The Doyennes

Holly Rose is a UK-based writer, soil advocate and environmentalist sharing tales of regeneration and rewilding through her multimedia projects HollyRose.eco and GatherGrounded.eco. She believes that by amplifying education on regeneration, promoting provenance, and prioritizing on equality, we can restore our lands and communities with daily acts of regenerative reciprocity. We couldn't agree more, and am happy to feature this article of hers that so mind-blowingly compares natural and monetary wealth:.

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Here’s some irony indicative of human ignorance.

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The wooden roof of Notre Dame that went up in flames was built with beams from primal forests 800 years ago. Due to France’s own deforestation, there are no trees left in France big enough to replace the beams that burnt. In fact, only 4 per cent of Europe’s remaining woodland is old-growth forest and outside Russia and Northern Europe, there are no old-growth forests larger than 500 km2 . The largest forest on the continent of Europe is Białowieża Fores, which is 3,085 km2 and stretches across Belarus and Poland.

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Since Bolsonaro came into power in Brazil less than a year ago, 3,444 km2 of the Amazon Rainforest has been removed, MORE square kilometres THAN make up the entirety of the largest old-growth forest (Białowieża Fores) remaining in Europe.

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In just the month of July (before these current fires), Brazil set a new deforestation record in the Amazon Rainforest, removing 1,345 km2 of the world's lungs in a single month. Meaning we lost old-growth trees, plants and wildlife on land double the size of the largest old-growth forest existing in Southern Europe in 31 days. 

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WHY SHOULD WE SAVE THE AMAZON RAINFOREST?

The Amazon Basin is home to over 20 million Indigenous peoples, as well as 30 million species of plants and animals. That’s half of the Earth’s wildlife and at least two-thirds of its plant species which provide essential food and shelter for pollinators and wildlife, who in turn provide us with the majority of our food sources and medicines.

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Currently, there are 3,000 plants recognized by the U.S. National Cancer Institute to be active against cancer cells, and 70% of these come from the rainforest itself.

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The Amazon is also vital carbon sink, drawing carbon down from its overpopulation in the atmosphere - where it takes life/causes global heating - and pulling it into the soil where it gives life and prevents climate breakdown. Deforestation of any kind (leaving the soil uncovered and plant unrooted for any reason) accelerates climate breakdown.

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If the entire Amazon forest was lost, the carbon that would emit into the atmosphere would be equivalent of up to 140 years of all human-induced carbon emissions. Bringing on an apocalyptic reality beyond imagination.

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A group of Brazilian scientists has estimated that between 2021 and 2030, Bolsonaro's deforestation could release the equivalent of 13,12 gigatons of carbon. Which is is "two and three times the annual carbon impact of the entire American economy, with all of its aeroplanes and automobiles and coal plants".