Questões por Ano Escolar e Matéria

(UECE/2004)

THE TREE MASSACRE

_{by Alex Shoumatoff}

The paper industry is destroying11 one of America’s last great stands of native forest²⁵ to bring you fresh shopping12 bags and toilet paper.

If there were an international tribunal that prosecuted9 crimes against the planet, like the one in The Hague that deals²³ with crimes against humanity, what is happening²² on the Cumberland Plateau in eastern Tennessee would undoubtedly be indictable.

The crime — one of many clandestine ecocides American corporations are committing¹ around the world — has taken² place²⁸ over three decades. About 200,000 acres on this tableland have already been clear-cut³⁰ by the paper industry, and the cutting¹³ continues³. Where once grew¹⁰ some of the most biologically rich hardwood forest in North America’s Temperate Zone (which extends⁴ from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Canada), there are now row after row of fast-growing loblolly pine trees genetically engineered to yield the most pulp in the shortest time. But the paper industry’s insatiable appetite²⁶ for timber has met⁵ with unexpected competition from an equally voracious insect. In the last four years, an estimated 50 to 70 percent of the pines planted⁶ on the plateau have been devoured³¹ by the southern pine beetle. The entire South has been ravaged³² by the worst outbreak in its history of this native predator of pine trees, caused by the tremendous increase in the amount of pine available for it to eat on the industry plantations that have replaced²⁰ the native forest. Unable to salvage its dead timber, the paper industry has been losing¹⁷hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet it seems⁷ still committed to destroying¹⁶ what remains²⁴ of the extraordinarily lush forest on the Cumberland Plateau, which, along with eastern Tennessee’s Great Valley and the Cumberland Mountains, has the highest concentration of endangered species in North America. The loss of biodiversity is tragic but also absurd economically; it doesn’t even make good business sense.

Not many people are aware of what is taking¹⁴place³³. Nearly 90 percent of the Cumberland Plateau is in private hands and exempt from all but a few government regulations¹⁸. The federal and state agencies that are supposed to be regulating the paper, timber, and mining¹⁵ industries are populated with³⁴ these companies’ former executives and have come²⁹ to view these industries as clients whose permits and projects should be facilitated³⁵ rather than scrutinized. But a quarter of the world’s paper²⁷ and ⁶⁰ percent of America’s wood products are being¹⁹ produced³⁶ in the South, and the will to address the abuses of the paper industry, which contributes⁸ millions of dollars to the campaign coffers of politicians around the country, just isn’t there — certainly not in Tennessee.

There’s another reason for the lack of public awareness: Much of the devastation is hidden from view by thin “beauty strips” of native forest left along the plateau’s highways. The only way to get the full picture is to go up in a small plane and see it from the air.

VOCABULÁRIO

loblolly pine – espécie de pinheiro
beetle – besouro, inseto
timber – madeira
to ravage – devastar

Assinale a opção cujos verbos estão no simple present: