SYMBIOSIS: WORLDWIDE UNITY AND STEWARDSHIP IN PROTECTING THE AMAZON…

Geographical and Resource Perspectives of the Amazon:

The Amazon measures at 1.7 billion acres.

Over 500.3 million acres of trees in the Amazon has been cut and also burnt down. (That’s over half of the Amazon which has now disappeared through various issues which continue to directly play a part in deforestation and climate change and as a result, the Amazon is experiencing longer dry seasons and crop shortages. 

The Paris Climate Agreement sets out a maximum global greenhouse gas emission limit of no more that 1.5 degrees. (Updates can be found from the Climate Change tracker).

An increase of 2 degrees celsius would easily turn the green lungs of the Amazon, with it’s beautiful trees, people, and wildlife, it’s exotic plants and flowers (and also it’s natural sources of chocolate and vanilla), along with the much needed organic medicine of the Amazon Eco-System…. into vast dessert land in thirty years time. 

Warmer climates also means more mosquito’s spreading to different continents in our world today (including Zika virus carrying mosquito’s). 

It must also be remembered that aside from the wind and other ocean currents  which create ocean evapotranspiration; that the Amazon comprises both of rainforest and tropical forest areas, and that both types of forest generate their own rainfall through evapotranspiration, i.e from plant and tree canopies, which evaporate water into the air in helping to cool the planet’s atmosphere alongside of drawing in the rain pattern of more directed rainfall to further inland forested areas.

The entire area of the Amazon comprises of Greater Amazonia, which are surrounding forests all over the Orinoco River, along with the tributaries of neighbouring river basins that are also part of the Amazon known as the Guiana Shield.

The Xingu River (known as Rio Xingu) Basin drains the Guiana Shield which also includes the Guiana highlands, Mount Roraima and the upper Orinoco river area, which are located in the Northern  border of neighbouring Brazil.

The mapping of the Amazon has contributed much to our understanding of the resources of the estate of the Amazon.

We  honour and remember the explorers Claudio, Leonardo  and Orlando Villas Boas, (originally from Sao Paulo) known as the Villas Boas Brothers, who through their anthropological, ecological and botanical work with the  Arawak, Tupi and Carib Indigenous peoples of the Xingu, ( along with Chief Raoni Metuktire who became the first Indigenous Director of Xingu Park),managed to secure over eight thousand square miles of the Upper Xingu region, and as a result, helped to preserve the eco-system in the upper Xingu area along with the rich Pre -Columbian culture and the history of the settlements  of Indigenous tribal land near the river going back to over thousands of years, along with productive land use from Indigenous community farming, which takes place without destroying the Amazon forest’s natural biomes.  

Modern Stewardship of these Amazonian resources must deliver better use of smaller ares for farming, rather than widespread deforestation.  (With bearing this in mind, the emphasis should be on the word small).

A number of archeologists from museums such as the Brazilian National Museum who had knowledge of some of the indigenous languages and regional dialects also accompanied the Villas Boas Brothers on a couple of expeditions.

(A language may die out if a language either simply evolves, or if the people speaking it have suddenly vanished or perished out of one reason or another throughout time. Displacement can also cause such an occurrence to happen).

Some of these archeologists have helped in preserving certain aspects of Pre-Columbian History (which helps our planet know and discover more a lot more about our Pre-History), and through the anthropological aspects of being able to understand and also to decipher different indigenous languages, they also assisted in recording some of the languages of indigenous people, and by doing so, helped to preserve the history passed down through the generations of Indigenous History and ancient Indigenous Culture and Medicinal Knowledge (which includes other plant benefits).

It must also be said that a lot of consequent displacement causes Indigenous people to be moved further away from being close to the vital water sources of streams and rivers which they know are safe and which are needed in order for Indigenous settlements to survive. 

This highlights the point that there is no way for Indigenous people (and also any wildlife) to know as to whether the water from the streams in other areas that they have had to move on to, would be good and safe for drinking and bathing in etc. because of the high risk of ongoing toxic industrial waste pollution/ poisoning (such as Mercury poisoning ) in what should be fresh water streams containing safe drinking water.

Also, tests carried out from deep wells dug for fresh drinking water across the Amazon Basin are shown to contain over seventy times legal Water Health and Safety limit of arsenic.

