Live Small: One lesson about the Brazilian Rainforest

[“The upside of globalization is that the rich get richer...” Dr. M. Plotkin, president of the Amazon Conservation team]

I would recommend you read You Are Here by T.M. Kostigen. In each chapter he makes the effort - by looking at a particular region in the world - to expose “the vital link between what we do and what that does to our planet.” (cover text)

I’m reading a section re Brazil at the moment, and a line or two seem closely linked to the economic and fiscal trials and tribulations going on in Europe and the US (dare I say, and in Canada) at the moment.

From pages 114 - 115:

Brazil is a large country.

It is the fifth largest in the world and fifth most populace.

It has all the things one could need or want in a nation-state: oil, gas, freshwater, timber, and commodities of every sort.

Its people can live nicely off the resources.

It can even sell off its excess to the world market sustainably, much like the farmer does his produce. (Kostigen writes about a young family he stayed with and the delicious, sustainable meals he ate from their table).


[Link to photo and source, The Guardian, UK]

Unfortunately for all, it isn’t working out that way.

There is a race for the immediacy of a financial return now, and a subsequent exploitation of natural resources.

The “here and now” approach is winning the day (e.g., the destruction of the rainforest in order to plant soy for animal feed, to supply burgers for the fast-food industry) and the “what will be good for later” mind-set (e.g., conservation of the rainforest, the earth’s lungs) is sacrificed at the altar of economic viability.

“The upside of globalization is that the rich get richer, but no one is asking whether it is good for the natives in the jungle,” says Dr. Mark Plotkin... a Time magazine Hero for the Planet.

As Plotkin wisely observes, native people are far better off having less money and subsisting off nature than being paid marginally more by a corporation for their land and then being forced into an urban slum.

Again, I recommend the book to you. Lessons learned in Brazil are lessons we must all learn.

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