Johnson, Allen. Families of the Forest : The Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. Ewing, NJ: University of California, 2003. Web.
In this novel the author writes about what life for a Peruvian tribe living in the Amazon. He focuses on the Matsigenka Indian tribe, a tribe that has lived in the Amazon for generations, living off the lands natural resources. The novel goes into detail describing the different ways the natives get their food and resources. The natives fish, hunt and grow their own food to survive. Growing vegetables is their biggest source of food because the animals they have hunted in the past have become scarce. The destruction of the rainforest they lived is probably what led to the decline in their food resources. With this novel I plan to demonstrate how the people indigenous to the Amazon need certain resources to survive and how those who are taking away their resources are affecting their lives.
“Managing Infectious Diseases.” The Princeton Guide to Ecology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Credo Reference. Web. 10 October 2012.
In the section of “Managing Infectious Diseases” entitled “Harming Habitats can Harm Human Health: Tropical Rainforest Destruction and the Rise of Malaria” it focuses mainly on how the cutting down of trees in the rainforest can lead to an increase in mosquito population. The author gives such facts as the disease malaria kills over 20 million worldwide each year and there is a significant increase in mosquito population in less forested areas. The people native to the Peru have conducted studies showing that there is a mosquito biting rate 300 times more in places where the forests have been cleared. Whereas in areas still heavily forested had a significantly less amount of biting mosquitoes. Removing trees from the Amazon rainforest creates a bigger mosquito problem for the indigenous people, some of whom probably do not have the money or resources to treat malaria. Malaria is a parasitic disease that kills millions of people each year so by clearing out more forested areas it is creating more mosquitoes which are in turn affecting the health of the South Americans. I will use this reference to demonstrate how clearing out parts of the Amazon rainforest indirectly effects the health of the people who live there.
“Which industries and activities contribute to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest?.” The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide. Abington: Helicon, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 10 October 2012.
In this essay the author evaluates the different companies that contribute to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Timber, being one of the main resources that is harvested from the rainforest, has been steadily cut down leaving the people who rely on the timber for their own lives with more limited resources. Also the people who live within the rainforest lose their home when their part of the forest is cleared out. Another product the industry has been taking from the forest is special plants used for health and medical reasons. Taking these plants might be beneficial for the people who are going to be using them but they do not take into consideration that the people living in the forest rely on these plants as main source of medicine. I will be using this source as a way to relate the industries use of these products and how the indigenous people rely on some of these products for their own survival.
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