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“I’ll Never See the Rainforest Anyway” - No change is sexy
by SeasideMan @ 16/05/08 - 09:13:46

sea_view

The Brazilian rainforests are in the news again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7399109.stm

There is a plan to develop the region to make it economically successful whilst at the same time satisfying environmental concerns. The man in charge of the  plan is “Former Harvard law professor” Roberto Unger. He says:

“We do not see any contradiction in principle between an active economic project and the conservation of this treasure for humanity”

I’m glad he is so confident but I’m not, and what the hell is a law professor doing administering this plan anyway? The plan is to limit the number of trees that can be chopped down every year, and develop infrastructure. Sounds fine in principle, but that’s the legal logging. There is also illegal logging. The effort to prevent illegal logging is described here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7397782.stm

But unfortunately the strenuous efforts to prevent this are insufficient: deforestation rates went up at the end of 2007 and so far in 2008 too.

This is a very difficult situation. I can perfectly understand the locals’ wish to use the great and valuable tree resource they have in order to make money. But if they over-log the area, they deprive themselves of long-term income for short-term gain, destroy a treasure-trove of wildlife and have potentially serious impact on the climate of the whole planet. I have a bad feeling about this situation.

My title comes from Jah Wobble’s “Take Me to God” album. The track “No Change is Sexy” features a heavy stream-of-consciousness rant over intense music, and “I’ll Never See The Rainforest Anyway” occurs during it. Youtube let me down, so I had upload it myself with inappropriate images of waves - I should have used some forest pictures really, but I didn’t have any. It’s an excellent track and well worth a listen. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGxYcyIsdNo

Cheers, Tom.

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Ryan407Ryan407 [Member]
16/05/08 @ 10:17

I can't remember where and when I heard this, although I think there's a good chance it was on the news recently.
One man who I believe was Brazilian (although I can't remember if this is true either =/) commented on how it is funny that is usually the Western World and the United States who voice concern over too much deforestation in places like South America, as they on the whole have very few areas of forestry to even debate over. Despite the fact I can't remember exactly when or where it was said or who said it, I think the person raised a very interesting point. Maybe the Western World and the USA don't want to see Brazil make the same mistakes they did but the whole thing is just a little hypocritical in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I agree something should be done but I can definitely understand where the Brazilian decision makers are coming from when they use the 'why shouldn't we?' argument.

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SeasideManSeasideMan pro
16/05/08 @ 10:47

I agree with you, the hypocrisy of us here in “The West” is hideous on these issues. In the UK we completely deforested the country in the 16th Century and have been destroying our hedgerows ever since. The USA had The Dustbowl and other similar problems. Pointing our finger at Brazil doing it is hideously hypocritical of us. The same applies to pretty much every aspect of Climate Change. China is being urged to stop burning coal and use less automobiles and India is being urged to not develop too many roads as it encourages cars.

But having said all that, Climate Change is a global problem and we can’t box off our bit of the atmosphere and keep it safe - global co-ordinated action is needed.

I think it boils down to this: we made huge mistakes in the past, but they can’t be undone. Future mistakes can be prevented by learning from the past.

Cheers, Tom.

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