Student 30

Global Issues/IDST2205

4 October 1999

Rainforest Summit Paper

 

                                            A Botanist=s Attitude Toward The Rainforest

 

The tropical rainforests found in over thirty five countries around the world are the homes to millions of species of exotic plants.  These forests house over fifty percent of the planet=s three hundred thousand species of plants.  Some of  these exotic plants have yet to be discovered and recognized, yet Aa chunk the size of Denmark@ is slashed and burned each year.  Some of these plants are useful in many different ways and are the most beautiful and fascinating of all plant species in the world, so we must come together and find ways to save these plant=s environment.

 

The rainforest is a Akey to our ecosystem@ that provides a home to a variety of species of animals and plants, a home for the many different cultures of indigenous people, and provides clean air, water, and food for the millions who live beyond the forest=s borders.  However, everyday thousands of acres are being destroyed to suit the world=s needs.  People of the world are not taking their future into consideration by not thinking of what might happen if the world=s Alungs@ are all cut away.

 

I am a botanist from the United States, but I have studied in such well-known places as the Peruvian Amazon, the island of Borneo in Indonesia, and Suriname.  I enjoy discovering the beauty and the many uses of some of these exotic plants.  While in the Peruvian Amazon, I worked by the side of an ethnobotanist who studies the medicinal uses of plants of the rainforest.  I helped to identify the species of some of these plants. 

 

Some of these plants found in the Peruvian Amazon can be used to cure such problems as snake bites, post pardum bleeding, malaria, hepatitis, head lice, and rheumatism just to name a few.  Curare, a plant that is a proven muscle relaxer, was introduced to me by the indigenous inhabitants of that area.  They use this plant to kill birds in their hunt.

 

Along with curing these minor problems, the plants of the Amazon may indeed hold the cure for such deadly diseases as cancer and aids.  Scientists believe that thousand year old fronds and vines of the rainforest may hold these cures.  Of the fifty percent of plants in the rainforest, only half of one percent of them have been analyzed for their medicinal potential.  These unknown plants are being destroyed everyday, and with them goes the hope of new undiscovered medicines.

 

Beautiful, exotic plants and trees are also found in the rainforest=s of the Bornea Islands off the coast of Southeast Asia.  One of these unique trees is the giant dipterocarp tree which drops its fruit in synchrony.  The dipterocard tree and its hundreds of species represents thirteen of the world=s sixteen genera.  Rainforest animals like parakeets and orangutans feast on the fruits of these trees.  Dipterocarp trees set the reproductive rhythm for the whole forest.  They reach up to two hundred and thirty feet in the air and have huge trunks.  These trees are found in Africa, South America, and most abundantly in the Borneo Islands.  They account for one of every two tall trees of the rainforest.  Their large limbs expanding to heights of one hundred feet in the air provide the animals of  the rainforest with homes and safe havens.

 

The tree is also a valuale resource in Indonesia.  Its wood is a lucrative product in Southeast Asia, and it can be used for veneer and plywood.  Its resin can be used in varnish, medicines, incense, and embalming fluid.  Also useful is its seeds, which can be used in cosmetics and chocolate.  About two hundred years ago you could have found all of Southeast Asia covered in dipterocarp forest, but now they are in grave danger.  The logging of thousands of acres annually is slowly eating away at Indonesia=s forests.  The killing of the dipterocarps in Indonesia is only one of the many concerns about the deforestation of the rainforest.

 

Another beautiful region of raiforests can be found in Suriame near Venezuela in

South America, home of at least two hundred different tree species.  This is a swampy area with wet soil.  The Cari Indians of this area still produce their own food and clothes and culivate rice, sugar cane, and palm oil.  Some of the plants found here are the Helliconis, psittacorum and the Heliconia densiflorum which can be found growing along the ceeks of the beautiful rainforest.

 

A different zone of Suriname is the Svannah found south of the costal plain.  The soil here is sandy and holds different types of shrubs and grasses.  The sap of the Cassava root is used by the natives to make Kasiri or beer.  These natives help the Aforeign botanist@ to identify some of these exotic plants and trees.  The natives or the indigenous people of the area become close to the researchers of the rainforest, and they are helpful in giving needed information.

