Deforestation: not even so-called progressive governments can stop it

 Even democratically elected and supposedly progressive minded governments in Latin America fail to prevent the devastation of forests and wildlife and show little or no sensitivity for the destruction of indigenous communities as a result of the invasion of multinational lumber companies or greedy agricultural interests bent on replacing native forests with soybean plantations or cattle farms.

The Brazilian House of Deputies has just approved by a vote of 410 to 63 a controversial remake of the country’s code for forest preservation—offering partial amnesty for those who in the past have illegally destroyed areas of the Amazonian forests.

 According to news reports, the measure was introduced by the centrist PMDB, a key political ally of the government. If approved, the legislation would consider the invasion of protected areas of the Amazons as legal activities. Furthermore, it would turn over to local governments the use and/or preservation of river banks. Enormous portions of the jungle illegally destroyed between 1965 and 2008 would be free of regulation.

 Although the government of President Rousseff has promised to veto the bill, the strong support it has received in Congress and in the mass media suggest that sooner or later deforestation will become the norm rather than the exception.

 This should not come as a surprise in view of the destruction of tropical rain forests around the world in recent decades. According to the World Bank rain forests have shrunk from 16 million square kilometers to barely 9 million and Latin America has lost an estimated 40% of its native forests. Brazil has lost more than 600,000 square kilometers since 1970—an area larger than Greece. Furthermore, the rate of deforestation has greatly increased over recent years.

Deforestation in Brazil and Latin America has taken place not only in view of short-term benefits through timber exports but also due to the expansion of agricultural activities into deforested jungles and native forests: in Argentina with the planting of soybean, in Brazil with cattle and other farming activities.

 The cost of deforestation is enormous:  loss of timer, fuelwood, fibers, canes, resins, oils, pharmaceuticals, fruits and spices, soil erosion, flooding, siltation of reservoirs and hydroelectric facilities, the destruction of wildlife habitat, and destruction of herbs and plants used by indigenous populations in the forests, loss of biological diversity and the concomitant climatic alterations.

 Jungles and rain forests around the world are estimated to contain about half of the world’s species. In the Amazon rain forests there are some 30,000 species of plant life.

 The forests and jungles provide invaluable resources for the development of the medicines and drugs used to prevent many diseases. In Chile’s southern region, where the Mapuche community has suffered the invasion of giant celluloid corporations with the tacit approval of governments from the Pinochet dictatorship to the present, leaders of the protest movement claim that the planting of pine plantations and the massive clearing of forests has deprived the community of the herbs they traditionally use to cure illnesses.