Why Corporate Media Won’t Tell You What’s Being Done to the Amazon

Dylan Charles, Editor
Waking Times

Some 90% of the world’s media is controlled by a mere six corporations. The business model of this industry is dependent on advertising revenue, which means that the content they produce must serve well the bottom lines of advertisers, or more significantly, content cannot be of detriment to the profits of corporate advertisers.

This is the reason why so much of the most important news in our times goes un-noticed and under-reported on, most notably environmental news, for if our attention was sufficiently directed to these issues then we would certainly change our attitudes, priorities and behaviors, potentially harming the income streams of the biggest environmental destroyers on the planet, and the biggest advertisers.

Of particular note is the destruction being done to the Amazon, the ‘lungs of the earth’ as it is known by those who understand the value of life and the need to protect the world’s ecosystems from corporate greed. While indigenous people continue to rally around in support of Amazonian conservation, consumerism in ‘first-world’ parts of the world continues to demand resources that are increasingly being harvested from the most bio-diverse regions of the planet.

After failed conservation efforts, the Ecuadorian government has given up and as of September 2016 the state owned oil company Petroamazonas began drilling for oil in the most pristine and biodiverse region of the entire Amazon, the Yasuní. As reported by Amazon Watch:

Commercial oil production has begun at Tiputini C, the first of a slated 200-plus wells inside the ITT fields (Ishpingo, Tambococha,Tiputini) underneath Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park. The remote UNESCO Biosphere Reserve that borders Peru has some of the highest species of birds, mammals, amphibians, insects, and trees ever recorded. In just one hectare it has more tree species than there are in all of the United States and Canada combined, an area that is one billion times that size. Scientists believe that Yasuní’s unique concentration of biodiversity and hotspot of endemic species are due to a climate that allowed species to survive the Ice Age.

The park is also home to the Tagaeri-Taromenane, two indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. Drilling and planned expansion into the park is a virtual death sentence for them, surrounding the nomadic peoples with oil extraction on all sides.

Today, Ecuador is expected to announce production of the first of an initial 3,000 barrels per day, a number that is expected grow to some 300,000 by 2022.

Corporate Advertisers Directing Public Consciousness

Sadly, from the perspective of economy, it makes sense that news like this goes untouched by corporate media because many of the top global advertisers are from industries that sell us products derived from materials extracted or produced in the rainforest.

According to Business Insider, three of the top ten U.S. advertisers are automobile manufacturers (General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Fiat-Chrysler), representing an industry completely dominated by big oil. Furthermore, two of the companies on this list, including the number one global advertiser Proctor & Gamble, sell consumer products which are heavily reliant on petroleum by-products as well as on palm oil, one of the chief products harvested in the in the world’s rainforests.

When you look at top global advertisers beyond the U.S. economy, the list expands to include many more consumer product conglomerates, such as Unilever, L’Oréal, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Toyota, Volkswagen, MARS and McDonald’s.

In short, these are the corporations that are paying for the vast majority of the world’s media content and it would be a sincere conflict of their interests to tell the truth about how vital the Amazon is and how rapidly it is being destroyed.

Final Thoughts

The Amazon is perhaps the world’s greatest natural resource in terms of extractable materials, land, and it’s extraordinary biological and cultural diversity. Yet, as the wheels of the matrix keep grinding forth, the Amazon is being increasingly turned under for profit, while most people hardly notice.

Read more articles by Dylan Charles.

About the Author

Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at [email protected].

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This article (Why Corporate Media Won’t Tell You What’s Being Done to the Amazon) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Dylan Charles and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.

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