 

These countless exotic and unique flora and fauna will sadly not survive the logging and pollution of the deforestataion of the rainforest.  The roads built in not only Suriname but also other rainforests of the world are destroying the soil, speeding up erosion and creating drainage problems.  The heavy machinery and vehicles traveling down these roads are increasing the damage.  The rivers and the air will become polluted affecting the fish industry and the clean air that we breathe.

 

In the Indonesian forests, the villagers maintain the forest by using Areduced-impac@ logging known to them for thousands of years.  These operations use small machines, and the villagers carry out the trees by hand.  If the world would start to use the logging techniques of the Indonesian villagers, the rainforests all over the world could be preserved.  As a botanist, I would compromise on the fact of the right to use timber only on the grounds that it would be logged in a more ecologican-safe manner.   However, I will not compromise on the issue of the non-selective logging that the world is now using in the deforestation of the rainforest.  I also will not compromise on the disrespect being inflicted pon the indigenous people=s culture.  Along with the trees being destroyed daily, the people=s culture is decreasing with time also.  The modernization of these rural areas of the rainforest that is caused by the building of the roads and logging is taking away from the culture of the younger generation of the indegenous people.

 

A positive effect of my working in the rainforests was the relationships I created with indigenous people and the wildlife biologists who were also working to help save the rainforest.  Working with the indigenous people, I was able to cross the Acultural barriers= of the world, create interesting relationships, and learn about their culture which in turn helped me with my work immensely.  Often times the villagers would take me on their hunts on which I saw the plants like curare (mentioned earlier) and quinine, a medicine used to treat malaria.

 

I also worked closely with wildlife biologists.  We studied together certain trees in which many animals live and feed on.  For example, the sloth hangs upside down on the libs of the cecropia tree.  Not only is this tree the sloth=s home but it is also its food source.  The forest canopy in which the sloth lives camouflages it from its predators.  Many animals just like the sloth are in danger of losing their homes and food source because of the deforestation.  The wildlife biologists also fear the loss of these trees which would affect the thousands species of animals that they study.

 

The deforestation of the rainforest will bring only negative outcome for the lives of botanists, wildlife biologists, the indigenous people, and most importantly the plants and animals.  With the loss of these trees comes a chance of global warming, no home or source of food for animals, no plants and animals for the biologists and botaists to study, and the change of thousand year old traditions and culture for the villagers of these areas.  Deforestation could sustain us from ever finding the cures to some of the world=s most deadly diseases.

 

The animals which inhabit these trees and vines cannot live in deforested fields and plantations.  They are not able to adapt to these conditions, so many are becoming extinct at a fast rate.  Not only animals but also humans cannot live without trees.  The burning of the trees is releasing carbon dioxide into the air and poisoning the air which we breathe.  Something has to be done to stop the deforestation before it is too late.

 

All in all, we see and recognize the effects that the deforestation of the rainforest would bring to the world in which we live, but I ask is it enough to wake people up to the facts and make needed changes?  I hope so for the sake of future generations, for the men and women who are working to find cures, for the villagers, plants, and animals which call the rainforest home.  Speaking from not only a botanist=s point of view but also any environmentalist, we need to come together and meet the needs of the global world for future generations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                    Works Cited

 

1)                  www.euronet.nl/users/mbleeker

 

2)                  ARouding Out the Rainforest Preserves.@  Resource  4 August 12998, ver. 5: n8.  Galileo.  Online. Periodical Abstracts.

 

3)                  AForest Fragmemtation May Threaten Genetic Diversity.@  Bioscience.  Sep 1998, v4: n9 Galileo.   Online Periodical Astracts.

 

4)                  AA Search For Miracles@ Vegetarian Times.  Nov 1998, n255.  Galileo.  Online.  Periodical Abstracts.

 

5)                  AFlowering of the Forest.@  Natural History.  Jul 1999, v 108: n6.  Galileo.  Online.  Periodical Abstracts.

 

6)                  Secrets of the Rainforest.  Videotape.