I always wondered about the Amazon.......

[Sixpack]

I am on a treehugger's roll as of this morning, so xcuse me...

The Amazon forests are referred to as the 'Lungs of the Earth'.

Yet, people are steadily wasting it away for profit while opponents fight desperately to preserve it. And little projects should counter the destruction. I say: Dream on.

I have always wondered why (primarily) Brasil never took the Amazon 'hostage', so to speak, and demand major annual TAXES from the international community in order to officially preserve it and use the money for building a prosperous economy which saves these Lungs of the Earth.

Wild ? You bet !

But not as crazy as it may sound to you

Things need to change, we all agreed on that.

It's amazing how docile many 2nd and 3rd world countries are....

[Dowly]

I wouldn´t want someone to wipe their ass with my lungs. :rotfl:

But seriously, something have to be done quickly. :hmm:

[TteFAboB]

You are on a treehugger roll as of this morning. I have dreamed of saving the Amazon ever since my childhood.

If you weren't only temporarily interested, I would go over this with more detail.

Originally Posted by Sixpack

The Amazon forests are referred to as the 'Lungs of the Earth'.

One of the greatest myths of all time. The jungle produces methane and its role in the air cycle of the atmosphere is "dispensable" (for the lack of a better word). The amount of devastation so far (500 years) failed to cause a significant regional or global impact on the atmosphere, if the theories and predictions were correct, the world would be a much darker place by now, there are concrete examples of unnatural atmospheric changes, and they aren't in the Amazon. The Amazon is many things, but not the Lungs of the Earth.

Originally Posted by Sixpack

Yet, people are steadily wasting it away for profit while opponents fight desperately to preserve it. And little projects should counter the destruction. I say: Dream on.

Many opponents, are not real opponents at all, or are soft enviromentalist terrorists who offer as a solution we go back living in dark caves. NGO's like the WWF and more importantly the Greenpeace are pathetic not only because they lie, but these are impressively selective in their indignation. Not turning their hand against their financial supporters, and when governments fill their coffers you get a picture of how independent they are. Their actions have always served to get them visibility and attention more than properly saving anything at all.

There are many fine people inside these NGO's, many naive believers too, but the regional leaderships are corrupted. I applaud the Greenpeace UK for making noise on The Guardian, I only wish they'd hold the international boards to a higher degree of moral standards. The Jungle first, money later. Protecting the Jungle first, sensationalist visibility second. Greenpeace UK should gather the funds and let the regional divisions act, but everybody's gaining money, only.

The greatest defenders of the Jungle are outside the mainstream NGO/enviromentalist circle.

Lastly, the Amazon is a living being, it's [still] alive, full of life. It should've become clear by now, in the 21st century, that immobility, defending to freeze the Amazon in time, not only is naive, but destined to failure. Indeed it is the man who will destroy the Amazon, but only man can save it too, there are still too many biological misteries that unless explained, will not permit the proper preservation of the forest.

Originally Posted by "Sixpack

I have always wondered why (primarily) Brasil never took the Amazon 'hostage', so to speak, and demand major annual TAXES from the international community in order to officially preserve it and use the money for building a prosperous economy which saves these Lungs of the Earth.

That's a terrible idea. Any source of easy money is terrible for the forest, and for any nation. It's the easy (criminal) money with no commitment to the forest that drives the deforestation forward. The government can simply accept the tax money and let the deforestation continue, look at Palestine, look at the Hamas, foreign aid is not cut to a terrorist organization, do you think any government would care to actually protect the forest, if they'll gain money anyway for at least one year, and it may be cheaper to spend the money in electoral pharaonic projects, marketting and populism, to ensure re-election, than to act to protect the forest. The government is actually the main actor to blame for the deforestation.

Oil fuels too many dictartorships, like gold used to finance Monarchs. If anything, the international community should DEMAND the deforestation to stop, and CHARGE for every cubic meter of forest that ceases to exist per year, with a series of exceptions. That would stop the deforestation in one day, or one year.

Another misconception is that there isn't enough money to preserve the Amazon. Not true. There is far too much money already, the tax rates are as high as Germany's (just a tad bit lower), it is not as if everything that could be done was being done and foreign money is necessary to advance, quite the contrary, I'd say the current efforts don't reach 25% of the maximum potential. It is not in the interests of the government to protect the Amazon, for several reasons, among them, because they profit from the destruction, monetarily, through extreme amounts of corruption, even inside the institutions created to preserve the jungle.

