Impact Of Globalization On The Environment In Brazil

Globalisation refers to the integration between different countries and economies and the increased impact of international influences on all aspects of life and economic activity. Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies and superpower of South America. In the recent decade Globalisation has allowed Brazil’s economy to sustain stable economic growth, this was proven when Brazil experienced a very mild recession during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Due to the high levels of economic growth as well as increases in GNI per Capita Brazil’s government has also been able to implement successful macroeconomic policies that have allowed for consistent economic development.

Cattle Ranching is one of the greatest causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Rainforest. It is the business of clearing land to provide room for raising and grazing of cattle. There are two reasons that this consumes so much land. First, large landowners or ranchers either clear forested land by means of fire or chainsaws, or buy already cleared land

Deforestation presents in an abundance of ways, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. The foremost reason of deforestation in Latin America is the requirement for food, fuel, shelter, and foreign exchange. Year on year, a space of tropical forest the size of Great Britain is "converted" from an area equal to the size of Europe. Ever since 1950, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), half of the world 's forests have disappeared. “Latin America has lost 37 percent of its tropical forests,” says the FAO. As more and more of Latin American forest are degraded, more and more detrimental effects are being seen. Deforestation is changing a number of resources for tribal groups, altering their way of life, temperatures are increasing at a dangerous rate because of a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, habitats and species such as plants and wildlife are being annexed due to the destructive effects of deforestation. Deforestation is inarguably helpful to supplying money to countries that sell the products from the forest, but huge wealth being generated from the forests comes with large-scale environmental and social costs. The local residences are not benefitting and the funds are being siphoned out of the region.

Brazil’s rainforests and America’s rainforests are great examples of the negative effect that deforestation has on these specific areas. One of the rising challenges in our rapidly growing world is the destruction of rainforests and how it is slowly ruining the world that we live in. Deforestation has a lot of destructive impacts on the environment that is surrounding us, one of the most important being its effect on the climate. The fast rise in the world’s population, calling for high demand of resources, is only hastening the effects of deforestation, which can hopefully be put an end to through the enforcement of a handful of simple, key, and sustainable solutions.

The process of integration of economies around the world, known as globalisation, has catalysed the development of Brazil as a powerful emerging economy, through the expansion of trade and investment. Emerging countries are defined as those progressing toward becoming more advanced, through rapid growth and industrialisation. Consequently, Brazil’s rapid economic growth has secured its place in BRICS, an association of five major emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

However, due to more people searching for plots there is greater pressure on the amount of available land. The logging industry is responsible for a relatively small level of deforestation, accounting for 3% in Brazil. Consequently, all these activity contribute together to the rapid loss of what is left of the rainforest and a large proportion of the world’s biodiversity. All of the resources that the rainforest provides could be lost in the next 40 years.

Deforestation is defined as: “the clearing of virgin forests, or intentional destruction or removal of trees and other vegetation for agricultural, commercial, housing, or firewood use without replanting and without allowing time for the forest to regenerate itself” (SCRIBD). Deforestation has been a problem in Latin America since the early 1900s and the severity of the dilemma is increasing rapidly. Deforestation not only has consequences for the environment, but also, the indigenous people and the national economy. The logging industry in Latin America is often exploited by multinational companies that are not properly regulated. The land that has provided a home and cultivated indigenous development for centuries is being dissipated rapidly. Due to an exponentially growing global population, there is an increased demand for low priced goods--like timber, crops, and meat. Many Latin American countries value revenue from selling these goods over the health of their local ecosystems. The crisis of deforestation and habitat loss is shifting from a local to global problem. As deforestation continues, global warming escalates worldwide, impacting every country and person. About 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation, which is more than from all the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined (Schwartzman). Puerto Rico and Brazil provide contrasting examples of the impact of deforestation. Puerto Rico had an economic and environmental shift

Indigenous rights in Brazil have been very vague throughout the years and were difficult to obtain since many indigenous tribes were seen as an inferior class. There are around 900,000 indigenous people with a total of 240 tribes in Brazil in contrast to the 11 million indigenous people that lived there before the European colonist arrived. It was predicted that 90% died in the first years from diseases that they were not exposed to, such as the flu and smallpox, and the rest who survived the diseases were enslaved. Brazil has one third of the world’s rainforest and half of the amazon forest, but with the expansion of neoliberal policies deforestation has become a serious problem. According to Brazilian authorities, the rubber and cattle industries are responsible for 80% of the deforestation (COHA). This has evidently affected many indigenous communities that lived in the Amazon forest, displacing them from their lands and exploiting them for hard labor. By the 1950s, many predicted that the indigenous population in Brazil would disappear, but they have been able to recover by becoming active in the movement against neoliberal policies and their rights as human.

