Natural Hazards Signature Assignment
Environmental Degradation: Deforestation
"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools..." -- John Muir When you look at the statistics regarding deforestation, it paints a grim picture. according to the World Resources Institute, more than 80 percent of the Earth's natural forests have been destroyed. Currently, 13 million hectares of land are cleared annually, an area about the size of Greece. 1 At this rate, all moist tropical forest could be lost by 2050. Deforestation is defined as: The permanent destruction of indigenous forests and woodlands and is thereafter converted to non-forest use. 2 Almost 1/3 of the Earth's land is covered with forest, and this land plays an important role in sustaining life. It houses over 60% of the worlds biodiversity. The concern when it comes to deforestation, however, is not only concern over lost trees and forest species, (although that is a serious issue). The potential consequences of forest removal range from desertification and soil erosion to serious disturbances in the carbon cycle and water cycle. Forests act as important carbon stores because carbon (CO2) is absorbed from the atmosphere and used to make up the proteins and fibers that make up the tree. When the trees are gone and the forest cleared, that carbon is released as into the air as CO2, which causes a shift in the atmospheric carbon concentration. This phenomenon is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect. It is estimated that up to 1/3 of all CO2 releases are caused by deforestation. 3 Forest land also plays an important ecological role by stopping erosion, controlling streams, protecting watershed, regulating atmospheric conditions and preventing flooding and landslides.  |  Why is deforestation happening? The root causes of deforestation vary greatly, but they can be divided into two categories: Direct Causes and Natural Causes. 4 Natural Causes are occurrences brought on by Mother Nature. They are uncontrolled forces such as: forest fires, volcanic eruptions and typhoons. Forest fires are often ignited by lightning, another dangerous natural force. Strong winds are another natural force which often helps spread flames and intensify the consequences resulting from the fire. Forest fires destroy immeasurable amounts of valuable timber, as well as other living things. Fires are the most common Natural Cause, but hurricanes, floods, tsunamis and other natural hazards have also been known to clear large amounts of land. However, no matter how destructive a fire or flood may be, Natural Caused deforestation is only a small percentage of the total forest degradation that occurs each year. Direct Causes, or Human Causes, account for most deforestation in the world. Population growth is a major contributor to deforestation. Rapid growth has resulted in the conversion of forest areas to industrialized zones and farming land. The forests are cleared and homes and businesses built instead. There is destruction caused by the human need for wood and wood products: construction supplies, furniture, paper, and more... Increased population = increased demand for lumbar products. Increases in population also leads to an increase in food consumption. Thus land is being cleared to use for farming, and more often, for cattle raising. Rain-forests are being destroyed and converted to cattle pastures to supply the burgeoning demand for meat. In Central America half of the rain-forests have been slashed and burned for cattle farming, in order to comply with demands from abroad. There are also political reasons for deforestation: as a response to economic policy, and lack of government regulation. Poverty and unequal distribution of resources in developing countries are also major issues that have led to out-of-control logging. It is an exploitative scheme by powerful governments to safeguard its resources. Timber is often the only export these countries have to offer. Irresponsible governments have cost the world hundreds of thousands of acres of forest land. In the United States deforestation is an issue which has mainly garnered public attention only in the last century. Until then, forests were considered "seemingly endless", and the professional consensus was that tree-planting was a waste of money. We, as a generation, are now struggling to compensate for the miss-judgement of previous generations. |
Where is deforestation an issue?
Deforestation is a global concern. Just do one Google-search for the topic and you are given links to efforts in dozens of countries by dozens of organizations to fight this problem.
Columbia- The forest in this South American nation accounts for 49% of its total land mass and 10% of the worlds biodiversity, making it the 2nd most bio-diverse country in the world (in species per land unit.)
Cambodia- There was a flooding crisis in Cambodia in the late 1980's and early 1990's which is said to be triggered, or at least worsened, by the mass deforestation in that nation. The severe floods led to a food shortage, and eventually a moratorium on log exports.
