According to a report by the British Reuters on the 27th, in the last 20 years, forest fires and deforestation initiated by local loggers and farmers in the Amazon rainforest area have obviously increased. These fires are changing the cloud structure over the Amazon, resulting in a decrease in rainfall in this area, and the rainforest gradually disappears and is replaced by a tropical grassland.
Dias Silva, a scientist at the University of S? o Paulo in Brazil, recently said at a special research conference on the Amazon rainforest that the Amazon rainforest is being "grassland". Silva predicts that at the current forest fire frequency and cutting speed, up to 60% of the Amazon rainforest will disappear in the next 50 years to 100; At least 20% to 30% of the jungle will be transformed into grasslands.
The Amazon rainforest is home to 30% of the biological species on earth. In 2003, the destruction rate of Amazon rainforest almost reached the fastest level in history, and 5.9 million acres (about 2.39 million hectares) of tropical rainforest were cut down and burned. Scientists also found that the Amazon region is becoming drier and drier due to the influence of forest fires. Whether the Amazon rainforest can survive and what kind of climate it will form in the future is still unpredictable.
The International Conference on Tropical Timber convened by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development opened in Geneva on 26th. The meeting pointed out that 500 million people in the world depend on the tropical rain forest and its resources, and the tropical rain forest is disappearing at the rate of 6.5438+0.2 million hectares to 6.5438+0.5 million hectares every year. In order to cope with the unfavorable situation of the continuous reduction of tropical rain forests, the conference will adopt the newly revised International Tropical Timber Agreement, so that the international community can strengthen the protection of tropical rain forests.
The Amazon River is the pride of Latin American people. Flowing through Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and other countries, it nourishes 8 million square kilometers of vast land and breeds the world's largest tropical rain forest, making the Amazon River basin the most mysterious "kingdom of life" in the world.
The forests on both sides of the Amazon River are vast. Abundant rain, hot and humid climate and long-term strong sunshine provide unique conditions for the growth of plants in the Amazon River basin, making this region the largest tropical rain forest area in the world, with a forest area of 300 million hectares, accounting for13 of the existing tropical rain forests in the world, of which 87% are in Brazil. It is rich in natural resources, rich in species, complex in ecological environment and well-preserved in biodiversity, and has the reputation of "biologist's paradise" and "lung of the earth".
However, the Amazon rainforest is not loved by human beings because of its wealth, and uncontrolled development has caused great damage to the local natural environment.
With the development of Brazil's domestic economy, a large number of immigrants poured into the edge of the Amazon rainforest. In order to get food from nature, people use various means and tools to seize forests and reclaim farmland. With the continuous extension of highway and railway trunk lines, it is easier for farmers to go deep into the original dense forest to cut wood, burn wasteland and cultivate. In the process of reclamation, people drove heavy tractors into the forest, cut down trees and set them on fire.
The ecological environment in forest areas is very fragile, and most nutrients are not in the soil, but stored in living plants. After the forest burned out, most of the nutrients drifted away with the wind. Farming on the reclaimed land, after one or two seasons, the soil is either exhausted or washed away by rain, and nothing grows. Multinational enterprises are interested in the rich local mineral resources such as iron, copper and bauxite, and do not hesitate to invest heavily in mining.
According to the data of Brazil's National Bureau of Geography and Statistics, the area of rainforest destroyed in the Amazon region reaches 23,000 square kilometers every year. In the past 30 years, 1/6 of the world's largest rainforest area has been seriously damaged. Compared with 400 years ago, the forest area in Brazil has been reduced by half. Experts pointed out that the reduction of tropical rain forests not only means the reduction of forest resources, but also means the deterioration of the global environment. If the Amazon forest is completely cut down, the oxygen on which human beings depend will decrease 1/3.
The deforestation of the Amazon forest has not brought more wealth to Brazilians. They just fill their stomachs, but what they bring is eternal trauma and irreparable harm to nature. Excessive deforestation causes soil erosion, soil desertification and serious soil erosion. Due to deforestation and ecological destruction, some areas of Pará and Amapa in northeastern Brazil have become the driest and poorest places in Brazil.
