Documentary on the Amazon

Often, when I am planning my lessons, I listen to American TV shows through a website called Hulu. I just listened to/watched a really good documentary on the tribes of the Amazon. Although the beginning was the typical history of all the explorers that tried to find the lost cities, the last 10 minutes were the best. The devastating effects from the rapid deforestation in the Amazon are too great to even really be counted. A football field is lot every 10 seconds to unsustainable agricultural fields. Not only does this have dire consequences for the surrounding biodiveristy, but it also threatens to erase remote Amazon tribes from existence. When fields that cannot possibly be sustained due to such low soil quality replace the forests, farmers are forced to use fertilizers and chemicals. These chemicals then seep into the rivers where they change the balance of that delicate ecosystem and poison the fish. Less fish means less food for these tribes that have learned to coexist with nature for thousands of years. This is one of those things where you wish you could stop it, but unless all the loggers, large agricultural producers, and governments felt the same way, you are pretty much helpless. Click here if you want to watch the documentary.

This a picture from our honeymoon to the Peruvian Amazon. You can't possibly capture the beauty of the Amazon in pictures.