Population Growth In Brazil And It S Effects Term paper
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Introduction
The population of the world today is 6,112,911,145 and progressively growing. Unfortunately, that figure is expected to double by the year 2050. Four-fifths of this population resides in developing countries of the “South”. Because of extreme levels of fertility, mortality, and new migration, these developing countries are accountable for most of the world population growth. There are many reasons that explain why the numbers are increasing, but the main reason is the way of life for many of the people inhabiting these regions. With the combination of an unmet demand for family planning and the desire for a large family, the world’s Total Fertility Rate(TFI) is 3.1. This is significantly higher than the average population replacement TFI of 2.1.
The population explosion is forcing people to migrate away from the city and into the surrounding area, which is causing an urbanization of the rural areas. To support this spreading, roads and cities are being constructed where plant and animal rich ecosystems exist. One region of particular global concern is the Amazon Rainforest and the effect of the spreading population from the coastal areas of Brazil. Currently, Brazil has a population of 172,860,370 people. A majority of this population currently depends on the local rainforest to support human growth. It has been reported that at current deforestation rates, only scattered remnants of tropical rainforests will exits and a quarter of a the species on Earth will be extinct by the time today’s preschoolers retire. However, because of the ever-growing need for development, the soil, the trees, and the wildlife of the Amazon Rainforest are suffering at the hands of a demanding population growth.
Soil Condition and Agriculture, Politics and Industry
Agriculture is a big factor in the rainforest region of Brazil, which is the fifth biggest country in the world and home of 140 million people. It allows one third of its population (the ca. 400 native tribes, the poor and the migrating people) to support themselves, their families, and the rest of the nation. While the coastal regions, which contain two thirds of Brazil’s population, are in dire need of food products and depend on the local agriculture, Brazil’s production of coffee, sugarcane, cassava, bananas, and sisal is number one in the world. In the Western Hemisphere, it is the leading producer of rice and pulses (beans, peas, and lentils). It ranks second in the world with the production of oranges, cocoa, and soybeans, and third in the production of black pepper, and corn (maize) and in the size of its herds of cattle and hogs. With the help of more intensive farming technology (like the use of fertilizer, use of hoes for weeding, or planting of crops in rows rather than scattering seeds), the amount of land that poor people need to reclaim from forests to feed themselves could be reduced by high numbers.
Politicians are aware of the problems and many are trying to promote the idea of plantation forestry, by abandoning government policies that explicitly encourage deforestation, by reforming the timber industry, and restricting the logging in general.
Today, 85% of Brazils amazon jungle region is still covered in trees. To keep this important area in the temporary condition, plantation forestry (as a source of additional income) is promoted, since it can be just as profitable as chopping trees from virgin forest. It has the obvious advantage that growers can choose which species to cultivate. Developing countries with hot climates have the competitive advantage in this market, simply because trees grow much faster than in temperate climates.
The pressure of the green lobby abroad got the authorities to dismantle some of the more obvious incentives to wreck environmental havoc as well. In the beginning of the 1990s, a series of tough environmental laws were passed, prohibiting the landowners from logging more than 50% of their land. Deforestation went down in the Brazilian Amazon from 29,000 square kilometers in 1995 to 18,100 square kilometers in 1996. Partially responsible for the decrease was the creation of the program for prevention and control of the forest fires in last July with $25.9 million from the World Bank and the Brazilian government.
Since the population kept growing extensively during the 1960s and 1970s, Brazil had to answer the needs of their people by growing economically as well. With the growth of 7% per year, industrialization, the mechanization of agriculture, and the building of highways, power plants, and cities were all taking place simultaneously in order to nourish the growing population and to supply them with jobs. In the 1980s, Brazil was producing about 12 million tons of steal a year and many of its end products, such as hardware and automobiles, were made for export and achieved a surplus in external trade, helping the national budget, but also creating environmental problems.
The combination of bad policies, population growth, and poverty makes the rainforest issue a difficult problem area to solve. Poor people use mainly wood as fuel, and no one really seems to care about the government regulations that restrict logging. Politics cannot be successful in areas where people don’t care, or where there is so much bribery that it makes the government powerless. As part of the national interest, Brazilian government shrunk the Amazon forest between the 1960s and 1990s. Brazil was trying to solve problems of overpopulation, landlessness, and poverty in the country’s crowded coastal region by moving people in their border regions. By doing this, they also created the so-called safety valves, populated buffer zones taking off the pressure on their vulnerable borders. The Brazilian government saw the thinly inhabited Amazon as an invitation for foreign invaders and, by moving the people, this thread was not eliminated but its constant threat was greatly downgraded. In order to get more people in these regions, the authorities gave ownership of the land to newcomers that simply had to clear the trees on it. The government also built roads and schools to attract even more people for their “the land without people to the people without land “-campaign (2). Now there is a growing problem with the inhabitants, nobody really seems to know who owns the land, and disputes are often settled by violence. Often, owners don’t register their land on purpose just to circumvent the possibility of restriction by the authorities. This uncertainty and violence about ownership rights lead in turn to the increase of cattle ranching in the region, since cattle herds can be moved on if someone else claims and takes the land. The government also had firms pouring into this region and setting up giant cattle ranches by offering tax breaks to the companies. The same tenure of insecurity also means that the chances for plantation forestry, however sensible in theory, do not stand a chance in practice. Besides, it would take trees at least 20 years to grow and return a profit, while there is always a chance of accidental fires that might destroy the whole investment.
