Going for the Gold for the
Tropical Forests
 
The 2016 Olympics: a chance for Brazil, the Amazon and all of us.

Brazil has won the honor of hosting the 2016 Olympic Games. We congratulate Brazil and President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, and send best wishes for success. The President spoke of this event as the beginning of a new era. For the first time, the Olympics will be held in South America.

The 2016 Olympic Games will offer not only opportunities for achievement in sports but also a golden chance for the future of the tropical forests. Therefore, extending the Olympic wish of brotherhood and human rights, the Amazon Fund asks society also to focus attention on the natural livelihoods and environments of the indigenous people.

President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva announced that money would not be a problem in the organization of the 2016 Olympic Games. Unfortunately, Brazil’s financial success has come at immense cost. A substantial part of Brazil’s wealth has been obtained at the expense of local nature. Brazilian nature is being exploited rapidly. Each day, vast areas of tropical forest vanish. Extensive cattle farming, monoculture crops like soy or biofuel crops, logging, and mining are among the causes of these catastrophic losses. Protected areas are burned or logged, often illegally. Rainforests, wetlands, and dry forest areas are diminishing, disappearing, and changing for the worse at the hands of our ravenous culture. Like Brazil, the Netherlands, Europe, and the United States have profited.

Currently the world is busy trying to conserve and restore nature, resulting in, for instance, carbon agreements. But radical changes to decrease carbon-output have not been made.  The leadership of developed countries often criticize these options as being too expensive.  People are trying to establish environmental projects in less economically developed countries, creating the new phenomenon of Environmental Business. Banks and companies are profiting. Climate fraud is increasing, and the forests are still falling. We could learn from the past. Companies that formerly participated in deforestation now preach responsible business. Unfortunately, often the vast majority of the profits do not go to the indigenous people. The dollar is being prioritized over the existence of the rainforest and the quality of life of the people who inhabit it.

In the past nine years, organizations and governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars or euros to preserve the Amazon forests. Unfortunately, the results have been disappointing because annual deforestation is still increasing. Money will only go so far; a change in activity is necessary. President Lula da Silva has set a goal of reducing deforestation to just over 5000 hectares (about nineteen square miles) a year by 2015. The intentions are good, but they’re backed up by very little practical action. We want more and faster. To preserve a critical mass of the rainforest, deforestation must be stopped sooner. 
As Brazil eagerly prepares for the Olympic Games, deforestation goes on. In Brazil, an area the size of France was recently deforested in just one year. Indigenous people lose their rights, and flora and fauna become extinct. In addition to the individual tragedies, such massive deforestation of one of the world’s key ecosystems contributes to global climate change and threatens the overall health and stability of the planet.


Balsa people Peru, Rio Shishinawa: Photo: Amazon Fund


Deforestation affects our climate, and the Amazon plays an important role in our carbon and climate housekeeping. Where forests disappears, carbon-output increases, for instance in the peat-moors remaining after deforestation. As carbon-output increases, global climate change also increases and accelerates.  Some people continue to doubt that carbon output is really such a big deal. In the meantime, future navigational pathways through the North Pole are already being negotiated, because scientists predict that the ice will melt.

In addition to being vital for delaying increased climate change, the rainforest is a home for many indigenous people and half of the world’s plants and animals.

It is the biggest pharmacy in the world. More then a quarter of our modern medicines originate from the tropical forests.

In Europe, America, and Asia, throughout the centuries, people have approached nature inconsiderately. Holland is completely cultivated and has not had wild lands for quite some time already. Europe still has a very few spots of old growth forest in Poland and Finland.  The rainforests of the Amazon represent one of our very last chances to save wild space for the sake of the future, the people who live there, and the well-being of the planet and all of the life it supports.  When the stakes are so high, it is worth going for the gold.

We hear often the accusation that the gringos cut their forest down but now they want us (e.g., Brazil) not to do the same.  In fact, humans needs to learn from past mistakes or all is lost. Moreover, the world has changed much in the past centuries since now there are nearly 7 billion people on the planet threatening the very atmosphere and fabric of life itself.

Being host to the Olympic Games puts a country in the spotlight. In Brazil, the world’s most extensive deforestation continues. At the same time, Brazil still has the world’s largest area of remaining forest. By dramatically and emphatically decreasing deforestation, Brazil could be a role model for the rest of South America and the rest of the world.

Tropical forests are the lungs of the planet. Even those who doubt this cannot deny that they contribute to and refresh our oxygen supply. Can we still play sports when our breathing is impaired?  Just as Beijing’s pollution and its potential effects on athletes caused controversy in the time leading up to the 2008 Olympics, the 2016 games are an opportunities to give voice to the deforestation of the South American Amazon, its negative impact on the health of both local ecosystems and all breathing beings, and the importance of acting immediately to preserve tropical forests.


Logging near National Park Noël Kempff Mercado Bolivia. Photo: Amazon Fund


What does Amazon Fund propose?
Working with other organizations, we want to make an appeal to the Brazilian government, the Olympic committee, environmental organizations, athletes and sponsors, and all governments of participating countries:

'Be respectful to nature. Respect the rights of indigenous people. Invest a percentage of the Olympic budget for this purpose of stopping unnecessary deforestation in Brazil and other Amazon countries.'

We’re going for the gold for the rainforest and indigenous rights. Are you? Please send an email to info@amazonfund.eu with the message: Yes, I’m a sympathizer. Please include name and residence.

You can also help more actively by becoming a volunteer or donating.


Pink River Dolphin. Photo: Hermes Justiniano


Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate in the world and as of 2005 still has the largest area of forest removed annually. Since 1970, over 600,000 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. This is a surface bigger than France. In 2008, Brazil's announced a record rate of Amazon deforestation. Deforestation increased 69% in 2008 compared to 2007, according to official government data. Deforestation could wipe out or severely damage nearly 60% of the Amazon rainforest by 2030 (WWF).