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TechnoratiRain Forests Fall at 'Alarming' Rate
ABO EBAM, Nigeria -- In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.
The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists - and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.
Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.
Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.
"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.
The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation - at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen - sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.
"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."
The December U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests.
The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.
"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.
Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months - equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.
Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here - almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.
Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.
The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.
In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.
Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.
"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.
"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."
The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.
Working with communities like Abo Ebam, near Nigeria's border with Cameroon, the Cross Rivers government seeks to help would-be farmers learn other trades, such as beekeeping or raising fist-sized land snails, a regional delicacy.
The state also has imposed a new licensing system. Anyone who wants to cut down one of the forest's massive, valuable mahogany trees or other hardwoods must obtain a license and negotiate which tree to fell with the nearby community, which shares in the income. The logs can't be taken away whole, but must be cut into planks in the forest, by people like David Anfor.
He's a 35-year-old father of one who earns the equivalent of 75 U.S. cents per board he cuts with a whizzing chain saw. "The forest is our natural resource. We're trying to conserve," he said. "But I'm also working for my daily eating."
A community benefiting from such small-scale forestry is likely to keep out those engaged in illegal, uncontrolled logging. But enforcement is difficult in a state with about 3,500 square miles of pristine rain forest - and few forest rangers.
On one recent day deep in the forest, where the luxuriant green canopy allows only rare shards of sunlight to reach the floor, the trilling of a hornbill bird and the distant chain saw were the only sounds heard. As forestry officials rushed to investigate, the saw operator fled deeper into the forest, sign of an illegal operation.
Environmentalists say such a conservation approach may work for rural, agrarian people in Nigeria, which lost an estimated 15 million acres between 1990 and 2005, or about one-third of its entire forest area, and has one of the world's highest deforestation rates - more than 3 percent per year.
But lessons learned in one place aren't necessarily applicable elsewhere, they say. A global strategy is needed, mobilizing all rain-forest governments.
That's the goal of the post-Bali talks, looking for ways to integrate forest preservation into the world's emerging "carbon trading" system. A government earning carbon credits for "avoided deforestation" could then sell them to a European power plant, for example, to meet its emission-reduction quota.
"These forests are the greatest global public utility," Britain's conservationist Prince Charles said in the lead-up to Bali. "As a matter of urgency we have to find ways to make them more valuable alive than dead."
Observed the World Wildlife Fund's Duncan Pollard, "Suddenly you have the whole world looking at deforestation."
But in many ways rain forests are still a world of unknowns, a place with more scientific questions than answers.
How much carbon dioxide are forests absorbing? How much carbon is stored there? How might the death of the Amazon forest affect the climate in, say, the American Midwest? Hundreds of researchers are putting in thousands of hours of work to try to answer such questions before it is too late.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press
24 Comments so far
Show AllThe world is hung up on the new-fangled products from wal-mart and fine new furniture from IKEA, originating in the rain forests. The consumerism we are spoon fed by our media is seen as status quo. Burger King grazed their cattle there once. How long does it take for the old growth to grow? Bush has helped destroy the San Bernardino NF by leaving the bark beetle alone, and not dealing with it in the beginning of his regime. He wants to take the Alaskan Waters for oil and natural gas exploration for his final blow to the environment, and more. He claims to want to reduce global warming now, but what about Kyoto Protocol. Learning about nature can be done in the inner city. The love of nature can be nourished by small outings to the country. There is hope. Population education is something we can advocate, as long as it is not the anihilation of certain people, species that will be completed as a result...Go hug a tree and feel it's life force...
Humans are not perfect and never will be.
Humans are naturally tempted by:
Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride.
Each and every one of us is guilty. There is no one to blame but ourselves.
We are all responsible for how we live with one another and on this planet.
If we can control our carnal urges and obsessions about sex and help slow down the population explosion....
If we can control our urge to over-indulge and over-consume and stop all the wasting...
If we can get rid of all the useless junk in our lives and actually be happy with less...
If we can stop being apathetic, watching T.V., wasting our lives, and actually do something useful for a change....
