to learn or carry on the useful traditions of their cultures.Ironically, the tribes are at times responsible for the damage done to their homeland. According to Scholastic Update, some of the tribeslooking for a short-term profits and quick relief from poverty "...cut their own deals with miners,developers, and loggers"(Leo 20). G.T. Miller,author of Living in the Rain Forest says this is to be expected:When an economically struggling country has a choice beween logging a forest to sell timber for high profits and leaving the forest intact without monetary compensation, the nation usually chooses the profitable alternative. Because immediate economic gains...are more important than futureenvironmental costs....(Miller, 59). Obviously, the tribes are confused. They are being pulled in all different diections by teems of environmentalists offering contradticing solutionsand they are being mesmerized by the promise of financial gain made by developers and businessmen who want the forest for their own use.Therefore, a specialized environmental group needs to step in. A group with the goal to save the homes, cultures, and knowledge of the indigenous people, which the rain forest rightfully belongs to. A group that will not use the situation as an opportunity to launch fund-raising schemesfor their benefit. If the National Arbor Day Foundation would focus its Rain Forest Rescue program to educating these tribes in the most beneficialways to use their forest resources, the people would be fortified to resist the temptation to sell off their forest land in hopes of quick money. In thearticle, "Paradise Lost?", a study showed that "...an acre in the Peruvian Amazon would be worth $148 if used for cattle pasture, $1000 if cut fortimber, and $6820 if selectively combed for fruits, rubber, and other profits...." (Linden 51). Tribal leaders need to be shown this information,they need to be shown the evidence of benefiting from conversatio...
