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Amazon Deforestation, Once Tamed, Comes Roaring Back
- EvagohP5 10y agoWow Amazon has really expanded their operations to include every kind of business, haven't they. Now they've added deforestation to their repertoire.
- dreamcompiler 10y agoFirst thing I think when I read a headline like this. "Must be some massive database centralization project, or something."
- leeoniya 10y agopretty sad state of affairs if Amazon in conjunction with deforestation needs further disambiguation around here.
- devoply 10y agoHumans are the ultimate invasive species. We complain about fungus and other pests moving their range and causing havoc because of global warming, is it not the case that we do the exact same thing all the time, and that's considered a good thing. And it's not the locals doing it, it's global corporations, many with HQ in developed countries, so it's not as if they don't know any better. I doubt we will ever be controlled until we welcome our new AI masters.
- formula1 10y agoYou know who creates the "ai masters"? Corporations You know what coorperations view as a "win condition"? Monopoly and profits You know what nature is? An obstacle or opportunity along the way towards such goals. At no point is preservation of an "outdated" and "inefficient" system complimenting such goals. If you can make an ai view life as more than a number and make ai into "eco system tenders" rather than judge jury and executioner, then it's possible that the ai master would work consider nature worth saving
- devoply 10y agoI agree. But just like Stallman saw open source, correction free software, as a possibility for liberation, which was subverted by corporations for massive profits. I see AI in the same way. I am a naive idealist in that sense. But maybe one day it will work out the way it's supposed to. If it does not we as a species are doomed. Also I think pointing the finger at corporations is a bit naive, they simply follow certain set of normalized rules that have the ascent of the masses. In that they provide the masses with employment and cheap bread and circuses. So the underlying problem with corporations is people as a whole. That masses which don't care, compared to the few people, usually idealists, who do.
- mverwijs 10y agos/open\ source/free\ software/
- Melchizedek 10y agoThe global corporations don't clear rain forests for fun - they do it to feed a growing world population. And the people having children beyond what the earth can support are "locals", primarily in Africa and the Middle East. Population growth is always the elephant in the room.
- senorjazz 10y ago>The global corporations don't clear rain forests for fun - they do it to feed a growing world population. No, they do it for profit. We live in a profit based economy where profit beats all else, including the environment, the trees the rivers, the sea the air. Damaging the environment in search of more profit is not frowned upon but seemingly actively encouraged when looking at the actions (not the words) of the worlds governments
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoWhat a shame. Unfortunately, the incentives seem to be aligned such that I fear this will be a difficult trend to slow or ultimately reverse.
- transfire 10y agoA shame? Loss of the rain forest means a loss of one of the biggest oxygen generators on the planet. We literally will not be able to breath without it.
- hendler 10y agoWhere there are problems this massive, there is opportunity; reforestation, biodiversity, businesses that utilize existing ecosystems without devastating them. Forty years ago environmental protection was seen as being at odds with economic progress. This perception is changing because it must. Tesla/Solar City I hope are only the beginning of aligning great technical achievement, economic viability, and environmental sustainability.
- goodroot 10y agoNyughh. Sad. This hits me right in the heart. I have been to the Amazon and it is lush, beautiful paradise. It changed my perspective on how valuable natural life is on our planet. It is not just the net loss of plant matter. The indigenous are under constant duress and we risk losing a unique part of our world; medicinal plants and esoterica, wild-life, and access to limited resources, to boot. There are groups working with those impacted by this. I am contributing to an NGO called the Alianza Arkana which is doing some work to aid the indigenous and the rainforest. Contextual plug: http://alianzaarkana.org http://alianzaarkana.org . I left a grand paying, comfortable tech job to try to make even-a-small difference. I hope this devastation is not a part of my generation's legacy.
- tlow 10y ago"Nature with a capital 'N' is my Religion" - Frank Lloyd Wright
- mirekrusin 10y ago"(...) deforestation rose in 2015 for the first time in nearly a decade, to nearly two million acres from August 2015 to July 2016. That is a jump from about 1.5 million acres a year earlier and just over 1.2 million acres the year before that (...)" ...so really it did rise in 2014, from 1.2 to 1.5 so the first statement is false, isn't it?