Amazon rainforest is rich in vegetation, with 1200 different kinds of plants per square kilometer. However, with the decrease of tropical rainforests, at least 500,000 to 800,000 species of animals and plants will be extinct within a few years, and the loss of rainforest gene pool will become one of the greatest losses for mankind.
In this regard, the Brazilian government has become more and more aware of the seriousness of the problem, formulated a number of environmental protection policies, and adopted various measures to strengthen the protection and monitoring of the forest environment. Environmental protection and sustainable development have become one of the government's priority goals.
The Brazilian government has successively promulgated the National Environmental Law and the Amazon Ecological Protection Law. 1988, the new constitution has added provisions on environmental issues, stipulating that the Amazon region is a national heritage, and the state has the responsibility to find a way out for the sustainable development of this region. At the same time, the relevant rules for protecting ecological balance have been promulgated, and the rights and obligations of the government and citizens in protecting the environment have been put forward.
Brazil's National Forestry Development Bureau has also formulated relevant laws and regulations. Individuals or institutions that have caused serious disasters to the Amazon forest due to deforestation will be prosecuted for the crime of destroying the ecological environment, and will be punished with severe legal sanctions and huge fines. At the same time, the Brazilian government has increased relevant capital investment. From 199 1 to 2002, the government invested nearly 1000 billion dollars to protect the ecology and natural resources in the Amazon region.
Amazon-the largest tropical rain forest in the world, God has given mankind a treasure to live on. She is beautiful, and how to preserve her moving brilliance is people's eternal thinking.
Premier Zhou Enlai 196 1 said during his visit to Xishuangbanna that the Ganges River in India and the Nile River in Egypt are the cradles of ancient human culture. At the beginning, the land was fertile and agriculture was prosperous. However, unreasonable development destroyed the forest and later turned it into a desert. I am afraid this is also the result of our Dunhuang area. The destruction of water environment by human beings has caused disasters, which have been staged many times in history. Xu Xunlei concluded from this: "What is green as blue is not necessarily spring water, but may be cyanobacteria; High-growth GDP is not necessarily a blessing, but a curse "[1].
People die for money, birds die for food. Economists at all times and all over the world regard people's pursuit of private property as the basic driving force of social development. Through years of efforts, virgin forests and grasslands have become pastures, fertile fields and villages and towns, and cities have been built along rivers, lakes and rivers and seas. The exchange of agriculture, animal husbandry and commerce has turned land, cattle and sheep, real estate, grain, minerals, gold and silver into wealth. However, the good times did not last long. Due to human drainage and land reclamation, rivers dried up and land was desertified. The desert in western China has swallowed Loulan Town and Lop Nur successively, and Kyoto, China, which moved from Xi 'an to Beijing, is still suffering from sandstorms. The disappearance of Loulan turned the Silk Road into a journey of death, and the billions of wealth accumulated in the Millennium vanished in an instant. The crazy accumulation of wealth for many years and the sudden decline of wealth constitute a vicious circle of human wealth. The war waged by human beings for wealth has intensified the speed of wealth disappearance.
Water conservancy and flood are the key links of wealth circulation. In the natural cycle of drought and flood, the rain period turns the mainland into swamps and lakes everywhere, and the groundwater is replenished to the maximum extent. When the dry season comes, animals and plants can rely on abundant surface water and groundwater to survive into the next rainy season. After human beings arrive, they compete with fresh water for living space. Drainage and land reclamation in dry season reduces the land storage area, and dams are built in rainy season to protect farmland, so that fresh water can flow back to the sea in vain along the river. Over time, the surface water is exhausted and the groundwater is drained. They can't be supplemented by nature and lose their ability to flow and self-purify. The lush grassland eventually turned into a desert. Nature uses waterlogging to prepare for drought, while human beings use waterlogging to produce drought. Violating the laws of nature is bound to be punished by nature. Not only in the Sahara region, but also the desert in China moved eastward with the capital, and the Ethiopian capital moved southward eight times with land desertification and drought, all of which showed that human activities intensified land desertification. The main reason is that a large area of tropical rain forest, surface water and groundwater have been seriously damaged, making vegetation lose its foundation for survival. In order to restore the balance of drought and flood in nature, we must leave enough space for the substances necessary for human survival-fresh water, air and other organisms, such as the measures of returning farmland to lakes and forests in China.
