AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY.

EDITORIAL: NICOLAS KYNIGOS.

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISOR: CIVIL RIGHTS PARTY OF CANADA.

The Yanomamo of the Amazon, utilize slash and burn methods for agriculture to over come limitations and enable them to push deep into what were previously rain forest environments.  However, the Yanomamo are not rain forest dwellers, rather they are dwellers in cleared farm land that make forays into the rain forest, up to 90% of the typical Yanomamo diet comes from locally farmed plants.

Cultivated food and spices include, coffee, chocolate, banana, mango, papaya, macadamia, avocado and sugar cane, all originally come from tropical rain forest and are still mostly grown on plantations in regions that were formerly primary forest.

Mid-1980’s and 90’s, 40 million tons of bananas were consumed world wide each year, along with 13 million tons of mangos. Central American coffee exports were worth US $3 billion in 1970.  Tropical forests have supplied 250 cultivated kinds of fruits, compared to only 20 from temperate forests.

Tropical rain forests are called the world’s largest pharmacy because of the large amounts of medicine discovered in numerous rain forests around the globe that are derived from various rain forest plants.  Rain forests contain the basic ingredients of hormonal contraception methods, cocaine, stimulants, and tranquilizing drugs. Curare (paralysing drug) and Quinine  (a malaria cure) are also found in the rain forest.

Rain forests play an important and vital role in maintaining biological diversity, modulating precipitation, soil infiltration and preventing floods. The rain forest provides food, medicine and spiritual well being to all humans and living organisms. This valuable ecosystem must be respected, protected and regulated by responsible government.  Our ecosystem should be left pristine without human interference or massive modification. Protective measures should be taken seriously to save guard this planetary treasure.

Food and spices are imported from different nations and rooted from ancient civilizations. Food is the fuel for human accomplishment, ancient links between humans and plants began about ten thousand years ago which still continues on today.  The signs are not obvious between the harmonious link of man and plant life while shopping through the isles of a modern day grocery store. The question in mind is, did our potatoes come from Idaho or the ancient civilization of the Andes, did corn come from the American mid west or from ancient grass like plants from the Mexican high lands, did chilli peppers come from Texas or does their heritage lie from southern tropical rain forests.? Since that day Spanish explorers set foot in the Americas time has proven their lasting treasures were not the gold and silver guarded chests consumed by government and greed, rather new world plants became the enduring treasures we all consume today.

While many of these green golden treasures remain highly prized, tomatoes, peanuts, coco and many beans, three new plants have made enormous influences through out the world, corn and potatoes have helped feed the worlds massive population. While chilli peppers spice up some of the finest cuisines all over the world, these wild and weedy ancestors of these plants along with the fragile eco-systems that support them are now in severe danger of extinction. In this generation of bio-genetic manipulation we are trying desperately to find new ways of preserving these precious seeds of plant life, unlike our plundering and conquering ancestors.

These precious seeds we are trying to preserve now are irreplaceable if they all go extinct, wild species of chilli in the Guatemalan Highlands have already reached this bio-diverse tragedy, modern day agriculture has expanded in these forested areas driving these rare species towards extinction. Population growth and deforestation for farmland has changed this landscape for ever, the native vegetation can no longer exist under these ever changing conditions. Humans have displaced this natural wilderness into an agricultural landscape for sweet potato and corn caused by an increased demand for human consumption. The few pristine areas of wild forested areas remaining in the world are still under constant attack by slash and burn deforestation methods, government simply needs tougher regulation and severe fines implemented for these Neanderthal types of practices.

Humanity has to protect these precious plant treasures from urbanization, deforestation and over population which degrades and desertifies earth’s landscape, this man made environmental displacement will lead to thousands of plant species towards extinction. The greatest tragedy will be to loose this natural genetic resource that may be used for future agricultural production and medicinal usage. Money cannot buy back these rare plant species once they are gone, without this germ variability the future of the worlds food supply looks grim.

If we loose this genetic biodiversity on any crop or plant species this means we are limited to the varieties of fruit and vegetables available for consumption, this concern is real when one considers that approximately 20, 000 plants of edible or usable parts are available on earth, humans have only domesticated 100 and only 22 of these are major crops that feed the entire world. Since the dawn of agriculture humans have manipulated plants to alter the way they look, how much they produce and their resistance to insects and disease.

When the range of traits or seeding manipulation becomes increasingly narrow, genetically diverse varieties are replaced with varieties that are extremely similar, and when the environments that support the wild relatives of these crops are destroyed the process of putting affordable food on the table only threatens our lively hood and well being. My main concern is that we as a human race have lost our bio-genetic diversity that was  available to us for over the last 10,000 years. Simply by allowing mass deforestation, destruction of our natural habitats for urbanization, increased farmland and allowing this land rape to continue on a global scale we have seriously damaged our planet’s bio-diverse mechanism and stressed out our national bio-economic fabric to the limit. When will humanity ever learn to respect and protect nature that gives us all the breath of life ?