Abstract
This article explores and explains deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. It primarily takes a green criminological perspective and looks at the harm that is inflicted on many of the Amazon’s inhabitants, including indigenous populations such as ‘uncontacted’ tribes of hunters-gatherers, the oldest human societies. The green criminological perspective also implies that the definition of victimisation is being enlarged: not only (future) humans, but also non-humans can be considered victims. Being the most biodiverse place on the planet, deforestation of the Amazon leads to threats and extinctions of animal and plant species. The main causes of deforestation in the Amazon are land conversion for agriculture (mainly cattle, also soy), practices that are mostly illegal. As the products of the (illegally) deforested rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon are mainly for export markets, western societies with large ecological footprints could be held responsible for deforestation of the Amazon.
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Notes
This is why in dense tropical rainforests such as the Amazon with little wind, trees primarily make use of animals for their reproduction. It is not in the interest of a tree to have its species nearby, as they would compete over the same nutrition. Animals however can bring seeds over large distances (Tudge 2006: 343–344). In the Amazon, with 5–6% of the forests being flooded part of the year, sometimes several meters high, fish also spread seeds. One Amazonian fish in particular, the tambaqui, eats the large rubber seeds.
On the Internet (Wikipedia, Youtube, etc.) information can be found about Sister Dorothy, her work, her murder, and details of the different trials.
In the history of the planet of several billion years, there have been five waves of mass extinction. We currently are at the beginning of the sixth.
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Boekhout van Solinge, T. Deforestation Crimes and Conflicts in the Amazon. Crit Crim 18, 263–277 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-010-9120-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-010-9120-x