When you receive the Seal you begin to care for the earth since God has planted His own Garden in you and you have become like the earth. The Amazon forest has seen a reprieve in recent years but now faces threats again.
In the 1980s it seemed like the Amazon rain-forest would soon be gone, considering the rate of deforestation. Instead of absorbing carbon dioxide, the main ingredient in global warming, the burning of the forest was emitting it in great amounts.
It was predicted that by the year 2000 the Amazon rain-forest would be entirely gone. And it would have happened, too, had a new regime not replaced the old totalitarian one of the 1980s.
In the past few years the deforestation has slowed down but is slated to rise again as new developments are planned for the forest. The environment minister in Brazil is planning all the programs he can to fight the destruction.
But it is not easy. Elections are coming up in 2008 for the congress in Brazil and the world is showing a new-found appetite for commodities after prices dropped in recent years.
So some want to clear the rain forest to grow more soybeans and sugar, and some want to clear the land for mining. Brazil is a developing economy, and money is needed to prevent deforestation.
In the year 2000 up until now Brazil has passed tougher new laws that make landholders keep 80 percent of the forest standing. Now 40 percent of the forest is under protection, up from just around 10 percent in 1991.
That definitely looks like progress. Also enforcement efforts have been beefed up. But many critics claim not enough is being done. It is not easy to regulate millions of people in what is truly the frontier of the wilderness in a huge area.
Right now 90 percent of the logging done in the rain-forest is illegal. And if that is not bad enough, many of the people of Brazil believe conspiracy theories that nations like the United States are trying to take the forest away with its resources.
So conservation efforts are often resisted by the people, who do not "believe" in them. And some of the government believe in the conspiracy theories. Brazilian scientists have been jailed for studying the flora and fauna, accused of "stealing" their secrets.
High-ranking military officers talk about using guerilla tactics to fight the American "invasion." So there is considerable resistance from within Brazil to the efforts to conserve the rain-forest and its resources.
Recently the logging has increased again and the fires have started again. Some of the fires have been allowed to burn the canopy too, which usually does not happen because of how much moisture is in it.
Investment in the Amazon rain-forest over the next 10 years is projected to equal all the investment for the whole region for the past 500 years, at the tidy sum of $50 billion.
When you receive the Seal you begin to receive responsibility for the earth. It is God's Creation and it reveals His glory. You start to understand that you should not destroy the earth any more than you should destroy yourself.
Because when you receive are sealed you become a little earth, a complete ecosystem. It happens when God plants a little garden in you and you begin to bear fruit.
You will have the image of the fertile earth upon you when you are sealed. Never again will you want to destroy that garden or any of the earth either when you receive the Seal.
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