- Email: [email protected]
Amazon jungle: Green hell to red desert?
BOOK REVIEWS
Amazon Jungle: Green Hell to Red Desert? By Robert J. A. Goodland and Howard S. Irwin. Developments in Landscape Management and Urban Planning, !. Elsevier, Amsterdam and New York. 1975. x + 150 pp. Price: US $13.75, Dfl. 33.00. In spite of its idiotic title, this is a serious and scholarly book that brings together a great deal of information about the Amazon Basin, and marshals the urgent arguments for a more intelligent treatment of it than is being carried out and further planned by the technocratic whizz-kids of the Brasilian Government. (The title is wrong for several reasons: Amazonian rain forest can be reasonably pleasant to work in, given a suitable base, and is probably safer than many others; a book giving the reasons for preserving the forest should not start by denigrating it; and finally, red laterite soils left exposed by erosion after forest clearance are not universal in Amazonia, much of which has other kinds of soil as well, and in any case the degraded habitat developing after forest clearance may be barren but is not desert.) These two botanists, with a good deal of experience in the Neotropics, have put together a unique bibliography (16 pp.) of the publications bearing upon the whole ecology and exploitation of Amazonia (politically about two-thirds of Brasii, but geographically extending beyond it). It includes much Latin-American work likely to be overlooked. The huge rain forest areas of this region are threatened with extinction, or at least severe impoverishment, within the next 50 years. There are excellent maps but no photographs, and the book is essentially a series of brief chapters giving the main issues and partly examples from all this work. The vast new highway systems are at the centre of the Government's planning, and a considerable length has already been slashed through remote forests, with perhaps two chief aims: the development of new agricultural areas on cleared land (half a million poor peasants need it), and the tapping of rich mineral deposits. But so far the results have mainly encouraged the establishment of vast ranches, really perpetuating the bad old latifundia system of big landlords, some of whom are absentees. It is doubtful how far an ecologically 237 Biol. Conserv. (9) (1976)--Cc-)Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1976 Printed in Great Britain
238
BOOK REVIEWS
balanced permanent system o f smaller holdings can flourish except near rivers. The breaking up o f the forest nutrient cycle, nutrient loss, soil erosion, are discussed, though these are already generally understood--'l ha of forestprotected soil releases 1 kg in a year; stripped o f its canopy the naked hectare loses 34 tons of soil'. The opening of highways has already spread diseases and created new human infections, partly insect-borne. The account of vegetation (by G. T. Prance) is rather cursory, but mentions how some species of trees have become rare or extinct through selective extraction. This, as well as all other forms of exploitation of wildlife (tree products, animals for food or ornament or for the awful trade in pets and laboratory animals), can only increase as a result of easier access. Above all, the Amerindian populations, which are listed in some detail, are at very high risk. The chief theme of this book is a convincing one. It is that forest destruction should slow down or stop until we know much more about the system, which is certainly one of the richest in biological complexity and extent in the world. And we still know fairly little about the life of its species and their relationships. The practical argument is that most of the agricultural substitutes for the forest are unworkable except for a few years or at all. It is pointed out that the great river systems are the permanently productive element in Amazonia, and could supply enormous amounts of fish for human food, judging by what they already produce. Here again, scientific knowledge is very incomplete (on this matter see R. H. Lowe-McConnell (1975) 'Fish communities in tropical freshwaters'). Also roads may not be capable of transporting heavy minerals long distances, while river transport can. (A 3000-ton British steamer made a 2000-mile journey up the Amazon system in 1909-10, negotiating on the way the inner channels between Para and the main Amazon.) On the faunal question this book is uneven, though containing some information about threatened species of vertebrates (a grim record there). Insects (other than disease-carriers) get less than one page. I hope that world organisations will press successfully for some really big parks and reserves to be established and their laws enforced. The whole fauna is probably as fragile an ecological system as is the vegetation, because of the low population densities of most forest species, and the complex relationships that have evolved among them, and between them and plants. C. S. ELTON
The Naturalist in Majorca. By James D. Parrack. David and Charles, Newton Abbot. 1973. 224 pp. Price: £3.95. This volume is one of a series, 'The Regional Naturalist', and the first to deal with a region outside the British Isles. In the last twenty years Majorca has become well known to many thousands of holiday-makers from all parts of Europe and a
