What Do Competing (and occasionally cooperating) Groups Want?

1. What Do Competing (and occasionally cooperating) Groups Want? We have looked at 8 different groups who are competing for the resources in the Amazon Rainforest. I wanted to share some brief information about each. Your job is to turn information into knowledge, then knowledge into UNDERSTANDING. I hope this helps. HINT: This stuff is straight out of the book.

2. Native Amazonians • Native Amazonians have lived in the rainforest for 12,000 years. They hunt, fish and grow crops on small areas of land they clear. • Native Amazonians want the government to make them the legal owners of their homeland so they can use and sustain it in their traditional ways

3. Rubber Tappers • First came to the Amazon in the 1870’s to work on rubber tree plantations. Tappers remove sap from trees without harming them. • Tappers want to continue to make a small living without the practice of clearing away the forest. They want tot government to set up protected areas for them to continue their lifestyle in a sustainable way.

4. Loggers • Loggers began moving into the rainforest in the 1960s and began harvesting trees for a variety of uses like furniture. • They loggers want to continue in a legal way to harvest trees and create great wealth for the peoples of the Amazon. They want to continue in a $5B industry and help the economy and people of Brazil.

5. Settlers • In the 1960s The Brazilian government encouraged poor folks to move into the rainforest. They cleared the land and have used it for small farming • Settlers want to continue for poor folks to have the ability to live off the land and grow their own food, but the best land is already taken by larger businesses like ranchers. • They simply want to live on small plots of land

6. Cattle Ranchers • Cattle Ranchers began building businesses in the 1960s. They often use land already cleared by loggers and farmers. Cattle eat the grasses then move on to the next plot of land • Cattle Ranchers want the government to allow them to buy or HAVE larger and larger tracts of land to grow their business but argue they are making good use of the land. • They are in a $1B industry that feeds people all over the world

7. Environmentalists and Scientists • Started coming to the Rainforest in the 1970s to study the flora and fauna which is being endangered by over-all development • They want to protect the bio-diversity by slowing deforestation and development of agricultural businesses like ranching and farming. • They want to study the bio-diversity because they fear that one it is gone it will be gone forever. • They believe loss of the rainforest will have long lasting effects on the fragile global environment

8. Government • Has the difficult task of trying to balance the competing interests of the many groups, cultures and natural aspects of a large continent • The government has to write and enforce laws in many places as ranchers and farmers move into areas once inhabited only by native Amazonians • The government has to try to keep the peace between these groups but also trying to make sure that the entire country grows wealthier and better fed.