Beginning in July of 2019, the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has been up in flames, burning up the lush foliage and engulfing much of the wildlife, along with many Indigenous groups, in its fiery wake. Yet, it’s receiving little to no media coverage due to the global community’s seemingly unconcerned liability to take action. Greenpeace, the international environmental organization, is holding Brazil’s current government under President Jair Bolsonaro responsible as the primary cause of the fires due to negligence. They claim that mass deforestation has been taking place at an increasingly alarming rate, especially following Bolsonaro’s election, and farming and ranching that have also been taking place in surrounding areas have been contributing to the rise in destruction as well (Greenpeace 2019) [1]. These problems have not been addressed in a timely manner.

Various ideologies, such as Dualism, have been heavily promoted within the past few centuries have also shifted humanity’s conscious to one that is less ecologically friendly and more materially greedy. Without help from the international community and the government of Brazil, the Amazon will continue to be subjected to destruction [1].

The Amazon is a massive area, covering roughly 2,300,000 square miles of South American land. It is one of the most important and critical components of the Earth’s delicate ecological balance and to date 2,240,000 acres have been burned due to the 2019 wildfires (in addition to the great amount of damage that has already been done). It is responsible for atmospheric oxygen composition and cleanliness, maintaining the atmosphere’s water cycle, and for the preservation of many rare animal and plant species. Much of the vegetation in the Amazon also includes important medicinal plant species that can be used to cure a multitude of illnesses and diseases [7].

Deforestation, which has plagued the Brazilian Amazon for decades now, is utilized for the establishment of farms and ranches, which has tripled the number of cattle present in this area and surrounding regions (Dwyer 2019) [2]. Farming and ranching have caused more pollution and the poisoning of, not only the lands in these areas, but the entire well-being of our Earth and atmosphere as a whole. Production of methane from cattle and other pollutants are consequential of farming and ranching, and contribute greatly to fire susceptibility of the Amazon. The fires have spiked in these areas where deforestation and pollution are at their peaks (Dwyer 2019) [2]. When it comes down to it, the Brazilian government, in general, expresses lesser concern, even though they make it apparent that they “may look into measures to combat these fires” (Greenpeace 2019) [1], it seems politics is snaking its way into crisis affairs and impeding them once again instead of acting upon them with optimism. [2]

In the past, Brazil was much more involved in helping to prevent deforestation in both public and private lands of the forests. In 2006, the government passed the Public Forest Management law. This law established concessions and funding for forest conservation and regulations involving deforestation in public areas of the forest. Other organizations and institutions that were established following this law being passed included CONAFLOR (a civil society forestry board), IMAZON (an NGO that monitors deforestation), FUNBIO (an environmental fund that budgets financing towards protected lands and biodiversity), INPE (a Brazilian space observation company that also monitors deforestation), and lastly IPAM, a governmental research institution that focuses on deforestation, climate change, and natural resources in respect to the Brazilian environment (Yale 2019) [10]. Indigenous individuals and tribes within the Amazon, along with private property owners, have also gone to great lengths to prevent deforestation and have made the most difference and impact in doing so (Yale 2019) [10]. It was ultimately a grassroots movement of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and not a specific government agency, that was able to make the most progress to preserve much of the Amazon’s beauty and help stave off deforestation [5].

Despite the efforts that have been exerted into the establishment of laws, policies, and government organizations in order to protect the Amazon, protection of the Amazon has been much neglected for now and for future generations. Other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, also believe that Brazil is not doing enough. But, President Bolsonaro seems to have many political reasons to continue to resist international help to halt the fires and stop deforestation. His outspokenness of his pro-deforestation views has ignited a wave of eager ranchers and farmers to continue, and even escalate, their destruction of the Amazon (Specht, 2019) [9].