There are records about the flood at the beginning of creation in China and the history of the world. Dayu's water control is a typical example of changing river closure into diversion. Dredging means that a large amount of surface water flows to the sea in vain. Although it left a lot of land space for mankind, it eventually led to the loss of surface water and the gradual development of desertification. In the consciousness of human self-protection, drainage and farmland protection are the needs of their own survival, but the ensuing desertification also threatens human survival. In this way, the success of Dayu's water control just shows that human beings are responsible for desertification.
Engels once made a wonderful and in-depth analysis of the blind practice of human beings: "We should not be too intoxicated with our victory over nature, because every such victory naturally retaliates against us. Every victory did achieve our expected results in the first step, but it produced completely different and unexpected effects in the second and third steps, and the first result was often cancelled. Residents in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and other places cut down all the forests in order to get cultivated land, but they never dreamed that these places would become today's barren land because they lost the forests in these places and thus lost the center for accumulating and storing water. " This incisive analysis is also applicable to the victory of mankind in overcoming floods. Land desertification is nature's punishment for human destruction of surface water resources.
Land desertification is a denial of the western mode of production and lifestyle-high risk, high speed, high consumption, the law of the jungle and the principle of "profit is greater than morality". Driven by economic interests, human beings occupy all the space of the earth in all directions, cut down forests, destroy surface vegetation, dry up swamps and wetlands, and accelerate land desertification. On the contrary, the ancient oriental culture pays more attention to the harmony and unity of the harmony between man and nature, that is, the long history and excellent tradition of natural materialism of "harmony between man and nature" and "emphasizing Taoism and neglecting profit" make people live in harmony with others and nature from the long-term interests. Not through military invasion or economic expansion, this idea gradually assimilated more and more nationalities and countries, forming an oriental civilization with a unified ecological balance and mentality. Sichuan, the land of abundance, is the only place in the world where ancient civilization is located at 30 degrees north latitude and there is no desertification. Dujiangyan and terraced fields, two great eco-agricultural projects of China ancients, played a decisive role. Relying on amazing knowledge and wisdom, Dujiangyan and mountain terraces ensure a virtuous circle of ecological environment, which is a model of knowledge economy and can win the title of the first ecological agriculture in the world. This is the crystallization of ancient civilization in China. It is possible and promising to inherit and carry forward these precious heritages and fine traditions and slow down land desertification.
It should be noted that the desertification process caused by wind erosion and the dust transport process caused by wind-blown water are the inevitable process of natural leveling and the balanced geological process corresponding to orogeny. Excessive reduction of soil erosion will cause disasters such as river cut-off, estuarine land retreat, salinization, unbalanced nutritional structure of coastal water bodies, unbalanced crustal movement and so on. It is impossible for mankind to put an end to land desertification, and it can only be limited to a certain limit suitable for human survival and development. Out-of-control and over-exploitation of technology will destroy the ecological balance of the earth, which is a great leap in human understanding. Therefore, we should study the impact of human activities (especially major projects) on ecological balance in a multi-disciplinary, multi-level, multi-field, multi-angle and multi-faceted manner to avoid the major negative effects brought by blind practice. The lessons that deforestation, drainage and flood control aggravate land desertification should be taken as a warning. While taking from nature, human beings should bear the responsibility of protecting the earth's ecological environment [2-5].
The environmental damage caused by the production of goods that gather wealth completely destroys the fairness of free trade: a few producers get rich by destroying the natural environment, while putting most people in a deteriorating living environment. Who will pay for the environmental cost of goods [6]?
