Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Amazon Rain Forest

The social structure of Brazil, as reflected in Andrew Revkin's The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest, is starkly divided into the few wealthy and the many poor. The wealthy few are the large landowners and the many poor are the laborers and farmers and squatters who live on the fringe of the rain forest, barely surviving. The result is a society of gross social, political, legal and economic injustices for the many poor in their struggle against the powerful and rich.

In general, this social structure reflects as well the social structure in Latin America in general. However, what makes the situation in Brazil even more tragic and disastrous is that the greed and inhumanity of the few wealthy landowners is destroying not only the lives of the many poor but the life of the rain forest itself as well.

The fact that the man about whom the book was written was murdered and his killers remain free is an added sign of the dark reality faced today by Brazil, the rain forest, the poor and exploited workers for which Mendes fought, and the whole world whose ecology is tied to the rain forest. The book is not a hopeful work, but one which is meant to throw rage and fear into the heart of the reader. It is true that Mendes' efforts on behalf of the workers resulted in the government's setting aside of 61,000 acres as an "extractive reserve" safe from the ravages if the exploiters of the rain forest, but that is only a pittance compared to the amounts of forest which continue to be lain waste.

The interaction of the social structure in Amazonia with the environment of the rain forest has negative effects not only for the forest and the poor people who live in and around it, but also for all the living beings on the planet, for all depend on the health of the forest. The social structure and the ecology of the area, which includes the rich, the poor, and the forest, plays out a proces...

Page 1 of 5 Next >

More on Amazon Rain Forest...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Amazon Rain Forest. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:48, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1700649.html