Abstract:
Where the soil is fertile and the climate
good, almost all tropical forest has been lost.
However, fertile soil and good climate are
not intrinsic traits. Those descriptors mean
that a plant or animal of use to humans can
be profitably grown there. The earth's tropical
forests were once about 40% rain forest
and 60% dry fbrest. Today, the dry forest is
essentially obliterated by agriculture and anthropogenic
fires, while we still anguish
over the evercincreasing loss of rain forest.
Where dry forest once stood is where tropical
humanity grows cotton, corn, rice, peanuts,
cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, cows,
and horses in high-yield lowland fields and
pastures. Whep genetic engineering gives us
crop plants and animals that thrive in the
various tropical rain forest habitats, it is
"goodbye, rain forest." The power to finally
obliterate the wildlands that have always
been an integral part of our intellectual and
economic lives has finally appeared and is
undergoing intense development.
