in Brazil right now for
deforestation to occur again. This
attempt to revitalize the economy can be compared to other growing industrial
nations such as China or India who have focused more on pumping up their countries’
economies rather than pay attention to the problems they are causing to their environment,
something that could happen to Brazil. The
article made me think more on the fact that even when we try to move forward in
one area (such as building more energy efficient resources) we may end up
harming more than we are fixing. It’s a very
vexing issue that crops up a lot when dealing with environmental destruction.
1/25/13 3:29 pm
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