In a discussion in the early part of September 2019, amid what seemed to be the wholesale catastrophic burning of the Amazon Rainforest, I had claimed that what we are seeing is mostly bush fires. How can one make such a claim? The answer is a complicated and was never intended to cast doubt on the seriousness of what is happening in the rainforest. Let me explain:
In earlier times, for example, within the logging industry of British Columbia on Canada’s west coast, “slash burning” was the order of the day well into the 1950’s. A good description of slash burning can be found in Wikipedia, as follows:
“Slash-and-burn agriculture, also called fire-fallow cultivation, is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area.”
The latter part of the description is important because the action of burning or setting of the fires usually only begins after the area is first logged. One may ask, why would one bother to clear, log-off, or cut down trees prior to setting the fires, if the only intent is that of the expansion of farmland for agriculture? Surely, one could argue, if these fires are all about clearing the land to expand farming, why not simply burn the trees as well. Firstly, large trees are not easily burned in a forest fire and tend to remain standing after the smaller trees and branches have burned.
However, the most important “take-away”, as far as the indigenous people are concerned, is that mature trees are a most valuable commodity, so it would be a foolish act indeed to simply burn marketable (larger trees) especially so with the ever-present demand for hardwoods. Greenpeace argues that the “US, EU hardwood imports fuel Amazon destruction”. Well of course they have a point. Meaning, once the larger trees are removed, most often knowingly illegally to satisfy US and EU demands the next step is usually slash, or bush burning to create farmland. Again, this increase in farmland provides additional income for the farmers. The driving force, or final stage to the impetus of destruction of forest lands, after the cash crop of illegal logging is done, is that of satisfying an ever-increasing world demand for cheaper agricultural products.
Back to that initial stage, or first step in the destruction of the heart of the rainforest by the removal of often 30 to 40 metre trees (100-130 feet tall trees). Smaller trees, that are only smaller in girth (smaller in circumference or less than perhaps 200 mm or 8 inches in diameter) but often equally as tall as the mature trees removed by logging, remain, or are bulldozed to be part of the slash burn, as they are not ideally marketable. These are most generally the trees you may often see burning in news video clips, that are in fact only the remnants, if you like, of what is left of the forest after marketable logging operations are complete. What is so special about Amazon Rainforest trees? Well, for example:
“Ipe is an extremely durable, 100% natural wood decking. In fact, it is eight times harder than California Redwood trees. And it is three times stronger than Cedar. … If you choose Ipe wood decking, you can expect it to last for 40 years or more”.
The foregoing quote is the usual sort of US and Canadian marketing blurb to “inspire” people to buy timber taken, most often illegally, from the Amazon rainforest. (Ipe wood is often referred to as Brazilian walnut).
Some interesting background on the aftermath of forest fires is available at the following link:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/old-flames-the-tangled-history-of-forest-fires-wildlife-and-people/
However, after reviewing the above link, the only take-away intended, is to note that many trees remain standing after a normal inadvertently caused forest fire within an unlogged forest. If committed to create farmland, as it appears to be the case in the Amazon rainforest, it makes sense to remove at least the larger trees before the fire is set, otherwise you have a mess of unstable, no longer marketable, large trees to clear.
People are rightly outraged to see the destruction of the beautiful Amazon rainforests, along with the loss of so much biodiversity. What is happening, is much like the sort of thing that had occurred in the British Isles and most parts of Europe hundreds of years ago. The British Isles were all densely forested before the advent of cultivation for farming. There was of course no outcry at that time as the land was cleared because lifestyles were changing to become an agrarian society from what had been a hunting and gathering way of life. It is unfortunate, but unavoidable in our modern times that we have conflict leading to the displacement of indigenes people. Yet, is such really the case, or is it more the case that indigenes people are selectively living between two worlds? I would argue the latter is true.
