Tag Archives: Deforestation

Why Deforestation Happens (And Why It’s Hard To Stop)

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NPR spent 2 weeks in the Amazon to find out. Take 10 mins to look at our photos and learn about why it’s so hard for us to stop deforestation — and what could happen if we don’t.  From: apps.npr.org

GR:  This slide show, composed of beautiful photos and brief comments, drills right through to the problems that continue to destroy Brazilian rain forest.  Small land owners continue to burn and ignore the fines that they have no money to pay anyway.  Elected congressional representatives run illegal logging enterprises.  The people of Brazil live in the world’s eighth largest economy built and maintained through the destruction of the rain forest.  Brazil’s large commitments to eliminate deforestation and cut greenhouse gasses are admirable, but they are unlikely to be approved by the Brazilian Congress.  So the Earth’s lungs shrink and the temperature rises.

Congo Basin under deforestation threat

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The Congo Basin in Africa, the world’s second-largest tropical forest, is facing a growing threat of deforestation carried out to clear the way for palm oil plantations.  From: en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com

GR:  How do we stop this?  Even if deforestation were recognized as a major driver of climate change, a large portion of the forest will be gone before national emission goals could save it.

The World Runs on Palm Oil, and That’s Fueling Climate Change

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The worst climate crisis of the year is happening right now in Indonesia due to slash-and-burn deforestation that sends up as much carbon dioxide as the U.S. does. It’s all for the sake of palm oil.

Each day in Indonesia, forest fires release as much carbon dioxide as the entire United States. The fires have been burning since July, thanks to a combination of slash-and-burn land clearing, flammable peat soil, and El Nino. And the worst part is, although your and my consumption habits are largely to blame, there’s almost nothing we can do about it.

Palm oil companies are largely to blame for this crisis. The larger companies usually don’t set the fires, but (not unlike the chocolate industry) they often buy palm oil from smaller landholders, who do. This makes it very hard to assign blame (there are over 200,000 small landholders in Indonesia) and hold the larger firms accountable, and it means the direct culprits are often impoverished small farmers trying to make ends meet.  From: www.thedailybeast.com.

GR:  The market for palm oil is huge and it’s growing. The only way that deforestation will stop is for demand to decline. The major distributors might volunteer to buy and sell less and we might volunteer to use less. However, the most effective means to cut demand is for us to begin reducing our population and our need for food and fiber taken from the land.

It’s hard to have faith in voluntary programs. Cargill and the other major commodities distributors would have to accept zero growth, and we consumers would have to be educated and given alternatives. Our traditional growth and development models do not support either action.

Deforestation: Give credit where credit is due – GreenBiz

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With Indonesia burning, are corporations failing in their “no deforestation” pledges?  From: www.greenbiz.com

GR:  This story is long and empty.  Deforestation is required for Cargill and other major commodities corporations to keep growing.  There is no indication that any of them have committed at all to zero-growth, the policy that is necessary if Earth ecosystems are to withstand the human onslaught.

Kids in Mexico block a development that would pave over a mangrove forest

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mangrove-plant“When it comes to fighting environmental battles, low expectations are kind of the name of the game. So when a group of warm-hearted kids tries to stop a massive development project in the name of environmental protection, they ought to be met with immediate and soul-crushing failure, right?

“But, as we’ve seen recently in Washington, the tide may be turning! As Quartz reports, a group of 113 youngsters in Mexico garnered a big win for their local community — and, you know, the air and water around them. They petitioned a judge to halt the pending destruction of 170 acres of mangrove forest in Cancún to build a mixed-use resort development, arguing that they have a constitutional right to a healthy environment. The judge apparently agreed that fancy new homes, shops, and a boardwalk didn’t quite fit that definition.

“Mexico’s tourism development agency put this project in the works more than two decades ago, and if it doesn’t go forward, investors stand to lose something like $900 million, Quartz reports. But, as one four-year-old explained to Quartz, “If we cut everything down then we’re going to die. … Trees help us breathe.” That’s a compelling point — and makes it pretty hard to give a shit about those investors, $900 million or no.

“Here’s Quartz with more on the unfolding drama:

Sourced through Scoop.it from: grist.org

 

Paris Climate Pact Could Leave Forests Vulnerable

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“Efforts to foster forests and slow deforestation, which is one of the leading causes of global warming, are largely being glossed over by most nations as they prepare for a historic round of climate negotiations.”  From: www.climatecentral.org

GR:  Deforestation, a direct response to our growing population and its desire for meat and forest products, is a large part of the developing world’s economic-growth scenario.  The United Nations “sustainable development” nonsense is continuing to support such growth and block our defense of the Earth and its ecosystems.

Who’s Responsible for Palm Oil Deforestation—Small Farmers or Big Companies? – The Equation

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Last year, an important paper on the subject was published in Conservation Letters by Janice Lee and colleagues that looked at just this question. Using data from Sumatra covering the period 2000-2010, they found that smallholders were responsible for just 11% of the deforestation, even though their farms covered about 40% of the land in oil palm. Large private enterprises, on the other hand, caused 88% of the deforestation. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the figures were almost identical: 9% and 90%. So it’s overwhelmingly the big companies that are destroying forest to create oil palm plantations and causing dangerous climate change.  From: blog.ucsusa.org

GR:  Having grown up on a farm, and currently owing two farms, I doubt the “little guys” are all that conservation minded; they just lack the resources to really get out there and clear that land like large companies.  This is pretty much the same everywhere.  Corporate farming, just like many other corporate enterprises, takes place on huge scales as it focuses on profits first and conservation second. Thus, small farming is preferable, not because small farmers are conservationists, but because small farmers just can’t tear up that much.

As demand for African timber soars, birds pay the ultimate price

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Tropical forests are home to more of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity than any other habitat, but are increasingly threatened by the impact of human activities. Illegal logging, in particular, poses a severe and increasing threat to tropical forests worldwide. But, until now, its impact on tropical wildlife has not been quantified.

A new study co-authored by scientists at Drexel University, published in the most recent issue of Biological Conservation, reveals the devastating impact of illegal logging on bird communities in the understory layer of Ghana’s Upper Guinea rain forests, one of the world’s 25 “biodiversity hotspots” where the most biologically rich ecosystems are most threatened.

Researchers found that the level of legal and illegal logging increased more than 600 percent between 1995 and 2010 — six times greater than the maximum sustainable rate. They also discovered that the abundance of forest understory bird species declined more than 50 percent during the same period. Species richness, or the number of different understory bird species represented, also showed declining trends. The bird communities showed no evidence of post-logging recovery.

“The numbers don’t lie and they don’t have a political agenda. These numbers are shocking,” said . . . .   More at:  www.sciencedaily.com

GR:  Logging has to stop, but how do we do it?  We need massive social changes right now if our wildlife are to survive.

OECD warns Brazil on environment, economy risks

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Brazil is destroying an area of rainforest the size of Israel every four years despite major conservation progress, the OECD economic grouping said Wednesday. From: phys.org

GR:  Did anyone actually believe that deforestation had stopped?  The dangers are real, but so are the developers.  Ending forest destruction requires political will that is lacking in Brazil and many other countries as well.