This axiom, in my humble opinion, translates better the decline and disappearance of some nations that figured in antiquity than any explanation given by the modern philosophy for the fact; and forethought advises to profit by the practical lesson contained within it, preserving our natural resources in order not to sacrifice to a temporary greatness the best means of preserving life, which means are represented by the forest.
The trees are great regulators of many conditions of life, principally facilitating the atmospheric precipitation and their profit. The aqueous vapors penetrating the cool atmosphere of the forest at the contact of the foliage of the trees, condense resolving into rain or dew; and the water that falls on the soil, protected against evaporation by the shade, having its surface-flow impeded and its absorption facilitated by the roots, penetrates in greatest quantity into the land, guaranteeing the permanency and abundance of the source that it forms.
The rainfall without the protecting vegetation rapidly flows on the surface soil forming the run-off, which takes from the earth the fertilizing humus, excavating the mountain and producing the destructive overflow in the valley.
In the countries where ice and snow do not appear the regimen of the water courses in a great measure depends upon the vegetation that covers the head of the streams; and such an influence is as great as the porosity of the soil is small in the generative basin of the sources. If there is yet controversy which is progressively disappearing with more serious study about some forests’ influences, there is not, all over the earth, any one who can scientifically contest this truth that history and geography, the facts of the past and the observation of the present so clearly confirm. The Nile, which comes from the heart of Africa, born among the virgin forests where fire and men never have penetrated, keeps today, in an average, the same flow that it had when it fertilized Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs.
The effects of forests do not appear in confined zones. Their influence is not bounded by a certain region, and the calamity coming from their devastation passes over the individual property affecting the public welfare. This is an incontestible truth that science demonstrates and facts corroborate. Therefore there is no reason why protection of forest must be concerned to a certain extension, not affecting the private lands.
The individual right ought not to affect the high interests of the Union which ought to save its own future, guaranteeing by the preservation of the natural resources of the country, the general well-being of the present and future generations.
This rational theory, applied to the case of forests, each day gains assent in this country being already accepted in the higher tribunals in favor of the legislation protecting such resources, which legislation is earnestly advocated by President Roosevelt, accordingly it was adopted on March 10, 1903 by the supreme court of Maine, and on April 6th of the same year, the supreme court of the United States sustained it, confirming the opinion of the court of errors and appeals of New Jersey.
To the glory of us Brazilians this principle is the confirmation of a doctrine of which I spoke last here at Albuquerque, promulgated in 1892 by the eminent Brazilian, Dr. Francisco Saturnino Rodrigues de Brito, who wrote:
“The argument against such laws has no reason for being, because the owner of the land is only a steward of the soil that was entrusted to him by the past generations; he is the depository of lands as he is a depository of capital, and thus, as it has a social origin, territorial property must have a social application, in attending to collective interest; and these require the individual effort of each man to preserve and improve on the planet the necessary means of living, among which are the preservation and replantation of forests, that may keep the necessary moisture for regular rainfall and the normal distribution of water, detaining it among their roots and not permitting the destructive overflows that take from the soil the fertilizing humus. The argument has no reason for being, also, because the interest of the family itself requires providence against the prodigal member who steals from his own children the inheritance from the past, giving to this improvident and egotistical father only the income of it; and as it happens with the inheritance, legislative enactment must regulate the question of lands for the interest of the social community that has a great attainment from the Past, and comprehending the Present and the Future.”
The arguments of President Roosevelt are very similar to those of the illustrious Brazilian engineer and the same thing can be said in regard to the reasons presented by the Supreme Court of the United States as quoted by the American President: