The Amazon :: Essays Papers

The Amazon History of Technology Can you image how the Amazon Basin would look if development had never started? The colonization of the Amazon is very similar to what happened in the American West in the 1800s. What took approximately 80 years to accomplish in the United States, has taken far fewer year in the Amazon Basin. The Amazon Basin consists of the widest rivers in the world and they flow through the largest rain forest, traveling through nine nations. The people of the Amazon Basin have been there for as long as 10,000 years. The first people to live along the Amazon were South American Indians who arrived from the north. The Amazon is very important because, "The Amazon is like an enormous breathing machine, with each tree and plant absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen. The Amazon jungles contribute to the atmosphere of the entire plant." (The Cousteau Society, 21) There are many different tribes living in the Amazon Basin and many have never seen modern technology. The tribes of the Amazon prefer to be called Amerindians, and they have many different groups or societies. With the creation of the roads cutting through the Amazon, the Amerindian has diminished greatly in size and has expressed concern about their forest. The chief of the Kayapo people has said, "We are fighting to defend the forest. It is because the forest is what makes us, and what makes out hearts go." (Rain Forest Amerindians, 11) The decision to cut roads through the Amazon Basin was encouraged after it was discovered what vast resources were available and the desire to acquire them took precedence. The region has large amounts of latex from the rubber trees, minerals such as, ore, aluminum, copper, natural gas, potassium, nickel, manganese, iron, gold and even diamonds. To obtain these resources, roads were constructed by bulldozing through the forest. This was accomplished by burning, spraying poison from the air and by huge tractors dragging chains across the ground. Because of this need to obtain the resources, several roads were built throughout the Amazon Basin. The Beli'mBrasilia Highway was constructed across the eastern edge of the forest at the month of the Amazon. The Tran Amazonian Highway was also built from the Atlantic coast through the heart of the forest to Peru and is 2,672 miles long.