Posted by Mike: > The deforestation of large parts of the Amazon basic are not due to > logging, but to other practices, most notably a sort of slash-and-burn > ranching that was encouraged for many years in many South American > countries. Tree that we would consider very valuable were simply burned > to produce temporary grazing ground. This is 'true' about the ranching and the 'slash and burn' agriculture practices in the Amazon .... but 'wasteful logging' does play a big part, or has over the past years. When I first was assigned as part of a UN team to the Amazon region, we made some inspection trips and we referred to it as the 'Good ol' boys from Georgia syndrome' because of the logging by the American giants that controlled the logging at that time. Scouts would spot a particular tree they were interested in ... mark it ... and then come in with their bulldozers and clear out everything in their way to get at that tree. Brazil in recent years has become much more ecologically conscious of this. Brunzeel has a production operation in the Amazon. But the 'slash and burn' practices still continue despite efforts of the environmental groups. SEA KAYAKING BRAZIL (http://www.andetur.com/Brazil/Projects/sea_kayak.htm) - Andetur Brazilian Travel Club Capt. Donald R. Reid *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
>The deforestation of large parts of the Amazon basic are not due to >logging, but to other practices, most notably a sort of slash-and-burn >ranching that was encouraged for many years in many South American >countries. Tree that we would consider very valuable were simply burned >to produce temporary grazing ground. >The wise use of tropical woods is what gives them economic value, and >makes it preferable to log them than to burn them. And the production of >marine plywood is a very efficent way to use logs. --But not quite the whole story. Tropical forests are very diverse, i.e. there are many species and many niches. But there are no Stands of a given species as there is in temperate forests; there often considerable distance between two, say, cecropia trees. In order to get to the more valuable trees, many more are destroyed in reaching them. Also, these are lateritic soils. Once the vegetation is removed, sun and dessication dries out the soil and it becomes rock hard. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:19 PDT