Almost everywhere we go, the remaining natural areas--the native habitats-- are circumscribed by destruction, monocultures, hard scrabble farmers, sprawl from cities, shanty towns filled with people looking for a better way of life. People everywhere, way too many people, doing what people do: cutting down trees, plowing the land, fouling the water, killing wildlife to eat, or for their skins, or for their hearts, gallbladders, or whatever someone in China or wherever thinks will cure their impotence, prove their masculinity, improve their sex appeal or cure some ailment or other. It just goes on and on, and all of this is just us beavering around, doing what we do.
Our latest trip to Brazil brought home the juxtaposition. We visited two wild areas. The contrast between the wild and the "tamed" is stark; wild is complex and tamed is boring. Cristalino Jungle Lodge is located in the Southern Amazon, and consistis of 46 square miles of private, protected, pristine jungle; a clean, black water river runs through it and the region is recognized as an important area of biodiversity. The jumping off point for Cristalino is the 40 year old city of Alta Floresta. It used to be surrounded by forest all the way to the river; now it sits amid over-grazed ranches and poorly producing little farms. It takes about an hour to reach the edge of the forest; one moment the sun was blasting down and in the next trees overhanging the road filtered it into dappled shade.
Our other destination was Emas National Park located in south-central Brazil. The habitat is called Cerrado and is one of the world's oldest and most diverse tropical ecosystems. It is a savannah, a grassland scattered with red-earth termite mounds; a clear, green river with a gallery forest provides a habitat for its own flora and fauna. From Campo Grande, it takes 5 hours to reach Chapadão do Céu, the only city with a hotel close to the Park. The area around Campo Grande was converted to ranching and farming long enough ago that it has lost its raw edge. The land around Chapadão do Céu, on the other hand, is surrounded by intensive farming for biofuels--sugar cane, corn, sorghum, and soy. After the blacktop road ends on the way to the Park, everything is coated with red dust. Huge otherworldly trucks ply the roads creating huge dust storms. It is hot, dusty, red, ugly. And it is planted right up to the edge of the Park. Stark contrasts and the ugly face of biofuels.
Granted, these and other marvelous natural areas seem big, especially if you are on foot or driving slowly on rutted, dirt roads. But make no mistake, these places are sanctuaries, preserves, reserves, and they are circumscribed by monocultures created by people. Outside the enclaves, the diversity is gone; the plants are gone; and the animals are gone; teeming life is gone. It doesn't matter who does it -- individual people nibbling and gnawing or corporations gobbling; the result is the same, only the rate changes.
So here we are sitting on the edge of ruin, refusing to deal with the single most important factor in the health of the earth, the human population that is about to hit 7 billion. Quibbling, caviling about - you name it - discussing the inconsequential.
Robinson Jeffers took comfort in enduring nature, writing:
"I know that tomorrow or next year or in twenty years
I shall not see these things--but it does not matter, it
does not hurt;
They will be here..." From: Their Beauty Has More Meaning
I too thought this way once. Now I very much doubt it.
