The Amazon

The beginning of the end...?

“Our lives will be shorter.”

That's how NCP Learning Tour guide Delio (photo at left), leader of the Siona people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, responded when someone asked what he thought about the future. Reasons for his concern? Impacts such as diseases from the outside world, the health effects of herbicides being sprayed on coca leaves in nearby Colombia as part of the US “war on drugs,” and the general deterioration of the ecosystem in this part of Ecuador—mostly from petroleum operations.

Not only are the native people of Amazonia in jeopardy, but so is the forest itself. The Amazon has lost an average of 5000 square miles per year since 1970. While currently the rate has slowed, this may be due more to shifts in the global economy than to increased protection. So far, this expansive forest—the size of the US west of the Mississippi River and located in parts of eight South American countries—has lost 20 percent of its intact forest. The worst case scenario: it could cease to “operate” by the end of the century. As the rainfall cycle continues to be disrupted by deforestation, this region could flip over to become a grassland savannah. Think Tanzania.

In a very real sense, as the Amazon goes, so go we all. This forest alone is responsible for 20 percent of the world's oxygen, receives 18 percent of the planet's fresh water, is habitat for 30 percent of terrestrial plant and animal species, and absorbs vast amounts of our excess CO2—sequestering 200 tons per acre!

The causes of this destruction are many but the major culprit is cattle ranching—some 57 million head of cattle occupy what was formerly rainforest. Not far behind are soybeans and other crops, oil exploration, illegal logging, and incursions by the poor—as regional governments turn a blind eye or even encourage settlement of the forest. All in all, the rainforests of the world have become the source of one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions as they are burned—releasing their stored carbon—to make way for all-of-the-above.

A new beginning…?

There is a renewed recognition of the importance of the world's rainforests as harbors of biodiversity, sources for medicinal plants, climate stabilizers, and preserving the oxygen and rainfall cycles.

Here are some ways the world is moving to protect rainforests:

• Plans to combat climate change include paying tropical countries to not cut their forests as a way to compensate for rich world carbon excesses (sounds a bit like evading our responsibility, but better than nothing)
• Governments of tropical nations are in some cases moving to protect indigenous claims to rainforest territories—these people are seen as the best caretakers of the forests
• Sustainable uses of the forests are being sought—some more successfully than others
• Attention is being given to providing economic development for poor people living near rainforest areas so they don't harm the forest in their quest for a livelihood

The New Community Project supports rainforest preservation in several ways:

• Purchasing and preserving 137 acres of threatened forest in the Ecuadorian Amazon (photo above) adjacent to the Cuyabeno Ecological Reserve in cooperation with our Ecuadorian partner, Fundacion Selva: Vida Sin Frontieres
• Working with Selva to provide native communities opportunities for sustainable use of the forest (craft production, tourism, growing bamboo)
• Building relationships with native groups to show our respect for their way of life and knowledge of the forest and to offer our support and advocacy for their rights and their role as guardians of the forest
• Educating US consumers about the impacts of our choices and on the global economy in general on the rainforest and other parts of the global ecosystem
• Visiting this area annually on our Learning Tours to educate US folks about the forest and the living things that call it home (from poison dart frogs to leaf-cutter ants to troupes of monkeys—and yes, we saw a jaguar once-upon-a-time!)

Click here to learn more about NCP's If a Tree Falls … program of forest protection and reforestation.

See here for information about upcoming Learning Tours to the Amazon and elsewhere.

The NCP Store offers products from tropical areas, and will eventually feature products made of tagua nut, which s a widely-available and sustainably harvested jungle fruit often called “vegetable ivory” for its density, sheen and workability