Religion and environment

As for religious and spiritual views of the environment, some people have manipulated various religious teachings to promote negative ideologies and views of the environment rather than positive ones. These ideologies argue that all animal and natural life was created to serve mankind, and that humanity has no responsibility to take care of our planet or maintain a balance of life in the natural world. The Indigenous people of the Amazon, such as the Xingu tribe, view these perspectives as “predatory” and are in fear that everything they know and love will be taken away from them due to the utter destruction, negligence and lack of aide provided by the government. Many leaders of these tribes call these events the “destruction of Mother Earth” and the fires that have been set ablaze are Mother Nature’s calls for help (Johnson 2019) [5]. To provide more of a visual, there are roughly 817,000 individuals in Brazil who self-report themselves as indigenous, and there are 67 known tribes within Brazil that do not have contact with the outside world as of now. The Amazon serves as these tribes’ livelihood. Many individuals who are a part of these tribes were born in the rainforest, grew up in the rainforest, hunt in these forests, and make their living in these forests; Amazon is all they know and love [5].

In an article titled “Dualisms – Environmental Humanities”, Dualism is outlined as one entity being viewed as “genuine and superior” while all other life is categorized as “other”. This concept has had major impacts on the way we as humans view the products of our environment. Dualism fuels the idea that the environment, and all non-human living beings within it, are put on this Earth specifically to serve us as humans and us alone. This ideology allows people to infer that there is a distinct separation between humans and every other living being on the planet, and that these distinctions make it possible for humans to justify destructive actions towards the environment. In addition to these ideas, the concept of “ecological consciousness” is found to play an important role in the relationship between religion and in being mindful of our consumption of our environmental resources, as we continue to consume them faster than they can regenerate themselves (Andrew 2019) [3].

Christianity and Islam are two religions that promote ecological consciousness and believe that the Earth’s resources should be treasured and treated with respect. This places a strong emphasis on environmental protection and environmental rights, which thus encourages followers and believers of the religion to do the same. Religion provides us with morals and values that can be adopted when it comes to our views of all other living things whom also share this Earth with us; not only our views of these beings, but how we treat these beings as well. Finally, Christianity and Islam argue that “being a servant of God” also encompasses the idea that Man must protect what God has entrusted him with, the environment included (Pahl 2018). Specifically in regards to Islamic views, Tawhid, meaning the “oneness of God”, is a critical component that Islam bases itself upon. The religion of Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a monotheistic religion, meaning that these religions base their values and morals on the belief that there is only one God. All existence, including the human beings, are His creation, and in that sense they are part of the one same whole and exist interdependently [4][9].

Despite the disregard of public outcries, there are ways that everyday individuals, such as ourselves, may combat this issue head on and on our own without aide from government agencies. Our first mission should be to make this issue as public as possible. Share as much reliable news coverage as you possibly can and spread the word as far as it will go. If you are able, donate to wildlife conservation and forestation projects held locally or online. Spread knowledge and education. Call attention to higher powers. Other ways in which the everyday community can make a difference include supporting Indigenous groups and tribes residing in the Amazon; begin developing an allyship by using less paper and wood products, by consuming more ethically sourced foods, by voting, and by challenging large corporations who are impeding on the health improvement of the Amazon [8].

Let’s take action! The Amazon, its people, and its wildlife need the world’s cooperation, or they do not stand a chance against the ravenous gluttony that is deforestation. We can save the lungs of our Earth together.

