Nature Cannot Absorb This Growth

[marmar]

from InterPress, via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by Inter Press Service
Nature Cannot Absorb This Growth
by Julio Godoy


BONN - One day, Lucio Flores, a Brazilian Terena Indian, was travelling by truck through the Amazons region alongside a local landowner. Looking at the dense tropical forest around, the landowner said, “Look at this, there is nothing here.”

A little further as they left the forest to cross a soybean plantation, the landowner exclaimed: “But here there is soy!” To him, forest was nothing, soy everything.

Flores narrated the story to a group of environmentalists, government representatives and journalists at a side session of the UN conference on biological diversity under way in Bonn.

For him, the story was a symbol of the opposed views dividing the business community and indigenous peoples. “For agro business, nature is nothing,” Flores said. “For us, it is all.”

In Brazil the opposites are particularly telling. It has the world’s largest environmental reserve — the Amazons region — and is at the same time the world’s largest producer of ethanol, the agro-fuel distilled from sugar cane, and the world’s second largest producer of soybean, after the U.S.

The rapid development of sugar cane and soybean over the last 30 years has led to deforestation of large sections of the Amazons region, leading environmentalists say.

“Nowadays, 21 million hectares of Brazilian land are devoted to the plantation of either sugar cane, mostly for the production of ethanol, and soybeans, both for agro fuels as well as fodder for cattle,” said Camilla Moreno, a lawyer working for Terra de Direitos, a Brazilian non-governmental organisation. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/27/9219/

[Lorien]

1. K&R

A friend of mine used to work with a repuke who would throw a fit every time he saw a forest or open field. "Look at this! It's shameful! There's nothing here-no business, no houses, no crops...what's wrong with people that they would allow this land to go to waste"?? he'd say. He believed that you shouldn't be able to drive a half mile-ANYWHERE- without seeing a mini mall. Apparently many people believe that God got it all wrong by making so much nature to clear out of their way. They won't be able to understand that life on earth can't function without unspoiled areas until it is too late, and there is a mini mall every half mile or so. :-(

[logosoco]

2. This is so depressing...

my husband and i moved to our area (about 20 miles SW of St. Louis ) because of all the woods. In the 20 years we have been here, we have seen so much of the woods torn down to build houses (that go up in about 6 weeks). It is really sad. I think when our youngest graduates in about 5 years we may move on down the pike again, and hope the "progress" doesn't follow!!!!!!!!!!!