- conesus 10y agoI'm running a Kickstarter for a wood product right now and so I've learned a thing or two about how to encourage reforestation. The answer is get economics to drive reforestation. Cats, cows, turkeys, dogs, and horses, among many other animals, will always be around as long as humans are, simply because we'll ensure that they always have a healthy habitat. The same goes for trees, especially tropical trees. Reforestation is a huge opportunity if we invest in plantations that have managed cutting, allowing tropical trees to grow up to 40 years before being turned into beautiful products like furniture. In order to produce high quality lumber that's useful for furniture making, like mahogany for example, loggers have to be selective about the trees they fell. Can't just chop down every one of them because not all will generate productive wood. Maple is similar in that it's plantation grown right here in the U.S. What that actually means in terms of wood quality is that it suffers a bit from uniformity. The reason I know this is because I'm running a Kickstarter for a remote control[1]. It's made out of mahogany and maple, but its impact is offset a bit by the small size of the remote, which also makes small features much more distinguishable. This is also one of the reasons why I'm a vegetarian, as much deforestation is caused by burning forests for raising livestock. [1]: Turn Touch: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samuelclay/turn-touch-beautiful-control https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samuelclay/turn-touch-b...
- shoo 10y ago> Cats, cows, turkeys, dogs, and horses, among many other animals, will always be around as long as humans are, simply because we'll ensure that they always have a healthy habitat. The same goes for trees, especially tropical trees. historical counter example: easter island
- lugus35 10y agoDon't worry, they have collected enough little trees during the Olympic games opening ceremony.
- lacker 10y agoWho actually owns the rain forest land? It seems odd to me that this article does not really get into that. The simplest way to save the rain forest would be for some entity, private or public, to buy it up and turn it into a park. That seems way more effective than trying to convince companies to not use it for farming, since there is no limit to the supply of companies that are capable of operating a farm.
- cromulent 10y agoThe Helsinki Foundation is starting to do that - conservation via the free market.
- mirimir 10y agoThat's hard to say. Arguably nobody.[0] Some say everyone, but then why not say that about <insert favorite national resource>? In reality, it's total chaos. Multiple generations of overlapping government grants, poor records, and lots of forgery. 0) https://mises.org/library/who-owns-amazon https://mises.org/library/who-owns-amazon
- astrange 10y agoPeople are burning it down for farmland and palm oil even after someone else tells them they own it. Enforcement doesn't always work since nobody is that motivated to guard it - you have to actively involve locals in using all the trees for something.
- mercer 10y agoWould it make sense to pay locals to be stewards/guards of the forest? I imagine it would cost a pittance compared to the cost of buying the land.
- paganel 10y ago> I imagine it would cost a pittance compared to the cost of buying the land. In my parts of the world (Eastern Europe) most of the locals themselves are the one tearing the forests down, because high in the mountains where they live this is one of the only income sources they have. In order to convince them not to cut down trees anymore you'd basically have to implement a guaranteed minimum income across all those areas, which should be big enough to buy its beneficiaries 4x4 vehicles and build big houses (that's what cutting trees affords those people to buy right now). The anti-deforestation discourse comes mostly from people living in urban areas, who do not economically depend on cutting forests down. Ours is a complicated species.
- lyonlim 10y agoThis is sad. Anything that we can do? There's this site, tree-nation.com that helps with reforestation projects. Any others out there?
- astrange 10y agohttps://carbonfund.org/forestry/ https://carbonfund.org/forestry/ http://www.edenprojects.org http://www.edenprojects.org
- taway_1212 10y agoThere is a bit of hypocrisy in the discussion about cutting out rain forests. Western nations paid no mind to destroying their local ecosystems when they were getting rich over a span of the last couple of centuries, and only started to care about the environment when they reached comfy living for their citizens. It's unfair to demand something else from developing countries now.
- misja111 10y agoDid you read the article? For the most part the deforestation is driven by companies and large land owners. Their shareholders have nothing to complain about when it comes to their comfy living. See also: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/20brazil.htm http://rainforests.mongabay.com/20brazil.htm
- taway_1212 10y agoWas it different in Europe in between say X and XX century? The land was largely owned by either aristocracy/the king or the church. The common folks were barely above starvation for a lot of the time.
- laxd 10y agoThe fact that so much rainforest is gone just makes it more important to save what's left. "They must be allowed because we did it" is a short sighted argument with these stakes.