References

1. Amazon Rainforest. (n.d.). Retrieved August 22, 2019, from https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/forests/amazon-rainforest/
2. Dwyer, C. (2019, August 21). Tens of Thousands of Fires Ravage Brazilian Amazon, Where Deforestation Has Spiked. Retrieved August 22, 2019, from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/21/753140642/tens-of-thousands-of-fires-ravage-brazilian-amazon-where-deforestation-has-spikeA.
3. UNSW Australia 2016. “Dualisms – Environmental Humanities.” FutureLearn, www.futurelearn.com/courses/remaking-nature/0/steps/57394.
4. Pahl, Justin. 2019. “Nature and Environment in Contemporary Religious Contexts.” The Fountain. Retrieved August 29, 2019 (https://fountainmagazine.com/2018/issue-126-november-december-2018/nature-and-environment-in-contemporary-religious-contexts).
5. Johnson, Jake. 2019. “Indigenous Tribes on Front Line of Amazon Rainforest Fires Vow To Resist Bolsonaro’s ‘Destruction of Mother Nature.’” Common Dreams. Retrieved (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/27/indigenous-tribes-front-line-amazon-rainforest-fires-vow-resist-bolsonaros).
6. Saving the Rainforests. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2019, from http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/preserve.html.
7. Kessler, Robert. 2019. “The Amazon Is Burning.” EcoHealth Alliance. Retrieved October 18, 2019 (https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2019/08/the-amazon-is-burning?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI59uAtoKm5QIVCNRkCh0_eAvsEAAYASAAEgI_q_D_BwE).
8. Specht, Doug. n.d. “Amazon Fires: 8 Ways You Can Help Stop the Rainforest Burning.” Public Radio International. Retrieved October 18, 2019 (https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-29/amazon-fires-8-ways-you-can-help-stop-rainforest-burning)
9. “Quick Links.” IslamiCity. Retrieved October 18, 2019 (https://www.islamicity.org/topics/tawhid-oneness-of-god/).
10. Yale University. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2019, from https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/forest-governance/brazil.

For that reason, the region constitutes a vast, natural pharmacopoeia. Plant and animal tissues obtained from the rain forest are used in the production of chemicals of known medicinal potency. (The ingredients for the best known drugs are extracted from the tropical plants.) So far less than one percent of the Amazon’s plant species have been studied for their possible curative properties (McGee, 1990, pp.516-17).

In contrast to the wealth of its flora and fauna, the soil of the Amazon is poor, so poor that, when large areas are cleared up, the regeneration process may take as long as 300, in some places even 1000 years (Giamo, 1988, p.539). But, the forest is rich in various natural resources: deposits of manganese, aluminium, copper, tin, nickel, iron, gold and natural gas have been found. Annual production of these minerals is worth about 1.5 billion dollars (McGee, 1990, p.515).

The region as a whole is vital to the maintenance of the world ecological order; it is an important factor in world weather patterns; nearly half of the world’s oxygen atmosphere is released from its vegetation; and approximately two-thirds of the world’s fresh water is stored in the Amazon basin.

DEFORESTATION OF THE AMAZON

Today, one of the most serious problems facing the international community is the uncontrolled destruction of this unique environment. Deforestation of the Amazon region is being done by all nine states sharing the region, though Brazil, 59% of whose territory is located in the Amazon basin, is the most active. Over the last three decades, the scale of destruction has become intolerable. There are no precise figures; the estimate is a loss of 13.000 sq. km. of forest annually. The total destruction of the Brazilian Amazon so far amounts to 415.000 sq. km., an area about the size of Iraq (Cerrill, 1992, p.44). Pessimists expect the Brazilian rainforest to have been largely destroyed by the first decades of the next century, despite a fall in the rate of destruction (ibid).

In a global perspective, the destruction of the earth’s lungs (for that is what the rainforests are) raises two problems. First, the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. In 1988 an estimated 12,000 sq. miles of Brazilian forest, an area larger than Belgium, was set alight to clear land for agricultural use. Excessive CO2 emission from such fires is among the main causes of the so-called greenhouse effect: Amazon deforestation contributes nearly five percent of the total CO2 emissions worldwide; the region as a whole stores in its flora 0.75 billion tons of carbon (Linden, 1989, p.46). The increase in the temperature of the earth’s surface will bring about climatic chaos, threatening the future of the global ecosystem including mankind. Second, deforestation goes hand in hand with the destruction of fauna and flora. It is estimated that every day one species becomes extinct (Goldenberg and Durham, 1990, p.26). If the Amazon rainforests vanish, more than a million species, a significant portion of the earth’s biological diversity and genetic heritage, will become extinct (Linden, 1989, p.45). The scale of the danger can be simply illustrated: 900 species of fig provide essential nutrition for spider monkeys, peccaries (a variety of pig) and toucans, for over three months of every year; the figs themselves depend on pollination by wasps–if the wasps go, all species higher up on the food chain go also: the monkeys and jaguars would disappear.

