Paulo P. MARTINS Jr., Márcia Couto de MELO

Fundação CETEC, Av. José Cândido da Silveira 2000, Horto,

Belo Horizonte, 30310-260, MG, Brasil

E-mail: pmartin@cetec.br

THE GEO-ETHICAL ISSUE IN ORGANISING THE OCCUPATION OF A TROPICAL RAIN FOREST TERRITORY

SUMMARY

Erosion as a natural process is unavoidable. Anthropogenically induced erosion and soils’ loss are nevertheless a main issue for humanity in the next few years. More and more pre-existing agricultural areas become useless for agricultural activities in most continents. Tropical rain forests are complex ecosystems with different structures relating to many factors like:

[1] the geological nature of the substratum,

[2] average runoff¨,

[3] the ratio infiltration / runoff,

[4] natural hazards,

[5] underground recharge zones of different types of underground water reservoirs,

[6] human occupation,

[7] agricultural processes,

[8] climatic conditions,

[9] human intervention for engineering purposes,

[10] inadequate settlements,

[11] the conservancy x exploitation activities within forests, and finally

[12] the maintenance of original untouched forests.

Though numerous these factors are not isolated. Each factor opens up a network of different sub factors all of them very important in various different cases. To build a Geo-ethics system is to build a proper logic of natural interrelationship of these factors as previous criteria for a logic of geologic-environmental management of the territory. In this article the authors deal with the controversy of economical interests versus natural conditions in tropical areas as seen from a geo-ethical point of view.