Here's another initiative. Let the international community offer REWARDS for denounces or tips of corruption, anyone who's willing to give the names, evidence, proof, testimonials, witnesses gets the cash. Prosecutors who carry out a succesful case, ending with a proven guilty sentence, can also receive a donation in their private retirement fund. The only problem with this one is that there wouldn't be enough room in prisons to accomodate everybody, you'd need either the death penalty for these crimes, or deportation to Greenland (Green...land...Amazon..it's a joke).

Finally, the Amazon can finance its own salvation. It's an extremely rich region full of resources that can provide FAR more profit than lumber and soy/cattle farms in the devastated lands (everything illegal, everything unpunished). Again, there's no interest, the Amazon has been sold to foreign research groups, that's some easy money again, so that they can discover many scientific findings and profit in their home lands. This is obviously better than nothing though, at least someone will make a benefit out of the Amazon before it dissappears completely. The proper, ecologically friendly, extraction of lumber that could occupy the space, and guard it against illegal deforestation, meets only disincentives and as the end of 2005 has ceased to exist due to the belief (also fueled by NGO's) that the Amazon should be left untouched. It should be left untouched in its core, but to prevent further breakthroughs, the borders need to be secured by eco-friendly legal companies that will stop the destruction from moving inwards, and actually slowly move away from the center of the forest, inch by inch. After all the few such friendly companies went bankrupt because of long bureaucracy and the suicidal immobilism mentality, it is hard to believe any new investments in such enterprises will occur in the near future.

Originally Posted by Sixpack

Wild ? You bet !

But not as crazy as it may sound to you

Things need to change, we all agreed on that.[/

Yes, it would be wild to cede to such black-mail and hand out money to something that only works on paper, like the Kyoto Protocol for the 3rd World countries, and Chamberlain's peace assurance from Hitler.

Agreed that things need to change, alot will change after the election in October. The government that holds ALL the records of deforestation in the history of the Amazon (greatest absolute number, greatest deforestation per year, month, day, hour, ad infinitum; greatest absolute area, greatest area per year [the area of Belgium]; greatest destruction of animal species; greatest extinction of unresearched plants; etc. etc.) - will get kicked out, which is a start, but it will take political power to clean the deforestation apparatchik of corruption. We're not talking about a bribe here, a blind eye there. A whole scheme of corruption was put in place, by corrupting governamental agencies and institutions filling them with party members, to allow the profit from the deforestation to fill the personnal account of many and primarily their party's coffers, on a higher degree the budget funding to these same agencies and others was reduced or left unpaid, so that the criminal activities could not be stopped by the state, not enough agents, not enough road checks, not enough police presence and so on. This system will have to be disassembled, and only time will tell to what degree the next government will succeed in it.

Anyway I still find the idea as crazy as foreign aid to African dictatorships, same principle, different reasons, same outcome: rare positive results (In Africa).

Originally Posted by Sixpack

It's amazing how docile many 2nd and 3rd world countries are

Disagree. Venezuela is not docile, they buy gas stations in America and donate cheap heating oil to poor Americans while the waste removal service has been suspended in the poor neighborhoods of Caracas. I suppose they already fit into the 2nd world category.

It's the 1st world that allows the deforestation to go unopposed, and whenever someone starts talking about 1st world assistance, it always comes down to money, which is the cause of everything (cheap profit from criminal deforestation), and is not what is lacking or necessary.

It's the quickest way to appease guilty consciences who already deforested all their forests, nevertheless. As I already mentioned, the money could cause even greater damage, as it does in some African countries.

So I'd say it's amazing how docile people are with the sort of politician that suggests money can solve any problem. Sure can, but in this case, money generated from the Amazon, not from its destruction, not from international taxes.

Wish I could resume like Skybird.

[Happy Times]

I actually think the countries that show hard measures to preserve their rain forets should be fairly compensated, i dont know to what extent this is happening in reality.

[STEED]

At this rate the air will be in short supply and you know what that means slap a TAX on it. Sounds crazy now but in (+10) years who knows.