Amazon Rainforest Essay

"This land is where we know where to find all that it provides for us--food from hunting and fishing, and farms, building and tool materials, medicines. This land keeps us together within its mountains; we come to understand that we are not just a few people or separate villages, but one people belonging to a homeland" (Colins 32). The "homeland" is the Upper

Mazaruni District of Guyana, a region in the Amazon rain forest where the

Akawaio Indians make their home (32). The vast rain forest, often regarded as just a mass of trees and exotic species, is to many indigenous people a home. This home is being destroyed as miners, loggers, and developers move in on the cultures of these people to strip away their resources and

To prevent this loss, the governments of the countries housing the rain forests should provide some protection for the forest and its inhabitants through legislation, programs. Also, environmentalists should pursue educating the tribes in managing thier resources for pragmatic, long-term profit through conservation.

Although hard to believe, the environmental problems of today started a long time before electricty was invented, before automobilies littered the highways, and before industries dotted the countryside. From ancient times to the Industrial Revolution, humans began to change the face of the earth. As populations increased and technology improved and expanded, more significant and widespread problems arose. "Today, unprecedented demands on the environment from a rapidly expanding human population and from advancing technology are causing a continuing and acelerating decline in the quality of the environment and its ability to sustain life" (Ehrlich 98). Increasing numbers of humans are intruding on remaining wild land-even in those areas once considered relatively

In 1993, satellite data provided the rate of deforestation could result in the extinction of as many as 750,000 speices, which would mean the loss of a muliplicity of products: food, fibers, medical drungs, dyes, gums, and resins" (53). So what kind of condition will the forests be in in the year 2050? If this rate of deforestation continues, there will be no tropical rain forest in the year

2050. Therefore, preservation need to occur now in order stop the terrible loss of the rain forests and all that it can provide.

Rain forest destruction has two deadly causes: loggers and miners.

For example, imagine loggers on bulldozers rolling into the forest, tearing down not only trees, but the invisible barrier between the modern, materialistic world and the serene paradise under the forest canopy.

Forest locals told Scholastic Update that "...so much forest has vanished that the weather has changed delaying rains and increasing heat...."