John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto’s second edition of Breakfast of Biodiversity is a well crafted and enlightening book that takes an objective and effective look at rain forest destruction, deforestation, and life in Southern and Central American, with a special focus on the nation of Costa Rica. Vandermeer and Perfecto’s analysis explores both the scientific and political aspects of resource use and ran forest destruction, taking pains to explore not only what is happening but including a sociological look at why certain events are occurring.
Chapter 1: Slicing up the Rain Forest on Your Breakfast Cereal
“It is apparently difficult for us all to see the connection between the knife that slices the banana into our cereal bowl and the chain saw that slices tree trunks onto the rain forest floor.”
Why are we so disconnected? Why in recent years has the banana become America’s most consumed fruit? Why do we consume something that is grown hundreds and hundreds of miles away?
One of the most important things to remember in any discussion about rainforest preservation or conservation and sustainable forest practices is that the Central and South American rain forests did not appear in a vacuum and the areas they exist in are not without population. At time, the popular discussion about rainforest conservation or preservation leaves out this important fact. From the banana plantations, to indigenous communities, to burgeoning new industries, the rain forest is a complex area of our planet and can only be understood with complexity. Simple, flat out solutions are both impossible and impractical.
Pg 13, “Tropical rain forest areas around the world are experiencing…complex socioeconomic forces, which threaten to continue or even accelerate the destruction of this most diverse of all ecosystems. In all of these areas there has been some reaction from local and international concerns. Unfortunately, much of this response is misdirected because it is based on a distorted image of the facts, and on an implicit ideology – what we call the mainstream environmental movement approach – which allows only a narrow range of possible courses.”
Chapter 2: The Rain Forest is neither Fragile nor Stable
Six factors
High biodiversity
Though the origin of tropical diversity remains an enigma: The lush plant life allowed for hyper speciation
House of cards more likely than other… disturbance events
Pollination
Clumping
Mass flowering or long distance pollinator
Herbivory
Co evolution animals and plans are in an arms race
Seed dispersal
High gap dynamics
Damage is good but not too much damage
What Soils Need:
- potassium
- Magnesium
- Calcium
- Nitrogen
Ecologically, the rain forest is one of the most complex and least understood ecosystems – mostly because there is just so much there to try and understand. Vandermeer and Perfecto’s Six Key factors in Rain Forest Function help to give an overall picture of the rainforest. These six factors work together to create what we see as the rainforest. As Vandermeer and Perfecto suggest, the important thing to do is try and puzzle out each factor individually and study how it interacts with the other five.
Chapter 3: Farming on Rain Forest Soils
Problems: Soil and acid. Clay can not exchange
Plants have evolved to deal with the soil. Plants that famers have not evolved to deal with this soil.
When we cut and burn we release a bunch of plants that turn into fertilizer which then creates a boom in plant growth that leads to a bust
Insects come and eat all the crops and even when the plants are taken away the insects stay
Due to the unique rainfall patterns, nutrients available, and farming techniques (like slash and burn), rain forests are not the ideal land to farm. This is slightly counterintuitive because the rainforest is such a productive ecosystem in terms of biomass. However, as it was discussed earlier, it is important to understand how the rainforest works before we can truly understand how to turn the forest into productive farmland. The reality is that we have not waited to see what the best way to farm is; farming has been a part of life around and in rainforests for hundreds – if not thousands – of years. Thus, the greater challenge is to figure out how to both recover from damage and employ useful farming techniques.
The authors suggest a few innovative techniques for farming these difficult soils and areas including the Chinampa system used by the Aztez cultures in Mexico. The Chinampa system integrates agriculture and aquaculture to solve many common issues with rainforest farming including nutrient leaching, inability of the soil to support monoculture crops sustainably, etc. Yet the jury is not in on the Chinampa system. This article by Pablo Torres-Lima, Beatriz Canabal-Cristiani, and Gilberto Burela-Rueda suggests that while it makes ecological sense to use such a system, it does not make sociological or economic sense to employ that method in low population density areas. However, as the authors argue, it could be an extremely viable solution in high population density areas like Mexico City.
