GEOG 3515

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GEOG 3515

• The Geography of South America

Class 7 Environmental Challenges
Music Map
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A Snapshot

• While true that there are many environmental
  issues facing South America, the region is not
  yet as degraded as it might be.
• The region has relatively low population density
  which has minimized environmental degradation
  over large areas that have, for a variety of
  geographical reasons, remained uncolonized.
• South America has the opportunity to avoid
  mistakes that other regions have made,
  principally by preserving its forests and
  biodiversity.
• A key challenge is to resist the temptation to
  engage in damaging practices to feed the growing
  demand by urban centers, especially those in the
  industrialized OECD nations, for raw materials
  and cheap agricultural produce.
• Similarly, another challenge is how to deal with
  an increasingly urbanizing population without
  creating massive air and water pollution and in
  an orderly, planned fashion, providing adequate
  basic services for all.

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Some Key Environmental Issues

• Grassification the continued conversion of
  forested areas (in all natural regions, not just
  the rainforest) to grassland.
• Driving forces are slash and burn agriculture at
  the agricultural frontier (aided by road
  development), clear-cut timber harvesting
  (increasingly South America is the target of the
  Asian timber multinationals), and the expansion
  of extensive ranching.
• Opportunities growing indigenous environmental
  movements, debt-for-nature swaps, carbon
  sequestration credit programs, demand for
  sustainably harvested woods in target nations,
  appreciation of potential revenues from
  ecotourism.

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Deforestation and grassification

• Rondonia Province in Brazil shows stark evidence
  of deforestation.
• Visible from space, highways coupled with
  inadequate land-use regulations have led to
  encroachment, deforestation and grassification.

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A Map of Environmental Issues
From Rowntree et al 2003
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Urban pollution

• Massive growth of South American cities,
  especially unplanned settlements, without the
  corresponding development of wastewater and solid
  waste management facilities creates tremendous
  pollution loadings on freshwater and marine
  aquatic systems.
• Urban congestion and increasing vehicle
  ownership, and poorly regulated heavy industry
  leads to urban air pollution and the formation of
  photochemical smog.
• Opportunity - cities like Curitiba, Brazil, have
  decoupled growth from environmental
  deterioration, providing leadership in the field
  of sustainable development for other millionaire
  cities, investment in renewable (not without its
  problems) hydropower has kept down fossil fuel
  use, global environmental standards (e.g. ISO
  9,000/14,000) can be applied.

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Agricultural Homogenization

• With the rise of the multinational and
  globalization, South Americas traditional grains
  and fruits are giving way to standardized
  hybrids.
• Modern crops require high inputs of
  mechanization, chemicals and fertilizers, and the
  use of the latter has been poorly controlled.
• Increasing pressure is being placed on South
  Americas producers to use genetically modified
  varietals placing them between their
  North-American based seed providers and their
  European consumers.
• With an emphasis on specialty crops for export,
  South American countries often have to import
  staple crops in sufficient quantities to meet
  their basic needs, a confusing contradiction that
  carries an environmental implication.

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Loss of Indigenous Cultures

• With many unexploited, isolated forest lands,
  South America is still home to a variety of
  indigenous cultural groups relatively untouched
  by the modern world.
• Increasing demand for oil and natural gas and for
  lucrative mineral deposits (esp. gold and
  diamonds) as well as lumbering encroaches upon
  traditional homelands, introducing modernity,
  disease and other destructive forces to
  traditional societies.
• Opportunity increased democratization and
  sensitivity to minority rights offers more
  political support of native peoples, pressure on
  multinationals to avoid impacting indigenous
  groups and preserve cultural heritage/human
  rights, especially law suits by activist groups.