Thailand- Adopted a ban on harvesting timber shortly after a devastating flood, similar to the one experienced by Cambodia.
Brazil- Deforestation is a particularly disturbing issue in Brazil, since the country contains the largest continuous expanse of tropical expanse of tropical forest remaining in the world. International demand for forestry product has led to extreme forest degradation in Brazil, but in a positive turn of events, the products that come from the rainforest (like nuts) have also increased in popularity, which could lead to more preservation of the rainforest in the future. Brazil's tropical tree cover is said to be inhabited by some 50 percent of all plant and animal species found on the globe! In a disturbing statistic it is estimated that as many as 27,000 species may be consigned to extinction each year. So the more forest that is saved, even if it is only for the nuts, the more species may be saved.
North America- Canada has started a mass-reforesting endeavor which gained a lot of speed in the early 1970's with the motto: "75 by 75", meaning 75 million seedlings planted by 1975, they came close to that goal with 62 million trees planted. 5 Mexico has used land and lumbar to try to make up some of their national debt. There is also a disturbing trend of clearing forests in order to plant drug crops. Currently all but 300,000 acres (or 2%) of the old-growth forest in Mexico is gone, and there is not much legislation that will prevent that from disappearing soon. The United States is the worlds leading producer and consumer of forest products and accounts for about 1/4 of the world's total. There are regulations set up in the states, but there is an epidemic of illegal logging in protected forests. The good news is that deforestation seems to have plateaued in the last 100 years, so there is some hope of improvement in the future.
What can be done now? There have been many unsuccessful approaches to combating the issue of deforestation; "Sustainable" logging, annexing of traditional lands for government forestry estates, and biodiversity reserves. These are all mediocre solutions at best because they fail to address underlying causes. |  |
Ending over-consumption and economic exploitation is going to be key in the success of any long term solution to the deforestation crisis. A necessary initial step to ending forest destruction is for each of the worlds over-developed countries to acknowledge the ways in which it contributes to forest degradation and stop them. With this principle in mind the Rainforest Memoranda have been or are being produced in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany and the United States. Deforestation is a symptom of the global economic system which enables the stronger nations to abuse the resources of the "weaker" poorer countries. 7
Any lasting solution requires an end to the current suicidal over-consumption and obsession with economic growth in the developed, Western world.
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Reflections:
"Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
we fell them down and turn them into paper,
that we may record our emptiness."
- Kahlil Gibran
There has been an image floating around the internet of 2 "Satellite" images of our earth, one is from 1976, and one from 2005. The two contrast sharply with vast green areas on the first, and barren brown covering the second. This image has sense been said to be a photo-shopped fake, but I can't help but wonder how fake it is... With disturbing statistics like "80% of forests have already been destroyed" and "27,000 species may be lost to extinction every year", the images can't be that far from the truth. I have always been a bit of an environmentalist at heart. When I was growing up I lived for a few years in a condominium complex in Portland, Oregon. The condos all formed a circle around a huge stretch of grass that served as a shared backyard. There were nearly 100 giant, majestic pine trees in this shared yard, and we children made the trees our playground. They were our pretend houses and stores, they were shields from pretend arrows or bullets, they were obstacles around which we rode our bikes, they were our friends. One day my sisters and I woke to find a crew outside cutting down every single one of our beloved trees. We sobbed as we watched the destruction. I still think about that yard, and I still miss my trees.
I learned, throughout the course of this project, that the issue of deforestation, however, is not just about cutting down trees. It is about destroying entire ecosystems and ravaging the natural order of our world. It is about over-consumption. It is about poverty and economic disparity. The solutions are not all going to be easy, as it is not a simple issue. We must plant trees, yes, but we must do more than that. We must stop being so selfish. We must think of future generations. We must be CREATIVE and come up with ways to reduce our consumption and ways to prevent the entire destruction of our cherished forests.
My birthday falls on Earth Day this year, I think maybe I will make my own small dent in this problem and plant a tree or two.
As the wise Dr. Seuss said as The Lorax: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not!"
