Today an article on BBC announced plans for Brazil to open up an additional 17,800 sq. miles of Amazonian rainforest to be mined for gold, copper, and other minerals.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41033228
This is a prime example of the state selling out it's people for a quick boost in GDP and a temporary injection of capital into a failing economy. The tribes that occupy these lands (and who have occupied these lands for hundreds of years) are to be made tiny islands amongst a sea of depleted old growth forest.
Tropical rainforests are some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet. In this vast wilderness, there are plant, animal, and fungal species we have yet to discover. Trading away this great diversity for a menial influx of jobs may indeed result in the extinction of a species that holds the key to curing many of the world's most devastating diseases. This will also have a strong effect upon rainfall, ground temperature, and global CO2 absorbtion.
And this is not just Brazil. This is a global trend of nations running greater and greater deficits in a debt-based economy and attempting to 'kick the can' a little further down the road by selling off their natural resources to the very people that created this financial nightmare. Any jobs created by this destruction will be temporary, but the damage done will last for centuries.
I am not one to characterize man as a parasite of this earth. I am an environmentalist, but I am also a pragmatist. I believe in regenerative agriculture and I also believe in leaving certain parts of this planet to wilderness. I am not ignorant to the needs of a growing population, nor do I wish to project my will upon a people I know nothing about. But in this case, I have to call it as I see it. Governments are selling out their people and trying to market it as job creation. The people that live and work in these areas will be trading the natural beauty of their homeland for a temporary paycheck. Not to mention having to live with the air and water pollution that will inevitably result from these activities.
This is exploitation at its worst; a trend that will unfortunately continue so long as we are beholden to governments that are beholden to a fiat money supply. At the end of the day, we are talking about numbers on a screen; numbers created out of thin air. Trees are real. Plants, animals, and fungi are real. People are real. These numbers are fake. We are trading the tangible reality of the physical world; the inherent beauty we all know to be true, for an illusion. Let us awaken...
Photos courtesy of:
http://blogs.nelson.wisc.edu/es112-309-3/mining/
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=39581