Xu Xunlei recently pointed out that at present, the management of Taihu Lake, Chaohu Lake and Dianchi Lake is listed as a "national project", and the investment will be several billion dollars. Some people are afraid to rejoice: how much can I earn from it? I earned a ticket for running a business that polluted the environment; I made another profit by contracting pollution control projects. Local officials may also be happy: although running enterprises pollutes the environment, GDP has gone up; Investing heavily in pollution control can also create new GDP figures! "Pollution" is my harvest, and "pollution control" is my harvest. This is a "win-win" thing in the world. You did a good job. If the "national project" becomes a fool, then only the people will suffer. Hundreds of billions of investment can make the lake good for three days, and then a gust of wind blows away the pollution control results, instantly dyeing the lake black and turning green at high temperature. Therefore, for the management of the water environment of the "Three Lakes", the most important thing is how to really turn the "national project" into a "people project", at least a project that millions of people can stare at [1]. It seems that the state pays for the environmental cost of goods, which can only aggravate the vicious circle of environmental pollution and wealth.
Nine philosophers have become good doctors, and years of suffering have made intellectuals see through business. Xu Xunlei's analysis is incisive, and the mystery of developers' sustainable wealth has been solved. The world economy has fallen into a "wealth dilemma". The rich are getting richer, and the workers are wasting their time. Resources and energy are increasingly exhausted, the living environment is deteriorating, and false wealth symbols are rising. GDP and "green GDP" only reflect two completely different measurement and calculation standards of world wealth. If resources and environment are included in social wealth, some heavily polluted areas are getting poorer instead of getting richer. They have to sacrifice more GDP to restore the environment. There are many irreversible processes in the world. When the ecological environment collapses completely, we can only "eat all the birds and throw them into the forest, leaving a really clean white land".
Zhu Chen, Minister of Health, said that in the future, China should increase investment in medical and health research and do less "image project". We should understand that human life and quality of life are important strategic investments. China should pay attention to the prevention and improvement of environmental factors in scientific research in the medical field, so that the investment is small and the effect is obvious. The health of 654.38+0.3 billion people can't be solved just by seeing a doctor and taking medicine. Strengthening prevention and environmental protection is fundamental [7]. Environmental pollution has affected the constitution and health of the Chinese nation. Some people say that before the age of 60, China people exchanged their lives for money, and after the age of 60, they exchanged their lives for money. Can money buy health? This vicious circle leads to the vicious expansion of medical expenses, and its root is people's old concept of wealth.
Leopold, an environmentalist, has long said a thought-provoking sentence: "People keep going back to the starting point and start looking for those eternal values again [1]." Environmental pollution has become the root of all evil. When goods become the starting point of wealth, the biggest fear of pursuing wealth desire is: let polluters pay for the environmental cost of goods!
When water and electricity suddenly disappear, modern cities become huge graves of reinforced concrete; When the sea level rises 100 meters, coastal cities will become underwater cemeteries. History has repeated a similar process many times, and nature has punished human greed for wealth countless times. Is there wealth or environment? Humans must make wise choices.
refer to
1. Xu Xunlei. Is pollution at a "critical point" or a "dangerous platform"? Bright observation: displayed at 23: 23: 43 on July 8, 2007. aspx？ id=5046
2. Yang Xuexiang. Land desertification-a global environmental problem. Science News Weekly.2000, (46): 18.
3. Yang Xuexiang. Global warming, tectonic movement and desertification. Crustal deformation and earthquake. 200 1,2 1 ( 1): 15 ~ 23.
4. Shi Hongzhi. Earth environment report. China Environment Press. 199 1,87 ~ 89, 102 ~ 103,55.
5. Yang Xuexiang. Climate fluctuation cycle, desertification and human knowledge structure. China Academic Journal Abstracts, June, 2000 (8):1003 ~1005.
6. Yang Xuexiang. Questioning the fairness of free trade: Who pays for the environmental cost of goods? 2004- 12- 18 Shanghai environmental protection hotline. Green forum/forum/20044730.htm.
7. Huang Fang. Zhu Chen, Minister of Health: The health of 654.38+0.3 billion people can't just rely on seeing a doctor and taking medicine. 09: 16 July 2007 Source: China News Network/2007003/N250877621.shtml.