BERKELEY, CA.- BERKELEY, CA - The past 50 years of human
activity in the Amazon have reduced large tracts of lush, biologically diverse
forest to virtually useless grassland, unfit even to graze cattle. And there
is little indication that this trend is changing, according to Hilgard O'Reilly
Sternberg, professor emeritus of geography, UC Berkeley
Sternberg, a native of Brazil, has made regular field trips to the Amazon
rain forest over the past half century. During that time he has studied
the physical geography, ecology and anthropology of the Amazon, along with
its history and politics. He has also written and lectured worldwide on
deforestation and other ecological problems in the Amazon.
"During my latest field season in 1994 I was impressed once more
how, even at great distances from newly opened roads, the forest was destroyed.
The cleared land was not being used, but had been taken over by second growth,
which will long remain unproductive. The people had moved on to open up
other land," he notes.
In a new study of the Amazon, Sternberg reviews the known history of
the Amazon waters and wetlands from the first arrival of Europeans to the
present time. His report emphasizes the impossibility of predicting what
will happen in the Amazon, given scientific as well as political uncertainties.
One certainty, he says, is that the situation will not improve without agrarian
reform to put land in the hands of the people.
"By agrarian reform I don't mean merely parceling up of the land,
but the forging of an infrastructure -- schools, hospitals, roads -- to
keep the people on the land. Reform, buttressed by financial and technical
assistance, would also create internal markets for other sectors of the
economy," he emphasizes.
Before Brazil was colonized, indigenous populations numbering perhaps
in the millions managed the resources of the rain forest in a way that generally
tended to preserve them for future generations. However, as these peoples
were decimated by introduced diseases and deliberate efforts to pushed them
off the land, their place was taken by groups with no connection to the
environment or understanding of it, notes Sternberg.
Some of these interlopers are squatters who destroy the land through
slash-and-burn development in the context of inefficient market-oriented
farming. Others are speculators subsidized by tax moneys, who invest in
opening up large cattle ranches.
"They end up owning most of the land either by acquiring it when
the squatters move on or converting it directly to pasture in a brutal,
well financed rape of the forests," Sternberg says.
The influx of poor landless farmers is a direct result of new roads,
which allow easy access to formerly pristine land. Sternberg notes, however,
that these roads could be beneficial if combined with nationwide legislation
to promote effective control of the land by those who work it. Because of
the uncertainty surrounding such legislation, a controversial road proposed
to link western Amazonia with the Pacific coast of Peru could be a boon
or a disaster.
The forest also disappears as it is cut to supply innumerable charcoal
kilns that feed local pig iron smelters. New and unexpected threats arise
too, such as the threat to lowland forests from Andean coca farmers dislodged
from their mountain fields by drug eradication efforts.
Water pollution has become a serious hazard. Gold mining operations pollute
streams and rivers with mercury. Several commonly consumed species of fish
have been found with mercury levels exceeding safety limits for human consumption,
he reports..
Efforts to provide hydroelectric power by damming various tributaries
of the Amazon have also proved to be disastrous, disrupting downstream ecosystems
and the lives of people dependent on the river.
While Sternberg is not overly optimistic about the future, he cites a
growing grass-roots environmental movement in Brazil as a good sign, along
with Brazil's "green" constitution that contains guarantees protecting
Amerindian tribal lands. Another promising political sign is the debut of
a "dollars-for-diversity" program like that first used in Costa
Rica that sets aside environmentally sensitive land as a source of new drugs.
Dr. Sternberg's approach to geography involves studying the interface
between human societies and their environment. This includes the observation
of dysfunctions along that interface, such as improper use of soil, water,
flora and fauna, or the concentration of resources in the hands of a few
people.
"I don't think Brazil is going to solve its problems until the little
people can attain a better standard of living," he says.
Dr. Sternberg's report, entitled "Waters and Wetlands of Brazilian
Amazonia: An Uncertain Future," appears in a new book "The Fragile
Tropics of Latin America: Sustainable Management of Changing Environments"
published by the United Nations.
