Water as the Pandora's Box of Ecological Debacle from South and Central America
The hydrological cycle unleashes a Pandora's Box of greenhouse gas emissions from South and Central America The Amazonia, the Andean Glaciers, the Gran Chaco in Argentina and Paraguay
Nubia Barrera Silva
Since the origins of the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, water has played an essential role in the biological activity of the planet. Through it, mineral salts are diluted and organic substances are maintained in cells, which in turn enable vital reactions from the simplest to the most complex and specialised forms of life.
The water cycle has been and will be an essentialcomponent in agriculture, conservation and theexchange of native seeds between farmers.Consequently, it is directly involved in theproduction of basic foodstuffs in each culture. Furthermore, it makes possible the sedentarisation or human permanence in territories favourable to economic and market activities. Such sedentarisation is in response to the solution of historical needs and satisfactions of peoples and countries with asymmetrical models of development and well-being.
Despite the technological development since the Industrial Age, people are hardly aware of how the laws governing the movement of nature, independent of human will and consciousness, work. Perhaps because of this ignorance, in less than two centuries of capitalist hegemony—more than any other species or creature—,humans have managed to alter and fracture the metabolism of the planet in the name of civilisation, technology, economic growth and the well-being of the countries of the global North
South and Central America (SACA) is the second most disaster-prone region in the world. Since 2000, 152 million Iberian Americans and Caribbeans have been affected by 1205 disasters, including floods, hurricanes and storms, earthquakes, droughts, landslides, fires, extreme temperatures and volcanic events..
Finally, in the SACA countries, climate collapse is on the rise, with each environmental and ecological tragedy bringing sporadic humanitarian aid from international NGOs, FAO or other UN organisations. However, this aid is limited to the count of natural disasters at record highs due to the intensity and frequency of fires, droughts, floods, earthquakes, storms, thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions. There is no mention of the causes, even though they respond to nature's reactions to the fractures and damage inflicted both above and below ground in the name of the green economy and the welfare of the global North.
Natural disasters have different causes: fires, deforestation and subsequent land conversion of tropical rainforests,wastelands with a common purpose: the accelerated expansion of oil palm and cereal monocultures for animal and human consumption over the exploitation of nature's finite resources either tropical rainforests in successive generations by ruptures and diversions of surface and underground currents; the because they have always been on Earth.retreat of glaciers, etc. All of the above are underlying irreversible alterations of the hydrological cycle with a destructive impact on the human populations of the affected territories
From this perspective, some ethnic-peasant organisations work with agronomic research centres and universities to adapt traditional crops, restore the hydrological cycle and recover forms of storage by using ancestral techniques adapted to the new climate conditions.
In the tragedy of the commons, resistance and peasant struggles are being waged daily, and the motto is Resistance.
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