Neotropical Eco Foundation

Not everything fluffy and soft is adorable!

Two days ago I had a close up and personal encounter with one of the species native to this area of the Atlantic forest. Actually, they are everywhere here, you see them and don't give it much thought. You hear stories about other people that have met up with them, and while believing the stories, you wonder if maybe they are not a bit exaggerated. Well, now I have my doubts about the exaggeration - the stories are probably true.

The animal that I am referring to is a hairy caterpillar. I don't know which species of the beast I stumbled upon. From what I have read it was apparently not one of the more potent ones, but almost 48 hours later I am still feeling the effects of my encounter!

From my research I discovered that one particular genus of this family (Lepidopdera - the Butterflys and Moths), the Lonomia has a toxin that is about as deadly as rattlesnake venom to humans! Consider that the dosage from a caterpillar is about a thousandth that of a rattlesnake, and it makes you think. This particular toxin is being studied for possible use as an anti-coagulant.

This brings me to my point for today: WE are destroying the forested areas of the planet at an unprecedented rate today, adding insult to injury to these great stores of genetic material. With all the problems that humanity is facing today how can we continue to destroy that which may hold the cure for numerous diseases that afflict us? While I would prefer not to meet any more hairy caterpillars, we should do all we can to help preserve their habitat, which will undoubtedly provide benefits to mankind well beyond the value of the timber that is being taken today.

 

Brazil, already in the midst of the soybean cycle, is regressing back to the colonial sugarcane cycle, showing the behavior of a compulsion to be the country of the future as described by Stefan Zweig in his 1942 book. Brazil is bringing back one of its original and damaging colonial extractive cycles, the sugarcane plantation, which devastated the most important forest on the continent, taking away species that will never be seen again, plants that may well not be used again. Looking at the economic aspect, a few "families" are again to be benefited with the profits of exports, forgetting the large majority of the population which was kept marginalized, exploited and under employed.

The legacy of sugarcane is the extermination of 95% of the Atlantic Forest. This forest was the biggest concentration of plant and animal species on the planet, much more important than the Amazon Forest. The Atlantic forest contains many different biomes (ecosystems) in the same forest - compositions like the Caatinga (White forest), the coastal forest, the mangroves, the Restinga (vegetation in the sandy coastal plain), and the highland biomes like the Mantiqueira mountains and the Serra do Mar.

The extermination of the Atlantic forest continues to the present time. The green desert takes its place, forming dry rivers, desertification, salinization and erosion, altering the climate and destroying the habitat of many avian, mammal and plant species in its damaging march forward.

Back in August 2006 when we published our first article on the question of the use of Ethanol as an alternative to petroleum derivatives for motor fuel, we hoped that we would provoke a wider discussion on the subject. Well, it appears to be heating up - and maybe we helped just a little. Of course, the larger question, that of Climate Change, is also on everyone's lips, and maybe we helped spark that too!

We have been gratified to see that some of the major organs of world opinion have embraced our arguments, like the crowding out effect that the use of current feed crops, such as corn, will have on the price of food. This topic was analyzed by the New York Times in it's Op-Ed piece of February 6, 2007.

Two other pieces published in the New York Times (1, 2) relating to the mystery of the disappearing honey bees in North America are pointing at possible climatic change or pesticide misuse as causative factors. Either of these possible causes are alarming. The impact of a major reduction in the number of bees pollinating crops in North America is dire indeed.

The whole bio-fuel question really heated up with the early March visit of President Bush to Brazil. The agreement signed at that time will virtually guarantee that there will be vastly increased usage of ethanol and other bio-derivatives. What can we expect from this development?

On March 21, 2007 The Guardian published an article touching on another aspect that we highlighted - that of the veiled slavery in the cane fields of Brazil. Since this topic is of importance to us, our corespondent sent a letter to the Guardian, which we quote below:

We are not what are probably considered to be ‘experienced’ birders. We have only been at it since 2004, but we have noticed recently that many species that were frequent visitors to our home and favorite birding sites can no longer be seen at these spots.

This southern hemisphere summer, drawing to a close now, has had unusual weather. The month of January was the wettest in recent history with over 440mm of rain, where the historical average is 267mm. As of the 10th of March, the average daily highs have been 2.2oC over normal and the average daily lows nearly 1oC above normal. There was a scant 1mm of rain when, on average, about 53 would be normal. Taken out of context these data might not be significant, but when you consider the recent convergence of scientific opinion on climate change they seem to indicate something.