Part of the magic of the Kaieteur National Park – that is apart from the waterfall itself – is a tiny amphibian, the golden rocket frog (Anomalog-lossus beebei) which is not only indigenous to the area, but lives only in one plant, the giant terrestrial tank bromeliad (Brocchinia mircrantha). If that bromeliad ceased to exist then so would the frog and aside from the Kaieteur National Park losing a little of its uniqueness, whatever the golden rocket frog eats would multiply.
Guyana’s national flower, the Giant Water Lily or Victoria Regia (Victoria amazonica) grows in ponds, lakes and nowadays in trenches – it needs still water. A fun fact is that this flower starts its life as white and it attracts beetles that get trapped inside when the petals close at sunrise. When it opens again at sunset, the flower is no longer white, but pink. Figuring out whether this transformation is because of the beetle or the flower’s natural process would take the expertise of a botanist. But one does not have to be a scientist to grasp that if it suddenly disappeared then so would the beetle, just like the bromeliad and the frog. And while these might seem to some to be trivial things, they would contribute to a tilt in the ecological system, something the earth can do without, especially given all that is currently occurring.
It has been estimated that one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, owing to the unsustainable actions of humans.
Russia, Brazil and Canada have the largest forests in the world and of the three, the only one not currently being greatly depleted is Canada’s. Russia’s forests are at high risk of fires, mostly caused by human activity. For this year alone, more than 9,000 hectares have been burned. Brazil, which hosts the largest part of the Amazon, has for years been losing forest to ranching and mining and lately as far as the latter is concerned much of it is being done illegally. According to a Reuters report published in December last year, it is estimated that there are more than 450 illegal mines in the Amazon in Brazil. There have also been reports of what has been described as massacres of the indigenous people, who have been occupying the forests for centuries, by the illegal miners.
Meanwhile, according to a study undertaken by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in England and Stockholm University in Sweden, plant extinction is occurring up to 500 times faster than what would be expected naturally. All life on earth depends on plants and trees for breath and balance. Every time we are tempted to cut down trees, because we might feel they stand in the way of “progress” like mining for gold and other precious metals, building a new highway or a housing complex, we should stop to think, if there were no plants or trees, how would we eat? How would we breathe?
For an example of the utter devastation of the loss of plant life, we need look no further than right in our own backyard here in the Caribbean. Haiti’s deforestation began a long time ago, around the 1700s when land was cleared for the large-scale planting of coffee, tobacco, sugarcane and indigo. These were among the get-rich schemes of the Europeans ‘conquering’ the West Indies in those days. One hundred years later, the Haitian government was cutting trees to export timber in order to pay off the so-called “debt” it owed to France. Another hundred years found most of the population cutting down even more trees to clear the way for subsistence farming and to burn in charcoal pits. Today, Haiti has lost an estimated 90 percent of its forests, possibly more and is susceptible to deadly flooding and landslides among a host of other problems.
Some might be wont to say that the problems outlined above are Haiti’s and nothing to do with the rest of us. But if Haiti were no longer able to sustain human life because of its ecological imbalance, then 11 million people become the world’s problem.
Trees and plants are indeed vital to life. If there were no more gold or oil to be exploited human beings would still be able to live and breathe. They would not be able to do so if they were no more trees. Yet a model forest like our own 3,710 square kilometres (1,430 sq mi) Iwokrama must constantly seek donations to continue its preservation and sustainable management, such are the vicissitudes of life.
