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AMAZON FOREST TRAGEDY

09/11/2023

Many years ago, in the early 1970s, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Amazon basin. In those days you could see nothing but trees from wingtip to wingtip of the aircraft when flying over it – no roads, very little cleared land, and then only for native villages, plus occasional glimpses of the great river. I swam in the crystal clear lakes along the side of the river, saw the giant water lilies with leaves so large they can support a young child, slept in a hammock in local villages and travelled as far as the Urubamba valley in Peru, an important catchment of the Amazon.

Even in those days there were concerns about the fate of Amazonian native peoples and the rampant deforestation. Little did I know that half a century later I would be reading about the additional dire consequences of climate change and over-development, which are so great that the whole of this vast forest is now in imminent danger of major ecological collapse.

Parts of the bed of the Rio Negro, a major Amazon tributary joining at the river port of Manaus, where temperatures have reached 40oC, have been desiccated by a drought that is the worst for over 120 years. Boats are left high and dry, and fish are dying. The impacts on native peoples and their village life, already threatened by forest clearance and ranch development, are heart-breaking. This drought is believed to be affecting some 600,000 people.

Charities and other benefactor organisations are doing what they can, but what is really needed is a worldwide effort of collaboration to halt climate change and the commensurate problems of species extinction and overdevelopment of greenspace. Thinking about our present politicians, wars in Europe and the Middle East, and the seemingly intransigent problems of greed, religious fanaticism and self-absorbed indifference, it is easy to become very depressed.

Can governments turn the tide at the World Climate Action Summit in Dubai (COP 28 Nov. 30th to Dec. 12th) where King Charles will deliver the opening address? They could, but their track record suggests they won’t, or only inadequately. Unless this tide is turned, though, the future is grim indeed.

At Betts Ecology we shall continue to promote and enhance biodiversity but I hope all who read this item will also join the conversation with their local environmental organisations, politicians and Councils to instil the real sense of urgency that is now so desperately needed to reverse CO2 emissions and leave coal, gas and oil in the ground.

 © Betts Ecology