Amazon Jungle: Green Hell to Red Desert? By Robert J. A. Goodland and Howard S. Irwin. Developments in Landscape Management and Urban Planning, !. Elsevier, Amsterdam and New York. 1975. x + 150 pp. Price: US $13.75, Dfl. 33.00. In spite of its idiotic title, this is a serious and scholarly book that brings together a great deal of information about the Amazon Basin, and marshals the urgent arguments for a more intelligent treatment of it than is being carried out and further planned by the technocratic whizz-kids of the Brasilian Government. (The title is wrong for several reasons: Amazonian rain forest can be reasonably pleasant to work in, given a suitable base, and is probably safer than many others; a book giving the reasons for preserving the forest should not start by denigrating it; and finally, red laterite soils left exposed by erosion after forest clearance are not universal in Amazonia, much of which has other kinds of soil as well, and in any case the degraded habitat developing after forest clearance may be barren but is not desert.) These two botanists, with a good deal of experience in the Neotropics, have put together a unique bibliography (16 pp.) of the publications bearing upon the whole ecology and exploitation of Amazonia (politically about two-thirds of Brasii, but geographically extending beyond it). It includes much Latin-American work likely to be overlooked. The huge rain forest areas of this region are threatened with extinction, or at least severe impoverishment, within the next 50 years. There are excellent maps but no photographs, and the book is essentially a series of brief chapters giving the main issues and partly examples from all this work. The vast new highway systems are at the centre of the Government's planning, and a considerable length has already been slashed through remote forests, with perhaps two chief aims: the development of new agricultural areas on cleared land (half a million poor peasants need it), and the tapping of rich mineral deposits. But so far the results have mainly encouraged the establishment of vast ranches, really perpetuating the bad old latifundia system of big landlords, some of whom are absentees. It is doubtful how far an ecologically 237 Biol. Conserv. (9) (1976)--Cc-)Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1976 Printed in Great Britain
238
BOOK REVIEWS
balanced permanent system o f smaller holdings can flourish except near rivers. The breaking up o f the forest nutrient cycle, nutrient loss, soil erosion, are discussed, though these are already generally understood--'l ha of forestprotected soil releases 1 kg in a year; stripped o f its canopy the naked hectare loses 34 tons of soil'. The opening of highways has already spread diseases and created new human infections, partly insect-borne. The account of vegetation (by G. T. Prance) is rather cursory, but mentions how some species of trees have become rare or extinct through selective extraction. This, as well as all other forms of exploitation of wildlife (tree products, animals for food or ornament or for the awful trade in pets and laboratory animals), can only increase as a result of easier access. Above all, the Amerindian populations, which are listed in some detail, are at very high risk. The chief theme of this book is a convincing one. It is that forest destruction should slow down or stop until we know much more about the system, which is certainly one of the richest in biological complexity and extent in the world. And we still know fairly little about the life of its species and their relationships. The practical argument is that most of the agricultural substitutes for the forest are unworkable except for a few years or at all. It is pointed out that the great river systems are the permanently productive element in Amazonia, and could supply enormous amounts of fish for human food, judging by what they already produce. Here again, scientific knowledge is very incomplete (on this matter see R. H. Lowe-McConnell (1975) 'Fish communities in tropical freshwaters'). Also roads may not be capable of transporting heavy minerals long distances, while river transport can. (A 3000-ton British steamer made a 2000-mile journey up the Amazon system in 1909-10, negotiating on the way the inner channels between Para and the main Amazon.) On the faunal question this book is uneven, though containing some information about threatened species of vertebrates (a grim record there). Insects (other than disease-carriers) get less than one page. I hope that world organisations will press successfully for some really big parks and reserves to be established and their laws enforced. The whole fauna is probably as fragile an ecological system as is the vegetation, because of the low population densities of most forest species, and the complex relationships that have evolved among them, and between them and plants. C. S. ELTON
The Naturalist in Majorca. By James D. Parrack. David and Charles, Newton Abbot. 1973. 224 pp. Price: £3.95. This volume is one of a series, 'The Regional Naturalist', and the first to deal with a region outside the British Isles. In the last twenty years Majorca has become well known to many thousands of holiday-makers from all parts of Europe and a