Research assignment #4https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/world/americas/brazil-forest-amazon-chemicals.html
In the article The New Threat to Brazil’s Forest: Chemicals by Jack Nicas and Flávia Milhorance it talks about a case that the authorities have found in Brazil that people have been using chemicals to get rid of trees and forest areas to be able expand their business. In this articles it focuses specifically on a rancher named Claudecy Oliveira Lemes, who is suspected and accused of using herbicide burning on the forest. This dangerous technique is called chemical deforestation. Criminals used this technique because it is “difficult to detect, it looks like a fire and you can deforest thousands of hectares in a short time,” Ana Luiza Peterlini . In the article it states what the herbicides do it causes the trees to lose their leaves and then to dry out. Authorities believe that Mr. Lemes does this in order to raise cattle.
Most trees in the Pantanal, where Mr. Lemes property is located is known for as the world’s largest wetlands, are not Valuable for commercial sales. Mr. Lemes is suspected of a practice known as “cattle laundering.” In this practice the owner of the cattle would burn a part of the forest to be able to raise more cattle and then sending those cattle raised in part of the herbicide burned down forest to be passed to through a legal farm before going to a slaughter house. In the article it also mentions that Mr. Lemes “has supplied to a company named BJS, a Brazilian beef giant that exports to the United States.” In class we talked about the countless exports that Latin America have provided to the U.S in goods like coffee, bananas, sugar and material. One example of how the U.S benefited from this is in fruits in which the U.S was able to acquire land in foreign countries and start planting and cultivating things and would often be able to take out competition by importing goods that came from their owned land or companies that would sell them for cheaper. “Kepner and Soothill’s meticulously documented 1936 study explain how United fruits shipping fleet, combined with its control over railroads and port facilities, enabled the company to squeeze out would-be competitors by giving preference to bananas produced on its own farm.” We also discussed in class the illegal goods that would be exported into the U.S like Cocaine which derived from the coca plant which in Latin America was commonly used by people to help them with exhaustion form work and to numb pain. Illegal drugs would also make their way to the U.S and criminals have always tried to find ways to profit from that as well.
In the article it also talks about who are affected by the chemicals used in destroying the forests. It talks about the method in which they would spread the herbicides through Areial Spraying. “In 2021, nearly 400 people in the Wawi indigenous territory had to move their village because chemicals were being sprayed on areas of the Amazonian forest where they farmed and collected honey.” This reminds me of the reading in perusal we did on primary sources in which it talks about Bolivia and the National park in which the government wanted to build a highway that would connect various states but it meant that part of the park would have to be cut down. And it resembles how there are people who would do anything to make profits in both cases not caring if the indigenous who call that land their home are affected by the cutting of the forest or not. And similar to the book Guarana because of the companies who are making expenditure to factories and other constructions would often be making their way into the Amazon forest and begin to destroy plant life.
Jack Nicas and Flávia Milhorance “The New Threat to Brazil’s Forest: Chemicals.” The New York Times, October 29,2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/world/americas/brazil-forest-amazon-chemicals.html
Jack Nicas and Flávia Milhorance “The New Threat to Brazil’s Forest: Chemicals.” The New York Times, October 29,2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/world/americas/brazil-forest-amazon-chemicals.html
John Soulri “Account for Taste: export Banana, and Panama Disease.” Environmental History, Jul. 2002. Vol. 7, No. 3 pp.391.