The well-being of the generations to come is dependent upon the preservation of biological diversity. Failure means that our children will be deprived of the opportunity to discover or modify pharmaceutical compounds from the genetic diversity that is now available but would then not be. And that lack would be felt also in the agricultural sector where genes taken from wild species are used to interbreed with domesticated varieties to enrich and strengthen them. For example, the California barley crop, with an estimated annual value of $160 million, was rendered immune to the lethal yellow dwarf virus by a gene from a barley plant found in Ethiopia (Dobson, 1992, p.282). That is why even Westerners agree that ‘Brazil is very important to the international community because of its biological diversity’ (Cerrill, 1992, p.46).

The Brazilians are accused of constructing highways, colonizing the region through large-scale migration, ranching, mining and lumbering. In fact, all the Latin American countries who share it also share in the destruction of the rainforest. In some of these countries, the forest is cleared to grow coca for cocaine production. Many endangered plants and animal species are caught for export to the West’s pet shops. The local governments are unable or reluctant to enforce international agreements to protect the fauna and flora threatened with extinction.

The principal excuse for the ongoing destruction is widespread poverty, even hunger, in the countries concerned. One Brazilian president said ‘we cannot discuss the environment issue without taking into account the situation of poverty and misery in which three-quarters of humanity lives’ (Cerrill, 1992, p.46). We should ask ourselves why such poverty arises in a region which Allah has endowed with so much natural wealth and beauty.

ISLAMIC APPROACH TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY

We should seek the reason for the tragedy of the Amazon region in the brutality of the international economic order, based on the crudest laissez-faire economic attitudes and a usurious financial system. Without doubt, it is the foreign debts of Brazil and other Latin American countries that are the immediate reason for the deforestation policy. Brazil is now staggering under a foreign debt of $120 billion.

As Umar Vadillo rightly says: ‘the problems of the usurious economy are becoming day by day more apparent and more pressing since they are connected to the very survival of man and the ecological equilibrium of the planet. Today no one has any doubts that the reasons for starvation in the world and the serious deforestation of the tropical forests lie primarily in the debts of those countries’ (Vadillo, 1991).

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have financed enormous highway and hydroelectric plants and other construction projects with the specific aim of exploiting the revenues from the destruction of the Amazon (Goldenberg and Durham, 1990, p.31). The policies of such institutions are meant to divert the natural resources of developing countries from serving the needs of their populations to financing usurious loans taken out for projects that benefit only particular groups (Mc Clearly, 1991, p.707). The loans do not help the mass of the people to develop sustainable economic projects. Instead, they oblige them to set aside their best lands to grow crops for exports (where prices are beyond their control) in order to earn the foreign currency to service the national debt. It is a vicious circle systematically used by the world’s financiers to grind down the poor so that they continue to be forced to invest, through Western banks, in the affluence of the West: for every one dollar invested by the Western countries in the Third World (whether as aid or as loans) ten dollars are repaid in interest.

The cost of this debt slavery is horrific. In Brazil, for example, three-quarters of the population are living in the cities, more than half of them without adequate water supplies or sewage systems (Cerrill, 1992, p.47). Even some Westerners are coming to accept that the developed world cannot continue its exploitation of underdeveloped countries with the cruel intensity of the past half century–such an attitude is unsustainable, as well as being morally repulsive (Mc Clearly, 1991, p.707).

As long as the Western banks press the Brazilian governments to repay loans and interests, the Brazilian people will be forced to exploit the rainforest to barely survive as debt-slaves: but this has repercussions on the global climate and eco-system we all share. One cannot help agree with a Brazilian Congressman who said: ‘The green area of Amazonia should be totally devastated … because the forest represents the paralyzation of the country’s development’ [quoted from O Globo (Oct. 19, 1977) in Giamo, 1988, p.537]. Recently, Western banks have come to understand the consequences of their policies and the danger they put themselves in: one official tries to clear himself of blame in this way: ‘Deforestation may be with our money, but it is very much against our philosophy’ (Timberlake, 1987, p.23). It is beginning to dawn on the decision-makers that the agony imposed on the South by the North will lead to a catastrophe that will certainly engulf the North too. This confession arises from the understanding, in the aftermath of the catastrophic events of the 1980s, that due to the delicate ecological balance of the global environment, the South and the North share the same destiny. One’s loss will certainly be the other’s.

