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What It Takes 2007:
The Green Adventure
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What It Takes to Save a Rain Forest
David de Rothschild, founder of Adventure Ecology and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer
Text by David de Rothschild
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Rain forests once covered 14 percent of the Earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6 percent. With some estimates placing the rate of destruction at ten million trees per day, the last remaining rain forests could be consumed in less than 40 years.
In all honesty, until I had the opportunity to experience the Amazon for a month last April, these numbers felt very abstract. However, once on the ground in Ecuador's Amazon Basin, the magnitude of environmental and social damage, fed by short-term financial gain, made me acutely aware of just what's at stake in the region.
The aim of the expedition, named Toxico and the first of our art-focused Articulate missions, was to investigate one of the worst oil-related disasters in history. Over the last 25 years, the Ecuadorian Amazon has been exposed to the dumping of crude-oil waste, which has created over 700 open-air toxic waste pits. These pits have been leaching billions of gallons of toxic wastewater and oil residue into streams and aquifers, polluting the drinking water of multiple communities. Not only has this disaster wreaked havoc on the ecology of the region, but it has also threatened the survival of many indigenous groups.
I was joined by a team that consisted of a filmmaker, an artist (celebrated Mexican postminimalist Gabriel Orozco), an ethnobotanist (fellow National Geographic Emerging Explorer Maria Fadiman), and two photographers. Together we were a 60-fingered, twelve-eyed creative creature, slinking through the wondrous Amazon, inspired by nature and the people who welcomed us into their communities so warmly.
In October, we'll showcase the results of our project in an art show that will travel around to different gallery spaces. If anything is to come from this mission, it will be an international awareness that will bring us closer to finding solutions for the Amazon and its communities.
One thing we can all do is gain an awareness of how our choices are playing a hand at literally destroying indigenous Amazon cultures, people who rely on the forest's intricate ecosystems.
Commercial logging is the single largest cause of rain forest destruction. Most of the finished product ends up in our backyards as outdoor furniture or in the very materials that we use to build and decorate our homes. We need to make sure we no longer buy wood products unless we know exactly from where it has been sourced or if the product is carrying a sustainable-forestry stamp. Ask questions of your retailers and building merchants. If they don't know the answers, don't buy.
Some estimate that 20 to 25 percent of the world's carbon emissions actually come from the destruction of tropical forests. It's said that the Amazon acts as the lungs for our planet. By removing thousands of acres of forest daily, we are destroying a major source of our planet's oxygen and removing one of our best carbon sinks.
Working towards a cessation of the irreversible damage to the Amazon, one of the planet's most important ecosystems and major climate control systems, requires a change in ideology. Rather than the current story that places us outside of the natural world, we have to realign ourselves as part of an interconnected web of life.
More on David de Rothschild:Q+A: Talking Trash >>
Adventure Ecology >>
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