On an other political note, the tough laws of the early 1990s (prohibiting landowners from logging more than 50% of their land) were also softened (down to 20%), and deforestation reached an all-time high in the Brazilian Amazon in 1995 (29,000square kilometers - an area of about the size of Belgium). The government estimates that 80% of the timber in the region is harvested illegally, but IBAMA, Brazil’s powerless environment agency which lacks financial support, managed 1997 to collect only 6% of the fines it levied.
As for Brazil’s industry, commercial logging is one big cause of deforestation and the demand for timber is expected to increase from 1.6 billion cubic meters a year in 1995 to 1.9 billion cubic meters in 2010, driven by rising standards in living. The pollution that comes with the enormous growth is also reason for acid rain, which is a combination of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that are produced by the burning of fossil fuels, mainly produced by the Industry. Sulfur dioxide, SO2, in combination with oxygen will create sulfate, SO4. The sulfate in turn can be transformed in the atmosphere with H2 (in this case in form of fog, rain, or snow) into sulfuric acid, H2SO4, also known as acid rain. This rain is slightly acidic and passes through the canopy where it either can be diluted by deciduous trees (like the big leaf maple, for instance), or just ignored by others. When it is not diluted, it can work its way through the soil where it takes the minerals out of the topmost layer of soil, carrying them with it deeper into the ground. The mineral enriched water travels on, leaving a matrix of silica particles (sand) in its path. This will make the soil start looking grayish. A well-developed layer of silica is usually white and some of these layers in the forests of Brazil were seen that were up to 10 meters deep.
Understandably, the Agriculture suffers from such drastic influences as well. The same slash and burn methods that were used for generations in the past to gain new fertile fields are now presenting a growing threat as well. The “controlled fires” tend to be going out of control and burning huge amounts of forest every year. Brazil’s National Space Research Institute had sighted 1,700 wildfires over the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul during the last week in August 2000, up from 270 wildfires in the same region in July. According to IBAMA, almost all the fires are human caused. 51% of the farm properties are made up of usually small family operated farms with less than 35 acres, and have few tools or conveniences. 39% of the countries farmland is owned by less than 1% of the population, their average size of farm land is more that 25,000 acres. More often than not, farms are now not efficient enough anymore, since the soil in the Amazon is generally not as fertile as elsewhere in more moderate climates. Crops would begin to fail after a few years and force the farmers to clear even more land.
There also is the different point of view between Brazilians and the rich world’s environmentalists, who want to preserve the forest for two main reasons: a) because burning them could eventually contribute to world climate change, and b) because they know that forest loss will reduce bio-diversity. Both are long term worries, although, recent research suggests that burning trees is now beginning to affect the local climate of the Brazilian rainforest too, making it drier and more liable to accidental fires.
Deforestation
Deforestation is a confounding problem in the Amazon Rainforest. According to Brazilian government, 6,347 square miles of rainforest was destroyed from illegal logging and farming in 1998-99. This remains constant with the 1997-98 deforestation rates. About 80% of timber harvested in the region is harvested illegally. The effect of extreme deforestation is very apparent in Pargomina, a city in the north of Brazil.
The air is bitter with sawdust and smoke. Dozens of sawmills are slicing up prime rainforest tree trunks, and each is surrounded by dozens of charcoal kilns spewing out black smoke. For hundreds of miles around, the landscape is bare of trees except for the odd stump. No one takes any notice of government regulations that restrict logging, explains a manager at one of the...
/Works Cited1. Forest Conservation Organization. “Brazil Launches Defense Program for Amazon Jungle”.
9 November 2000. .
2. Jackson, Robert M., ed. Global Issues. 16th ed. Guilford: Dashkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000.
3. Rotnem, Thomas E. “Issues in Development: Population Growth and the “Greying
Syndrome”. Class lecture. Political Science 2401: Global Issues. Southern Polytechnic
State University, Marietta. 23 August 2000.
4. Snarr, Michael and D. Neil Snarr, eds. Introducing Global Issues. Boulder: Lynne Rienner
Publishers Incorporated, 1998.
5. University of Oregon. “Amazon Deforestation and Global Environmental Phenomena.” 20
November 2000. .
6. U.S. Census Bureau. “International Data Base”. 10 May 2000. .
7. The Latin American Alliance. “Brazil - Country Profile”. 11 November 2000. .
8. Amazon Interactive “Making a Living”. 12 July 1998. .
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