The Qur’an categorically prohibits usury; for example, in al-Baqarah: O you who believe! Have fear of Allah and give up what is still due from usury. If you do not, then be warned of war from Allah and His Messenger (2.278). Also, the Qur’an reiterates many times the interdependence of the creation, its fundamental interconnectedness and unity. As a single example of this, consider the following verse from al-An’am: No creature is there crawling on the earth, no bird flying with its wings, but they are nations like yourselves (6.38).

The respect for other creatures required by this verse (Hamid, 1989, p.159) is well-illustrated in the report that the Prophet, upon him be peace, following his own reasoning, once ordered dogs to be killed, but then changed his position to harmonize with the verse. He explained: ‘If the dogs were not nations in themselves I would command them to be killed’ (Sahin, 1992, p.7). The care and compassion of this attitude, its patient refusal to exercise the power human beings do have, is surely an example of a sensitivity to the hidden purposes of Allah’s creation, its as-yet unrealized potential, that we find echoed in the pleas, now growing desperate in their urgency, that we respect and save ‘the bio-diversity’ of our planet.

Certainly, the All-Merciful and All-Powerful created this universe with a harmony and balance among its many, different elements: And the firmament He raised up high and, He set up the balance in order that ye may not transgress (due) balance (7.9).

It is an aspect of human civilization, gravely neglected in the West, that human beings should learn to hear that harmony, to feel that balance, and to seek to live in tune with the Creator’s purpose rather than in arrogant disregard of it. Man’s dominion is conditional on his being a steward of nature, not a ruthless, self-indulgent tyrant. To prefer the role of tyrant to that of steward is in reality, to prefer our self-destruction biological as well as moral. 

REFERENCES

• CERRILL, M. (1992) ‘Brazil’s two faces’, Time (June 8), pp.44. ft.
• DICKENSON. J. ‘ Too many trees: not enough wood? A review of recent Literature on Brezilian Aniazonia’ Journal of Latin American Studies, 18, pp.409-23.
• DOBSON, T. (1992) ‘Loss of biodiversily: an international environmental perspective’ North Carolina J int’l & Commercial Reg, 17. pp.277-309.
• ECOLOGIST, THE (1989) ‘Amazon Special Issue’,19(6).
• GIAMO, M.S. (1988) ‘Deforestation in Brazil: domestic political imperative-global ecological disaster’ Envilonmental Law 18, pp 537-70.
• GOLDEMBERG, J. & DURHAM. E. (1990)‘Amazonia and national sovereignty’ Journal of international Environmental Affairs, 2(1) pp.22-39.
• HAMID, A. (1989) ‘Islam: the Natural Way’, MELS PubI, Lcndon.
• LINDEN, E. (1989) ‘Playing with fire: destruction of the Amazon is one of the great tragedies of hislory’, Time (September 18) pp 44.50. (Based on research for US National Academy of sciences, 1982.)
• MC CLEARLY, R. M. (1991) ‘The inlernational community’s claim to rights in Brazilian Amazonia’ Political Studies, 39, pp.691-707.
• MC GEE, H. W. (1990) ‘The deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon: law, politics and international cooperation’, inter-American Law Review 21(3), pp.513-50.
• SAHIN.M. F. (1992) ‘Ãnsanligin iftihar tablosu’, Akademi No.73., Zaman. TIBERLAKE. L. (1987) ‘From Washington to Panama: buying destruction’ in Only One Earth:Living for Nature, Sterling Publ. Co. Inc., New York.
• VADILLO, U. (1991) The End of Economics, Madina Press, Granada.