- taway_1212 10y agoI agree that, on a planetary scale, it's short-sighted. I think it would be fair for the nations who profited from destroying their natural environment to pay some cash equivalent to those haven't yet. Otherwise it's pulling the ladder after you already got in.
- cooper12 10y agoNot only that, we just off-shore all that environmental damage elsewhere. All the electronics we consume are disassembled releasing toxic gases in Pakistan, China is full of ridiculous amounts of pollution because we use it as a major manufacturing hub, demand for animal parts causes overhunting all over the world, etc. All we've done in the West is push things under the rug and outsource our pollution. (meanwhile, the US Department of Defense is one of the biggest polluters in the world and doesn't have to follow any of the regulations set)
- rkachowski 10y ago>A decade after the “Save the Rainforest” movement forced changes that dramatically slowed deforestation across the Amazon basin .... That resurgence, driven by the world’s growing appetite for soy and other agricultural crops The article doesn't get into it, but what is driving this growing appetite? Is it a natural effect of population growth?
- paganel 10y agoThis and more people climbing out of the "miserably poor" hole and affording to eat better stuff (like stuff based on soy and other agricultural crops).
- jurip 10y agoAnd it's important to note that most soy is used to feed cattle etc: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/soy/consumers/ http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/soy/co...
- Rapzid 10y agoWow,we need to bring back the "Save The Rainforest" awareness full force. I see people talking reforestation and that's good and all.. But the tragedy of the rainforest isn't so much that "now there are no trees here". It's the loss of the biodiversity and ecosystem. You can replant a forest, but you can't replant The Rainforest. Man, I love the rainforest. Why don't we hear about it as much? It's been a dream of mine to visit the Amazon. Now that I have the means I really need to get down there.
- senorjazz 10y agoUltimately the problem is money. Amazon based countries have this resource which can enrich the population / provide a means to generate income. Basically telling these countries "no you cannot use your natural resources because it benefits the whole world" is not going to work. Europe pretty much cut down all their forests during the industrial revolution and is now a developed and powerful world wide force. Arab countries with oil / gas reserves. Similarly the US etc etc. If the world does not want the Amazon forests cut down, these countries need to be compensated for not doing so. Ecuador tried something a few years back regarding not drilling in the Amazon basis, along the lines of asking the international community to pay them to not drill. It failed and the deforestation continues. When an oil road is built, or logging road or any road, then the deforestation happens along the road, over dirt roads are built inland and more trees come down. At the end of the day, none of us are prepared to dip into our pockets to not cut down the Amazon and this will be it's downfall
- moonshinefe 10y agoI would love to get down there too, but unless I guess the reality is it's profitable to cut it all down and the political will is there, not sure what else we can do...
- singularity2001 10y ago"we’ll do something about it,” Mr. MacLennan said. “If that’s accurate, it’s not acceptable. It is absolutely not acceptable and I'm optimistic that we will see the day when MacLennan, Trump and similar will be imprisoned by the people. It is our right and duty to imprison them.
- codecamper 10y agoDon't worry everybody. There is always Mars!
- transfire 10y agoHurry up with the vat meat!
- transfire 10y agoTHIS IS WHAT YOU CAN DO: https://eowilsonfoundation.org/half-earth-our-planet-s-fight-for-life/ https://eowilsonfoundation.org/half-earth-our-planet-s-fight...
- entrance-right 10y agoBolivia has more forest than Western Europe, Southern Europe and Central Europe together. I had a look at Google Maps; Brasilia is frightening. The rainforest gets divided into smaller parts. The South American rainforest is still larger than the African rainforest, but looks like an organism becoming devoured by bacteria. The problem is that there are too many people on Earth. Our impact on Earth is much too high. We would already need 2 Earths. Overpopulation causes a lot of problems, not just deforestation, mass extinction of animals and climate change, but also lack of food, human mass migrations, elevating crime rates, and so on. However if we could reduce the world population to 3 or 4 billion people, than all mentioned problems should be solved and Earth should be able to re-establish a natural balance. I am ready to help.
