Conservation

In this episode we'll learn:

• What problems face the environment
• How we can help
• Major conservationalists
• Pollution in America
• Amazon: Case Study

Cattle Farming

Probably one of the worst causes of rainforest degredation is that of cattle ranching/farming. The land is cleared so that grass can be grown to sustain the cows. The problem is that the soil in the rainforest is not very fertile. The nutrients are quickly stripped from the land and the number of cattle that one plot of land can sustain drops very quickly. Soon the land is not good for growing anything, its abandonded, and it is nearly impossible for the rainforest to regenerate. The result is a spread of pastures, further into the rainforest zones.

As we visited Mexico, we were able to see this happening all around us. The shot above was taken on the way to the los Tuxtlas biosphere reserve. This zone of the reserve is set aside for sustainable uses of the land. However, it's difficult to justify cattle as a sustainable resource when it only takes a few years for the land to degrade. Scattered all accross this zone we could see pastures with very few cattle on them, a sign that the land has decreased its productivity.