In North America and Australia, we accommodate the pretense of our indigenes people and agree that they are involved in a hunting and gathering way of life. We talk about their food fishery along with their hunting requirements, all while they are driving cars, have cell phones and are shopping at the local stores. A few years ago, within a news clip about the allowed rights of Washington State’s indigenes people to harvest whales, after the kill, one of the crew stated that he preferred KFC. It is a bit of an odd situation, this living between two worlds, but in Canada’s coastal region of British Columbia, it works wonders for the tourist industry. There is a similar pretense at work within the Amazon Rainforest. “Amazon Under Threat”, a recent BBC production, that had intent to show how the indigenes hunters and gatherer tribes of the Amazon were being displaced came across as almost farcical. Adult tribe members were wearing jeans or shorts and tee shirts, with children dressed in America style clothes. The mixing of war paint was demonstrated, in what appeared to be an aluminum pie plate, then off they went into the forest holding hunting spears and soon returned with the BBC camera crew. There was an SUV parked in the background, which may have belonged to the BBC, but it does indicate that there are drivable roads into these “isolated places”. Other documentaries do away with the pretense of spears and show the indigenes people in trucks with guns chasing away illegal loggers. However, there can be no doubt that most indigenes people cherish their way of life, though, to pretend that they are disconnected from the rest of the world and are living a hunting and gathering existence is just silly.
If we could turn back the clock to have indigenes people unaware that a more advanced- technologically society existed outside of their own world, then, and only then, does it make any sense to have indigenes reserves. The notion of “a reserve” especially in these days of so many recently established animals and environmentally protected reserves draws a very unfortunate comparison when involved in the attempted isolation of people. To make the notion of a reserve more palatable, the term “ancestral land” is used by Brazil’s Kayapo chief Raoni, which is now used most generally anyway to pretend it is not a reserve to isolate people. The bottom line in all of this, though I do not condone Brazil’s Bolsonaro’s methods, is that people need to accept the reality that we can not turn back the clock to have the Amazon rainforest undisturbed and occupied only by indigenes tribes. It is far too late for that. What to do, or do we have a right to do anything at all to try and save the rain forests is an important question, especially so, because we, meaning those outside of the Amazon rainforest, cut down perhaps 2 million trees each day to make paper? (find/ add citations) Bolsonaro wants to develop the Amazon and assimilate its indigenes people. At the U.N. he accused the NGOs of wanting to keep the Amazon tribes living like “cavemen”. Well of course he has a point, for if the indigenes tribes could all be persuaded to go back to that hunting and gathering stage of “evolvement” if you like, there would be no need for the burning of the forest to create farmland.
However, within our concern about the burning of the trees to create farmland, it should be recognized that Brazil does an excellent job of farming, which is all done on less that 8% of it’s territory. Best repeat that: “all done on less than 8% of it’s territory”. (need print citation) Well of course Bolsonaro blames the media for Hyping the Amazon fires and to counteract this bad press, Brazil is now promoting their involvement in the supply chain of the world’s food production. It’s claimed that Brazil feeds 1.2 billion people with exports of 53 billion dollars this year (2019). It is in fact one of the worlds main exporters of sugar cane, coffee beans, orange juice, beef, and chicken and is one of the worlds largest agricultural producers.
So, what about this burning of the Amazon forest and how detrimental is it, being the “lungs of the Earth”, as claimed by many who should know better? As far as the influence on the oxygen level of our planet, the effect is insignificant, with the related chemistry explained in other parts of the commentary. Nobody seems sure of just where this 20% of the world’s oxygen notion came from, which was bantered about, because there simply isn’t enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for trees to photosynthesize into an entire fifth of the planet’s oxygen, nor even 1% for that matter. Emmanuel Macron, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate (at time of utterance) Kamala Harris, and actor and environmentalist Leonardo di Caprio all bought into this 20% belief, which makes one question just what other odd things they may choose to believe? However, any burning of organic material, such as trees and all fossil fuels does oxidize carbon molecules, to become CO2, during the process of combustion, to then escape into the atmosphere. Trees do draw down the CO2 from our atmosphere, but unfortunately, according to Scott Denning, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, because of the balance between oxygen production and consumption, modern ecosystems barely budge oxygen levels in the atmosphere. However, if there was an increase of oxygen within our atmosphere at some level higher than 20%, we would really have a problem. Meaning, things would rust out (oxidize) extremely fast and organic matter would decay at a far faster rate.