- evincarofautumn 10y agoHow do we realistically reduce population? People in more developed countries, particularly with access to contraception, tend to have fewer children by choice, but I don’t know if that can work fast enough. China’s One Child Policy was effective but controversial at best. A bit counterintuitively, even though many people are starving around the world, globally we produce a surplus of food every year—that’s what all the new people are made of. If we capped food production, it would necessarily cap population. But it’s hard to be enthusiastic about the ethics of letting people starve now so there are fewer people to starve in the next generation…
- boomka 10y ago"Too many humans" is a lazy, negligent argument by those who don't want to make any changes in how we conduct business. Deforestation in Brazil is happening not because humanity really needs that lumber. It doesn't. Deforestation is happening because people in Brazil see those trees in their country's backyard as essentially free money lying around, and they do not give a second thought to chopping them down. Nothing to do with overpopulation of Earth.
- senorjazz 10y ago>> Deforestation is happening because people in Brazil see those trees in their country's backyard as essentially free money lying around, and they do not give a second thought to chopping them down. The same as all peoples in all countries have done. It is very easy to sit in our developed countries, which developed off the back of these types of practises and condemn others for doing the same to provide for their families and create a better life for them and future generations
- ryanmarsh 10y agoThe thing that kills me about this is that we're basically saying: "Sorry we cut down too many of our trees to build a powerful economy from nothing in under 300 years, but you can't cut down yours to do the same because we need those trees to offset our CO2 production"
- devonkim 10y agoThis applies far more than for just environmental factors and is alarmingly consistent across developed economies today, see Ha Joon Chang's "Kicking Away the Ladder"
- diego_moita 10y agoI eared a lot this argument in Brazil. It is wrong in a thousand ways. Cutting trees is not a necessary condition for powerful economies, we are in the 21st century. Canada and Scandinavian countries have lots of trees and also powerful economies. Europe is actually increasing their forested area. The only industries that benefit with deforestation are logging and raising cattle in extensive pastures. Brazil needs manufacturing and services, they generate a lot more income and jobs.
- ryanmarsh 10y agoDoesn't agriculture, specifically cereal grains, require a lot of arable land?
- jly 10y agoA global economy built on minimally controlled capitalism will be the downfall of our natural environment and ultimately the species. There is continued proof all around us that this is the direction we're heading. We have the foresight to recognize this now, but sadly not the motivation to correct it. Read 'Half Earth' by Edward Wilson to see his arguments for setting aside 50% of the surface land as pure wild nature, to preserve biodiveristy and, ultimately, us. I agree with many comments here that many established powerful nations spent much of the last few hundred years destroying parts of their own ecosystem to get where they are. The past is the past, though, and we face an uncertain future unless we band together to change this behavior now, regardless of borders or economies.
- M_Grey 10y agoThe problem is that the "We" with the foresight are a tiny minority, and of that tiny minority many either despair (perhaps reasonably) or decide to use their insight to make a profit and make hay while the sun still shines. The problem is that we're human beings, our human nature, and nothing is going to save us from ourselves.
- jchrisa 10y agoThe problem is that we lack a story for the future. The only coherent ones are sci-fi. It's up to the folks reading HN to build that future before this one runs out.
- marmot777 10y agoWe have been able to successfully set aside some pretty nice tracks of wilderness here in the United States. I've been out there and it's bigger than you can imagine. This isn't impossible here where I live and it's not impossible to save what's easily the most important ecosystem on earth (the Amazon Basin). I'd say the Amazon rain forest shares that honor with the massive Ocean that obviously covers much of the earth.
- e40 10y agoThere are so many humans on the planet now, and they all want a piece of the pie. Billions of them dream of riches, or to put it more precisely, they dream of being richer than most of their fellow humans. Yes, greed. The greedy will always win, because they are better at hoarding than the rest of the humans are at protecting resources from hoarding. Look how easily we in the US were duped into electing a POTUS that is the knife edge of greed and corruption. It's depressing.
- marmot777 10y agoThis is an absolute tragedy. I'd say that it's near the top of the list of the worst things human beings are doing I'd say that if we weren't in denial, five alarm fire alarms would be going off. I wish I knew what I could do to help stop this horror but I feel powerless. :-( By the time my 5-year-old son is an adult, I think I'm going to have to explain to him what happened. That is, if things aren't so fucked up by unintended and intended consequences that this conversation never can happen. What a fucking delightful world that we are just destroying it with no more honor and respect than we'd give an ant on the kitchen floor.