ver the loss of the rainforest, Brazilians get annoyed. They believe the arguments for preserving the forests are a “rich man’s luxury.” They are mainly concerned with the country’s need to improve its people’s living standards. The main argument is the economic one. Brazilians believe that it is in their best interest to cut into the forest to provide and economic support for Brazil. However, rapid deforestation is rarely in the economic interest of the country concerned. Even with the demand for Amazonian rubber trees, most of the trees harvested are not used, but simply slashed and burned. Because of the low fertility of the soil in the Amazon, farmers are depleting more and more forestland to find fertile soil for agriculture. Between the 1960s and the early 1990s, Brazilian government, to such an extent, supported these actions that newcomers can qualify for ownership of land simply by clearing the trees on it. The government also offered tax breaks to company’s spending money on approved development schemes in the region. Beginning in the early 1990s, to appease the green lobby abroad, the Brazilian government passed a series of increasingly tough laws. One of which prohibits landowners from logging more than 50% of their land. However, this figure was later lowered to 20%. More recently, a $435 million program was implemented to free the Amazon from the grip of drug traffickers, loggers, and mining operations deep in the region. The program, “ProAmazonia”, will send police fanning out across the 1.9 million square miles of the Brazilian Amazon, a vast swath of land roughly seven times the size of France. Head of federal police counter-narcotics operations, Getulio Bezerra, said, “the plan will allow the development of an air surveillance and patrol system in the region, which is where we are most vulnerable”(1). Most of this legislation has become more su...
