Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 09:01:05 -0800 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [OGD] Amazon Highway trying to balance economic progress and the environment Reply-To: "the OrchidGuide Digest \(OGD\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message: 6
<>Bridge to link Brazil, Peru -- and 2 oceans Highway through Amazon seen as threat to rain fores<t The full article can be read at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/05/MNGV39LDL51.DTL<>
Interesting excerpts from the article:<>
Leaders of Brazil and Peru have long dreamed of bolstering their trade y connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with a 2,500-mile highway that passes deep through the Amazon rain forest<>.
Experts say that since the mid-1970s, an area more than 1 1/2 times the size of California has been destroyed -- about 16 percent of Brazil's Amazon rain forest -- by development, logging and farming. Satellite photos and data showed that 9,169 square miles of rain forest were cut down in the 12 months ending in August 2003. Environmentalists fear its destruction because it is home to up to 30 percent of the planet's animal and plant species and is an important source of medicines<>.
Environmentalists are not reassured, saying Peru has already failed to prevent illegal loggers from entering protected state lands in Madre de Dios, which is home to some of the greatest biodiversity in the world. The area's Manu National Park has some 850 species of birds, 200 species of mammals and rare species such as the giant otter and the giant armadillo<>.
In the meantime, Brazilian diplomat Mena-Goncalves, says further destruction of the rain forest is a price Brazil is willing to pay<>.
"Although no one wants to pave the rain forest, it (Amazon) shouldn't be considered a gigantic zoo," he said
Oh, thank goodness people like Michael Kovach are discouraged from bringing any of these new species to light/into cultivation so they can be paved over!!! Long live CITES (Convention to Insure Total Extinction of Species)!!!!!!!!
Thank goodness we'll remiain ignorant of all the species lost. How many gone already? Two talks I heard last year described species found only in one small area less than a small city block in dimension, in a few cases, a habitat of only one TREE, and in a few cases, only one PLANT ever found. I say let's open it all up and grab 'em while they still exist! After all,
"... , it (Amazon) shouldn't be considered a gigantic zoo,"
Chris Brevoort
_______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
