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Another incident that elaborates the far-reaching effects of innocuous-looking local stresses on this fragile ecosystem occurred in South America about twenty years back. Near the western coast, a cold water-current was then flowing. It was called the Humboldt Current. This current brought to the surface nutritious elements from the deep sea. This was the reason for the abundance of fishes off the shores of Peru, and it gave rise to a sizeable growth of fish-based industry. Besides this, large flocks of sea birds had been thriving for thousands of years on the abundance of fish near the coast. This turned the uninhabited offshore islands into rich sources of guano.
Due to environmental degradation caused by human activity far north of there (in some other country), a warm stream suddenly and unexpectedly appeared. This flow pushed the Humboldt Current far south. The new warmer current lacked the nutrients required by the fish population. Before any measures could be taken, the large population of fish became almost extinct. This resulted in death of thousands of birds due to depletion of their natural source of food, the fish. The onshore fisheries closed down and the stockpile of guano dwindled. All this had an extremely disturbing effect on the human population.
The chain of events did not stop there. The harvesting of fish on the shores of Peru was not used only as food for humans. The larger part of the hundreds of thousands of tons of fish was being exported to Brazil for its cattle-feed industry. When all of a sudden this large source of raw material vanished, an alternative was found in the Soya bean. Overnight Soya bean farming became a lucrative business in Brazil, and a systematic and organized deforestation
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AHIMSA: THE SCIENCE OF PEACE Jain Education International
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