Deforestation has lead to terrible living conditions and 38 species have been driven to extinction. John Vidal, author of “The Sumatran Rainforest Will Mostly Disappear Within 20 Years,” writes about the ways logging companies are getting past regulations to take more land and logs away from the forest and natives. Ian Sample, author of “Amazon’s Doomed Species Set to Pay Deforestation’s ‘Extinction Debt,’” on the other hand mostly talks about the affects deforestation has on animals. Vidal has the better argument over Sample because his explanations about its effects on humans and corruption from companies and the government.

Brazil is located in Eastern South America and borders the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil is very comparable to the USA, being only slightly smaller in size. The economy is well-developed in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and service sectors, and it has an expanding middle class. Brazil was under Portuguese rule until it gained independence in 1822 and maintained a monarchical system of government until the abolition of slavery in 1888.

The Amazon Rainforest is a mighty jungle filled with an array of exotic species of wood, like mahogany, and rich natural resources such as gold, copper, tin, and nickel. Naturally, people want to make a profit, but the rainforest’s trees stand in the way. Logging is the main source of deforestation. Every year, millions of trees are cut down to be made into timber. Many times, these logging operations are illegal. These operations will keep exploiting the Amazon for its exotic timber, not caring that many of these species of plants are either rare, or help support rare species and ecosystems. Mining also creates deforestation, but not as severely as logging. Trees are cut down to make way for mining operations that dig for non renewable resources like copper and gold. Trees are also used as charcoal to help produce pig iron. A third cause of deforestation is agriculture. Cattle ranches and soy plantations are created where the Amazon Rainforest once stood. As people expand their farms, they must cut down the areas they now use for farming. Trees are also cut to make space for animal pens. Governments also contribute to the deforestation problem by building roads and creating infrastructure. Although these roads help with communication and navigation, they cut through the rainforest, and often help illegal loggers create new roads from their operations in the jungle to these roads that connect with civilization. All of these factors have helped cut down the Amazon Rainforest. In the past

On the surface, Brazil does not appear as a country ravaged by poverty however, portions of it are; and its environmental stability is an enormous factor of this. In 2000 the United Nations concocted a plan to assist countries like Brazil; thus the Millennium Development Goals emerged. In essence, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs for short) are a set of targets set to challenge extreme poverty across the globe. As Brazil is not a ‘traditional’ country in the subject of poverty so a specific target had to be included for it to fit in with the MDGs. Target 9 includes two factors: the amount of land covered by forest and the protection of biodiversity, which pinpoint Brazil as a country in need. In Brazil, tourism and the need for lumber are dwindling both the biodiversity of the country, as well as cutting down on the area of land covered by forest. Therefore, Brazil’s ecology and demand for resources cause it to be looked at as a country in need, despite its modernization being equivalent to the rest of the world. With this being said, Brazil’s ecosystem has remained relatively unaffected by change in the last two decades. It will be challenging for Brazil to achieve the seventh Millennium Development Goal of ensuring environmental stability due its lack of a strong governmental structure, a dwindling economy, and the miniscule amount of groups assisting Brazil.

As a citizen and a customer, I ask of you to rethink about cutting down millions of trees in Brazil. Not only does it harm the environment, it may harm your business in the long run. The rainforest in South America is very important for the world outside of commercial use. If you continue to clear-cutting the rainforests, the whole world pays the cost.

Envisage a country named after a wood product. Such a country exists in Eastern South America. Brazil has been tremendously influenced by European life and evidence of that can be perceived through their culture. Made up of various types of resources, Brazil has continued to flourish. However, problems have arose along with the growth of the population. Deforestation, an outcome of human action has affected the millions of exotic species that live in one of the treasures of Brazil, the Amazon Rainforest.

Brazil, like many Latin American nations, is a country undergoing rapid change. The nation’s push to transition from newly industrialized to develop country has forever altered Brazil’s physical geography, level of development, and economic activity.