William Pruett
Equinox Staff
The beautiful Amazon Rainforest has been going up in flames for nearly a month now, causing people to finally panic, and start to ask themselves what could be done to help stop this catastrophe. Due to the massive scale of this disaster, damaging one of the world’s most cherished and diverse ecosystems, many people believe that there is absolutely nothing that they can do to help and try to combat these fires from where they are. Although this may be a negative way of looking at the situation, it is understandable that people are feeling so hopeless because they may be far away from the Amazon Rainforest and might not feel like they necessarily have the authority or power to make a change.
This way of looking at the tragedy of the Amazon is easy. Many bystanders are sitting by with that view, hoping that at some point, the fires will be put out and the rainforest will be saved. Many people do not realize that there are countless, small yet effective ways to help combat these fires or help contain them so they do not spread further, and stop any more destruction. The first thing that you can do to help combat the burning of the rainforest is to donate to organizations that actually do have the power to make an impact and make a difference on a larger scale. This certainly does not have to be your entire life savings. Even if everyone donated a dollar, the Amazon could be better than it was before those dollars were donated. Some organizations that you can donate to include the Rainforest Action Network, the Rainforest Trust and the Amazon Watch. These are only a handful of countless organizations that you could donate a small amount of money to in order to help save or maintain the rainforest. Each of these strive for something different in making a change. Some of the organizations buy acres of land in the Amazon, others help by simply defending indigenious rights and by addressing issues of climate change.
Donating anything to any of these organizations is probably the most effective way to have your voice be heard and help to directly stop the burning of the Amazon Rainforest before it is too late. Although this may be a good way to help, there are still many other small ways to support the Amazon. One of these ways that is more obvious, yet effective, is to just simply reduce the amount of wood and paper that you use daily. It is an extremely easy way to help save our planet’s basic resources that are needed by all humans to use. There is also a search engine that is called Ecosia.org, that plants a tree for every 45 searches conducted on the website. This will help to replace the thousands of trees being killed in the Amazon right now. All of these suggestions are things you could do now to potentially help save the rainforest. The idea that college students and people are helpless about this situation could not be more untrue, and hopefully that is clear after seeing the many options I have provided for you to help make a change.
William Pruett can be contacted at wpruett@kscequinox.com