Chapter 4: The Political Economy of Agriculture in Rain Forest Areas
The story of agriculture development mirrors the history of development in the world. We moved from a species of hunter-gathers to farmer to using farming as one part of the globalized economy. Throughout this history, agriculture has experienced a number of huge technological developments which have facilitated growth. In rain forest areas, development of agriculture was dominated by a system termed ‘enclave production’ (pg 54) where company or mother country sets up an all-inclusive plantation or series of farms. All needs of the workers are met by the company or government and all goods produced are for the benefit of the company or government. The people who live on the land and work the land are merely drones that assist in the production of goods but do not own the land, do not own the goods the produce, and are dependent upon the company.
This style of subjugation was employed in the coal mines of West Virginia in America with the idea of the company store, company housing, and company lives. As in the popular movie October Sky about Homer Hickham’s early life and foray into rocket science, people would spend their entire lives working for a single company. In some of the worst situations, the company would pay the workers such a small wage and charge such high prices at the company store that individual debts would grow to unmanageable levels and people would literally owe their lives to the company store.
This type of system is an efficient way for a company to do business. It gives a company control over their workforce and supply chain, things that are usually beyond the control of a company. However, it often leads to terrible injustices and in the case of the United Fruit Company in the Central and South American rainforest (banana production) severe environmental degradation from neglect. By so radically changing the way humans interacted with the land – by imposing European plantation techniques on Latin American rain forests, problems are sure to occur.
Information about the United Fruit Company
Other big influences on agriculture in Latin America were the two waves of the Green Revolution. The first green revolution which really was the infusion of petroleum into the agricultural system in a major way (fertilizers, diesel powered machinery, etc.) changed the scope of agriculture. Previously, the amount of farming one could accomplish was strictly based upon human power. By the first green revolution infused chemistry and petroleum into farming allowing a single man with an arsenal of machines to work more land for a greater yield than a group of men could 10 years earlier. The second wave of the Green Revolution, some argue, is genetic engineering of plants and animals to create hybrid, super-plants. Super-plants are being created to naturally have resistance to pests or germinate at colder temperatures, etc. While this new wave of scientific development holds a lot of innovative capacity and imaginative potential, it could also come with unforeseen environmental degradation,
Chapter 5: The Multiple Face of Agriculture in the Modern World System
“Agriculture has become a part of the developed world’s industrial system.”
“How can you expect me to worry about deforestation when I must spend all my worry time on where I will find the next meal for my children and myself?”
I think this encompasses the point of many problems with conservation efforts within the rainforest. Despite the needs of people, we still want to be able to conserve. Ultimately who decides what is right? Is it okay for us to tell others what to do when people in the USA have cleared many of our forests?
Industrialization, as it occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and North America developed at the expense of nations that provided the raw goods for development. Currently, we have the Global South and Global North or developed and developing countries with a huge equality gap between. As we try to bridge the development gap, important questions like “which is more important, environmental protection or economic development?” are raised. Unfortunately, in the middle of this are the people of these areas and the most diverse ecosystems in the world.
Figure 5.2 – pg 77. Interesting to look at how complicated this system is and how there is not a single solution!
“Saving the world’s rain forests thus requires transforming [the] world system.” Pg 80
Chapter 6: The Political Ecology of Logging and Related Activities
It is always interesting how the future will unfold – especially when you are making the giant gamble of introducing human agriculture into the rainforest. The rainforest developed as an ecosystem within the presence of a multitude of organisms including humans. However, technology and population growth have introduces previously unknown variables into the equation. So far, human ‘interference’ has led to a mix of rainforest destruction and preservation of rainforests. Unsustainable practices receive a lot of negative public attention which causes uneducated individuals to see the problem as forestry v. conservation, when the issue in reality is between sustainable forest techniques and unsustainable forest techniques. Buying up land and just leaving it to ‘nature’ is a poor and simplistic solution. If we move towards intelligent forestry – for example a technique described where trees are cut in imitation of natural light gaps created by falling trees – then the system as a whole will not be jeopardized.
