The World Bank, funded by British taxpayers, has pledged an undisclosed amount of money to fund programs that avoid deforestation in the Amazon. However, it has recently been reported that the World Bank is also funding programs that are promoting the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which is the second leading cause of carbon emissions worldwide, and destroys up to 300,000 hectares of forest per single slaughterhouse expansion. Brazil’s beef industry produced 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the past ten years, which is the equivalent of two years of carbon dioxide emissions from the United States.
Essentially, the World Bank is investing much more into causes that destroy the Amazon rainforests than help to preserve them and prevent such acts from happening in the future. One in ten of the world’s mammals lives in the Amazon, as well as 15% of land-based species. The Amazon is home to more than 50% of the world’s fresh water, and the forests act to help keep the greenhouse effect to a minimum.
Sources:
Howden, Daniel. “World Bank Pledges to Save Trees, Then Helps Cut Down Amazon.”
Alternet. 17 January 2008. Web. 1 October 2009.
<http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/74031>.
Student Researchers: Abbey Wilson & Jillian Harbin
Faculty Instructor: Kevin Howley, Associate Professor of Media Studies, DePauw University
Evaluator: Tim Cope, Department of Geosciences, DePauw University