Illegal Logging and Mining
Each and every one of us have heard of the "Save the Trees" mission for our rainforests. The argument has been that those trees are supposed to be there and are required for life on this Earth.
Illegal logging and mining in the rainforests has been a problem for a long time, and has become widely discussed. It's so widely discussed that 4th graders in America are learning about it, but I present to you a side of illegal logging and mining you may have never heard about; it's a side that shows the full selfishness of humanity and also the innocence of it.
So in this next video, Jose Carlos progresses to prove to the world with video that there are tribes in the tropics of Brazil and that they need to be protected. It's explained how illegal logging and mining affect these tribes.
As you can see, there are actions being taken to help these problems. There are, indeed, many sides to the "Stop logging the rainforest" progression, but this is just one of them. One action that was taken is that there were laws made that were intended to limit mining and logging, but clearly that didn't do enough. It's missions like this that are hoping to touch the human side of people and show them that there are reasons beyond the scientific arguments of "those plants give people oxygen" to eradicate illegal mining and logging.
Naturally, I will touch on the general topics you'd typically hear of when thinking of the destruction of the tropical rainforest.
Animals When we mine or take down trees or harvest fruits from the rainforests, their natural habitats and diets are being destroyed and depleted. | Plants When we chop down trees for paper, we are killing plants and, inadvertently, ourselves, because we as humans require oxygen (which plants give us). |
1 + -5 = Not as Bad as it Would've Been
When it comes to ways humans have positively affected the rainforest, it's one of those situations where you take +1 and combine it with -5. It's not positive in the end, but it's just not as terrible as it would have been. One of these situations is this: when cutting down trees, some companies replace each tree with as many as 3 new ones, but at the same time, those old trees being torn down meant that habitats and homes for animals were torn down. That can never really be replaced.
Humans just have a way of changing things. One way we change things in nature is that we further imbalance the equilibrium in populations for many reasons. Say we liked the pattern of white tigers and we wanted to have more fur from them, this affects the genetic equilibrium of the tigers. And this is one change that is quite intentional, but other times, we don't even know what we're doing. Like when we log in the forest. When we do that, we're tearing down homes of animals that prefer trees. If those animals cannot find other places for shelter, they are unprotected from predators and weather. This too can disturb the equilibrium of certain animals.
Biodiversity
Value of things all depends upon opinion, but the value of biodiversity is that biodiversity gives us everything. Let me explain.
The world is like one gigantic machine, and everything is interconnected. If one part is taken out or broken or weak, then the rest of the machine must be reworked or needs to find a replacement. If, for example, all hummingbirds died tomorrow, the world would have less pollinators, and less pollinators makes less crops that give seeds, and that creates a food-shortage for all of the places that depend upon those hummingbirds to pollinate things.
So when you think that losing a species is irrelevant to you, think again, because even the little things mean something.
