Living History

I vividly remember sitting in my world geography class freshman year, in a wooden desk by the window at BHS. I remember the textbook we had and when we did a unit on Conservation. We had to draw a piece of paper which determines whether we were 'pro-environment' or 'pro-logging.' From there, we had to read about the deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest and debate the opposite opinion. I remember looking through the glossy pictures- images of trucks hauling out lumber and entire fields of felled trees- like it was yesterday.

Every day on the reserve it was always disheartening to hear the chainsaws off in the distance, illegally cutting down the beautiful trees that I was surrounded by- while the helicopters circled overhead, searching for magnetic fields that would be good areas to open new mines. This was my first experience of being fully immersed in the damage that humans are causing to our environment. On my first mule ride going up into the reserve, we had to pull over to let the oncoming traffic (eight other mules hauling huge logs) pass by. 

While simultaneously seeing these negative effects, I was reading the book Collapse by Jared Diamond; learning about past civilizations, like the Mayans, the Vikings and the people of Easter Island, whose societies failed to succeed. Most of which were at the fault of damaging the environment (i.e. deforestation, poor agricultural practices etc..) at a rate which was unable to regenerate. I learned that without trees, there is an entire ripple effect. No lumber to build houses, no roots to hold soil, no fertile top soil to plant crops, no crops to feed humans or domestic animals, no lumber to heat houses, no lumber to cook food, no lumber to build canoes to leave the island (obviously in a more primitive scenario). 

It's definitely a dooms-day way of thinking but incredibly fascinating and extremely necessary to be cognizant of, and if you haven't read it I would highly recommend it.

My worry after seeing all this and reading about other societies is that there isn't enough time. Yes, there are people like Jose fighting for conservation, but the governmental process is slow, and there is a lot of negativity surrounding the concept. I worry that the people will only realize the consequences of their actions once there are no more trees to cut down, once it is already too late.