It is understood that there are at present no sufficient hospital facilities or medical centres for miles in rural Amazonia, and therefore if someone suffers with severe industrial toxic waste poisoning from what should be clean and safe drinking water for all life in rural Amazonia, then it is too late.  Toxic water kills all vertebrates and is necessarily difficult for us to quantify. (Especially as water flowing through the Amazon also flows straight into the Atlantic Ocean).

As a planet, we need to  work together Internationally to be able to ensure the adequate constant monitoring of all Water Health and Safety for all of the major rivers in the Amazon through Independent Water Testing right now, so as to maintain safe levels of drinking water across the all Amazon regions.

There needs to be an International and Cross-Regional, Environmental and Water Health and Safety Sheriffdom of River Watch teams /units of both the Amazon Rivers and streams,  where the Environmental river watch Sherifs and their staff can write up reports and also co-ordinate and share information with various Independent teams of International and Cross-Regional Environmental Conservation Researchers, and whereby several Water Health and Safety Conservation Teams can carry out Water Health and Safety Field Tests, covering the entire  Amazon Basin, in turn writing up their independent findings/data in reports  which should also be available online).

Also, such Amazon Water health and Safety Environmental River Watch Teams/Units along with the International and Cross-Regional Water Health and Safety field Research  Conservation Teams of the (Independent) Water Testing  Data, should in turn liaise and co-ordinate with the neighbouring Indigenous Tribal Communities, in updating them and sharing the Water Health and Safety Information reports regularly  (hopefully on a weekly basis at minimum), in order for  Cross Regional Monitoring of water testing to  effectively work in tracking mercury pollution and other Industrial toxic poisons/ pollution across all of the countries that are part of the entire Amazon Basin.   (Electro Chemical Detection along with Remote Sensing Metal Tracking Satellite Technology could also assist in this area).

The supply of more Water Filtration tanks is needed across Indigenous villages throughout the entire Amazon Basin.

More water Purification Station Kit Projects across Indigenous villages throughout the Amazon Basin, along with safety guidance demonstrations and instructions for the filtering and chlorination of water, need to be put into place, along with Deep Well Eco-Friendly/long life water purification funnels/filters, which should be fitted into all old deep wells and implemented  in new International and cross-regional deep well projects across the Amazon.

Technological developments such as SAR (i.e Subterranean Arsenic removal technology),  AMRIT (i.e Anion and metal Removal),  and an electrochemical process for cleaning mercury from the water which has low-energy along with Solar Power use (an innovation coming out of Chalmers university), Membrane Water Purification technology such as NAFION coming out of Imperial College, along with other important innovations which include Scientist Marino Morikawa’s environmentaly friendly water cleaning treatment using biological filters, could further be utilized in helping to clean the water of the Amazon; along with the implementation of International and Cross-Regional Water Health and Safety Regulations which should be put into place, monitored and enforced across all areas of the entire Amazon Basin. 

Like the Villas Boas Brothers working alongside and consulting with the Indigenous people; we can all adopt and preserve such an Anthropological and Ecological legacy in protecting the Amazon, for all of the reasons that we must all continue to be aware of, and maintain scrutiny for, when it comes to the green lungs of the world’s Amazon.

The use of Satellite and Remote Sensing Technology…such as the INPE Satellite  (from the Brazilian Institute of Space Research which tracks Deforestation, (Mr. Ricardo Magnus Osorio Galvao, as a former Head of INPE, must indeed be applauded for being instrumental in sharing such accuratedata with the world), INPES Deforestation System DETER, MAAP, the fifty three Micro Earth Observation Satellites launched by ESA (i.e the European Space Agency in conjunction with Canada, the U.S and other countries) from French Guiana,  Nasa’s Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (known as TES) on Nasa’s AURA Satellite which shows Water Vapour Satellite Measurement, and COPAS ( the Canopy Observatory Permanent Access System from French Guiana to measure gas exchange between the forested areas and the atmosphere ), the Earth Explorer Satellite, the PRODES Digital Remote Sensing Database,  Nasa’s SMAP, TERRA, AQUA, MODIS and ASTER Satellite Remote Sensors along with ALEXI etc. and also Google Earth, along with cross-referencing other information from other types of organisations such as FUNAI, the Carnegie Amazon Mercury Project, the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science, and also the Institute of Hydrology, (in order to get information and variables via updates in regards to the changes in levels of Evaporation Water Supply of the Amazon Basin), all enable us to become Monitors and International Stewards of the Amazon Rainforest in protecting the green resources of our Planet.