For nearly 6,000 years, Amazonian Indians lived in harmony with the rainforest. At the time of Columbus, around five million Indians of various tribes inhabited the Amazon Basin. The rainforest was both a home and a provider of everything the Indians needed for survival: plants and animals for food, construction materials for shelter and [P 018 / natural medicines] for healing and curing ailments and disease. Through this association, the Indians built up a [L2 701 / vast store of knowledge] about the rainforest.
MODERN MAN:
[L2 702 / The first 'modern men' arrived in the Amazon Basin in the mid-16th century]. For these European conquistadores, South America offered wealth and glory. In the name of their kings and the Catholic Church, they began their plunder of the continent's minerals, metals, timber, and crops. Above all they sought gold, believing that somewhere in the jungle lay the fabled land of gold called 'El Dorado.'
From the 17th century onwards, South America was flooded with European missionaries and immigrants willing to suffer its uncomfortable climate, diseases and dangers in the pursuit of souls and wealth. This influx was particularly devastating to the indigenous inhabitants. Many were killed outright, but even greater numbers succumbed to newly introduced diseases for which they had no immunity. Those that survived were made subjects of the kings of Portugal and Spain and the Catholic Church.
Those Indians who survived these hardships left their [V 006 / traditional settlements along the banks of the Amazon River] and fled far into the forests, away from the new western towns which were springing up. Hundreds of thousands more were rounded up and forced to work on European plantations where many of them died.
NINETEENTH CENTURY AMAZONIA:
The territory of the Amazon Basin had by this time been divided between the Spanish and Portuguese of which more than half of Amazonia belonged to Portuguese Brazil. The rest was divided between the [M 002 / Spanish countries] of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, the Guyanas, Peru and Venezuela. Independence from Spain and Portugal came to Latin America by the 1820s, but Europeans were still eager to come to this largely unexplored continent to make their fortunes, study its wildlife and people and explore its mysterious lands.
SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION IN AMAZONIA:
The nineteenth century brought both scientists and humanists to Amazonia. [L2 703 / Naturalists and anthropologists were fascinated by the biological wealth of the Amazon Basin] and the ancient cultures of the [P 025 / tribes] who lived there. Their theses and collections of biological species were sent back to Europe and North America where they were greeted with wonder and astonishment. These scientific studies dispelled some of the myths of Amazonia and did lead to a little understanding of the necessity to conserve what they had found, and some measure of tolerance towards Amazonia's native peoples.
THE RUBBER BOOM:
When commercial uses for rubber were invented in the mid-19th century, fortune hunters flooded Amazonia which was rich in rubber trees. Forest was cleared for huge rubber plantations which led to the destruction of thousands of acres of rainforest. Many Amazonian Indians were forced to work on the plantations and died as a result of disease and ill-treatment.
[L2 704 / The great rubber boom made fortunes for a few Europeans]. But the demand for rubber waned by the 1920s as plantations in Southeast Asia reached maturity and provided stiff competition for South American rubber. New projects to exploit the Amazon rainforest were then sought.
AMAZONIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY:
The development of Amazonia during the last 50 years has brought some improvement to the lives of its citizens, but the tropical forest has suffered a great deal in consequence. Population pressure and the need to pay off foreign loans has forced the governments of Amazonian countries to [L2 705 / exploit their rich natural resources].
Amazonian Indians have continued to suffer. [L2 706 / Their land is being taken away from them and their way of life is threatened or destroyed]. Deforestation has driven away the animals they depend on for food and the influx of settlers has forced them further into the forest with fewer and fewer places to escape.
Land is the most valuable resource available to Amazonian governments. Their cities are filled with people who are unemployed and have no land on which to grow food. The governments cannot find them work, but they can give them land. Since the 1960s, Amazonian governments have encouraged the [L2 707 / settlement of rainforest land for farming]. A great deal of tropical forest is also cleared for [P 013 / cattle pasture]. Beef cattle can be raised very cheaply on Amazonian land, and the [L2 708 / beef is exported to the developed world for the fast food market].
[L2 709 / V002 / Commercial logging] is one of the greatest threats to the future of the Amazon rainforest. Its valuable [G 18 / hardwood] trees, such as mahogany, are cut and exported to the developed world. Here they are made into furniture and used in the construction industry. Amazonia is also rich in minerals. [L2 710 / Mining] accounts for the destruction of many parts of the rainforest. [L2 711 / the rate of deforestation has increased substantially during the last decade] . As the populations of Amazonian countries expand rapidly, development of Amazonia continues.
To utilize tropical forests for man's benefit, there are alternatives to logging, [P 016 / mining] and ranching that are much less destructive. For example, foods, medicines and many raw materials in manufacturing processes have their origin in the rainforest. About [L2 712 / 25 percent of today's medicines use ingredients made from rainforest plants]. [L2 713 / Many foods, like bananas, coffee and potatoes originally grew wild in the rainforest], and there are certainly many more we are not even aware of. Tropical forest plants also yield fibers, gums, [P 014 / latexes], oils and resins which are [L2 714 / used in hundreds of everyday products].
As the twentieth century draws to a close, the future of tropical forests hangs in the balance. Large areas of rainforest have already been destroyed, and many thousands of acres will continue to be cut or [P 050 / burned] each year. As a result of man's exploitation of the rainforest, [L2 715 / many species are facing extinction] either from poaching or the destruction of their [G 16 / habitat]. Man's impact on the rainforest has developed from a harmonious one to a destructive one. Only we can decide its fate.