Table 6.1 on page 92
Chapter 7: Globalization and the New Politics
Currently the international economic system and political system is a direct result of the post WWII reorganization of the world order and the Cold War polarization between US and USSR allied countries. Unfortunately, these two ‘world orderings’ left out the developing nations. For the sake of our discussion, the fact that Latin America was both in the Cold War struggle (from an US standpoint) and out of the picture during the post-WWII restructuring put Latin America and its rainforests in a conundrum. It is just recently, now that the Cold War is over and the United States is no longer interested in maintaining anti-communist governments in the region at the expense of free and fair democracies, environmental protection, industrial development (for the purpose of creating trade partners, etc.) that these countries are beginning to come into their own. Yet, the unsettling part of this situation is that the US is no longer in the position to dictate terms – even though pro-US organizations like the World Bank and IMF.
Current projects of the World Bank:
Chapter 8: Rain Forest Conservation: The Direct or Indirect Approach
Surprisingly, Costa Rica has the highest level of deforestation according to a 1990 World Resource Institute report. This news was alarming to many who believed that this relatively stable and democratic country had good policies for protecting its rain forests. However, some of its policies – like land redistribution laws – that were created to satisfy its democratic system are causing the worst deforestation to occur. This is the system where large plantations and ranches push small farmers off their land. Then small farmers slash and burn the forest to create land to live off of. On top of this, the small farmers’ new land is the ‘property’ of semiautonomous tribes like the Miskitos.
Is there really a good solution to all of these problems? What can we do to develop long lasting solutions?
How would have American settlers responded to government policies that supported Native American claims to land while supporting large land grabs by plantations in the South and industry in the North East?
Chapter 9: Biodiversity, Agriculture and Rain Forests
“If some force were destroying the world’s museums, all thinking humans would be concerned. Such a force is, right now, destroying treasures that are perhaps even more precious and irreplaceable than the contents of the world’s museums.” Page 139
Bird watching in open spaces: In my trip to Costa Rica, the majority of the birds we found were in dense areas of the forest. The number of birds found was so high that the group had to split up into the birding group and the non-birders, letting those that wanted to see the ground do so. Birds in the rain forest are diurnal. This meant that a majority of our group went to bed early and got up at 4am. While the rest of us slept in and stayed up all night looking for snakes, frogs and other nocturnal organisms.
Charismatic megafauna:
“… no one takes lightly the potential extinction of the African elephant.”
What the authors state is both true and false. When environmental groups use big, fluffy, cute animals they tend to be organisms who need large areas to roam around in. By saying that you are going to protect an area the pumas, for example, live in, you are protecting many miles and acres. This would also include all the tiny insects and other organisms within this territory.
Island affect – we need more then a matrix . This is where you have a buffer matrix surrounding the preserved area, liking it to the rest of the preserves.
The authors argue that the greatest asset that rain forests provide to the world is their biodiversity. By preserving as much of the rain forest as possible, we preserve that biodiversity. Thus, there is utilitarian value to preserving rain forest – not just because there could be the cure to cancer yet to be discovered, or a huge carbon sink for purposes of climate change, or even that rain forests hold some of the last stands of old growth forest in the world.
One issue I have with the authors’ primary argument here is that it indicates that there is ‘one best argument’ for preservation. As a frequent debater, I know that it is vital to have more than one solution, more than one argument, and more than one important reason for doing something. I agree with the authors’ basic premise, but the idea that biodiversity is the only reason to save the rainforest is absurd, mostly because in order to accomplish a task such as this, we must be able to agree as a collective population and not a small collection of factions. Thus, it is important to tell some people that the rainforest serves as the third largest biological carbon sink in the world and tell others that the cure for cancer might be yet undiscovered in the trees.
Chapter 10: Who Constructs the Rainforest?
The intellectual construction of the idea of a rainforest is just as vital for protection as the scientific understanding of the forest. Once we understand how people view the rainforest then we have the ability to persuade them to want to save it. This argument is true for all complex issues. In order to convince someone of your point of view, you must first understand their point of view, and how they got to their own understanding.
Chapter 11: Past Causes, Future Models, Present Action
In conclusion, the author’s present the readers with important techniques for understanding in planning:
- The Web of Causality – helps understand how all of the different players interact to result in the current situation
- The Planned Mosaic – a possible solution to land use issues in the rain forest. It is analogous in my mind to urban planning in that it breaks down land use into understandable and manageable portions with specific and integrating tasks!
- The Political Action plan – from our understanding of the situation and our plan, we must find a way to put these ideas into action politically. For, politics is the struggle between people (through the medium of government) to decide who gets what and how much.
