This above is a contrast to the insinuations made in the public sector about Latin America being dispensable in the US interest and world politics.
Historical Facts about Latin America
According to Marston (345), contrary to what many in the United States believe, vis--vis the media, the economic, political and ecological integration of Latin America can be traced back to 500 years. This is as far as the Spanish and Portugueses invasion into the area is concerned. It is the capturing and subduing of the indigenous empires such as the Aztecs and the Incan in a very inhuman manner which paved way for the antithetical stance Latin American countries adopt towards the US and its Allies (Skidmore and Smith, 2005, 75).
As opposed to how the Americans and US media houses know it, it must be noted that these indigenous societies were already full fledged with their own political, religious and economic culture. As a matter of fact, the area remained full of silver and gold so that the Spanish crown was overtly concerned with exploiting these values. To achieve these feats, the Spanish crown charged his administrators to these ends, while using the conversion of the masses into the Roman Catholicism to thwart or undermine the prospects of any resistance. With the accentuation of time, the Spanish crown had already possessed the land in Latin America and turned the inhabitants thereof into slaves in their own land (Marston, 357).
Interesting facts on Latin America
Because of selective journalism in the US, at the mention of Latin America, Hugo Chaves belligerence and bellicose anti-US political stances come to the average American mind. However, the truth is that Latin America houses the worlds biggest forest and rivers, thereby being a host to many animal and plant species. Wipe away Latin America, and a deathblow one has delivered to biology and its sub-disciplines.
To Morley (2000, 40), It is most interesting to note that the worlds largest forest, the Amazon, is located in Latin America, particularly, Brazil. The forest is reputed to have the widest range of biodiversity since it is a wet tropical forest. Fact has it that wet tropic forests sustain most specie-rich biome. This makes the forest have the most species, compared to forests in Africa and Asia. This biodiversity also comes through the fact that the Amazonian forests cover the largest tract of land as a rainforest in the Americas. Out of all the species known to man, a tenth must come from the Amazon. This is as far as both the flora and the fauna are concerned.
Specifically, the Amazon shelters approximately tens of thousands of plants, 2.5 million species of insects, about 2,000 animals and birds. At the moment, at least 3,000 fish, 40,000 plant species, 1,294 birds, 428 amphibians, 427 mammals and 378 reptiles have undergone scientific classification and taxonomy in this same forest. In about the same interesting wavelength, Amazon is reputed to house one in five of the worlds birds. As scientists would have it, out of the 128,843 of the worlds invertebrate species 96,660 species come from Brazil alone, due to the Amazon forest.
The uniqueness the Amazon forest bequeaths Latin America unrelentingly continues when takes the plant species into consideration. Scientists estimate that within one square kilometers, there are over 150,000 higher plants species and 75,000 different trees. Generally, one square kilometer in the Amazon rainforest may contain 90,790 tones of living plants. Up to the present, it is estimated that 438,000 plant species of both social and economic interest have already been registered within the region. As this is not enough, many more species remain to be catalogued.
Of a particular instance, the Amazons green leafy plant areas are known to vary by about 25 owing to the seasonal changes. It is well known that the leaves therein expand during dry seasons with the sunlight reaching its optimal temperature. The leaves then abscise during the cloudy wet seasons. As was deliberated upon in the Kyoto Protocol, in this sense, these fluctuations help nature or the environment strike the delicate balance of carbon critical for photosynthesis and respiration.
Again, it is through selective journalism that one would conjure in his or her mind concerning the Amazon, total serenity and absence of alarm. On the contrary, the Amazons beauty and wonder is complemented by its nature which can be seen to be characterized by oxymoron. This is because, the Amazon is known as home of the hazards predatory creatures such as anaconda, jaguar and the black caiman. In the tiny streams trickling their way in the Amazon forests are the electric eels and the piranhas. The electric eels have the potency to produce electric shock with the ability to either stun or kill. The piranhas on the other hand have the ability to bite and seriously injure human beings.
Among the dangers are several species with poison darts, frogs which secrete the toxic lipophilic alkaloid, and other numerous disease-causing vectors and parasites. In the Amazon, are vampire bats which have the ability to spread the rabies virus. To the effect of the above, malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever remain highly contractible in the Amazon area.
According to Williams (2006, 84), in the same Latin America, is the Amazon River which is also the worlds largest river. So big is the Amazon that when it rains parts of its banks exceed the 120 miles width. It is because of this that the Amazon is referred to as The River Sea. The Amazon River contains more than 3,000 recognized fish species. This number keeps growing as scientists keep researching. Alongside the Orinoco, the river remains the chief habitat of the boto the Amazon River dolphin, Inia geoffrensis.
According to Skidmore and Smith (2005, 75), this boto specie is the largest river dolphin, having the capacity to grow up to 8.5 ft 2.6 meters. Besides the boto, is the tucuxi Sotalia fluviatilis a dolphin specie found in the Amazon basin river and in the South America coastal waters. In the Amazon River is the Amazonian Manatee, a conspicuous mammal which resides in the waters of the Amazonian basin. The piranha in the Amazon River, due to its gregarious tendency congregates in large schools that are formidable enough to attack livestock or even humans at times (Douglas and Sven, 2002, 84).
In particular, it is the Red-bellied piranha Pygocentrus nattereri which has the penchant for attacking humans. 4,000 kilometers of the Amazon River is also a home to the Carcharhinus leucas the bull shark, specifically in Peru and Iquitos. The Arapaima Arapaima Gigas as a South American tropical freshwater fish also lives in the Amazon. This fish can measure up to 4.5 meters and 200 kilograms. Other species present in the Amazon include the Arowana, the Candiru a parasitic freshwater catfish of the Trichomycteridae family, the electric eel and the anaconda.
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