If we can stop our feelings of anger and hatred and start loving each other....
If we can just stop wishing we had what the other person has and start being satisfied with who we are and what we do have....
If we can stop being so narcissistic and self-absorbed and start thinking of others and listening to what they have to say....
This world would be a better place.
Capitalism has always been a global hierarchical division of labor. Successful states have usually used some form of mercantilism or command economy to climb up this international pyramid.
Thus it doesn't matter whether a government imposes a command or mixed economy. The hierarchy keeps its pyramidal shape no matter which nations go up or go down.
Wars usually become widespread when a powerful state goes down this hierarchy and/or when a new state is rapidly gaining power. They fight to keep their position or break up the old state structure to make room for the newly powerful state.
All of the above corporate and state competition drives ecological destruction, genetic manipulation and the growing inequality between man and man and humans and nature.
With greater inequality and top-down controlcomes increasing destruction of nature, human infrastructure, and people themselves.
Homo sapiens sapiens have not existed anywhere as long as our cousins the neanderthals. And eventually we might not.
Thus, with the emergence of capitalism, we might have actually introduced our species' exit strategy.
We can't save the environment yet until we start caring about people. Everthing goes hand in hand. Until then, humans will continue to destroy everything, including it's own species. Intelligence is human beings downfall...
VOXCLAMANTIS
nope, not heard of vhemt. but will look it up. looks like a tough call though...........
We need fewer people on the planet!
Until we start respecting cultures that truly try to live with nature; how can we?
Naw! Greed and power run together; I think we are just going to have to let this run it's course.
NO ONE OWNS THE EARTH!
But as it is, it's owned by the first come/first served, and we can "buy it from them" (in bits and pieces). It's like you stealing the kit and selling the individual pieces.
rtdrury has an interesting idea. Move to the woods. We could start with a grand experiment: move the population of Chicago to the Nigerian rain forest. Plenty of trees to piss behind and spray with gang graffiti, lots of fresh nuts to eat, no need for a natural history museum. Quick copy joints, parrots, sports bars, pythons, drive thru banks, high rise office plazas, gorilla habitat... it all sort of fits doesn't it?
I have thought long and hard about this. I do not hate the human race, but I often wish we were gone. I highly recommend a well researched book I just finished by Alan Weisman called The World Without Us, which describes our impact on this planet in heartbreaking detail. It's not an angry or a negative book, just sort of devastating. Briefly referenced in Weisman's book is an organization called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (http://www.VHEMT.org) which addresses a question I often ask myself: Why don't we just graciously disappear? It is much more positive than the Hemlock Society, though obviously it is not a hugely popular idea. Just a compellingly obvious solution that is motivated by hope rather than despair. Anybody familiar with it?
by the way, if you forgo a pound of beef you save some 5,000 gallons of water and 75 bushels of grains. Less meat, more vegatable protein is far more efficient and easier on the environment. If you go pound for pound, lettuce actually has more protein than meat. So there are many sources of proteinl; and as long as you get the essential amino acids within 48 hours (adults; children need it within 8 hours) you're fine. Lots of disinformation from the meat and dairy industries. See www.notmilk.com for the draw-backs of dairy.
vespertine - my understanding is that the phytic acid debate concerning soy and nuts (seeds and grains in general) is debatable, as wheat apparently has quite a bit also. However the unhealthy aspect with soy is that the 'isolated soy protein' is extracted with petro-chemicals ('Silk is Soy' won't cop to how they do it - the dairy industry supports the process, so... ahem). My solution is to eat either tempeh (fermented soy), miso (not as much protein), seitan (a good substitute), Quorn (has some whey - dairy protein) or the "Turtle Island" / 'Torfurky brand or similar, which uses whole soy beans (not isolated soy protein). www.earthsave.org is a good resource for nutrition infomation.
Americans can begin the repair the catastrophic destruction of the "American Way" by promoting forest civilizations worldwide. With all of the many huge benefits of forests, people should live in them, build roads and villages and towns in them, with firebreaks, but leave them 90% intact.
Forests produce far more food, fuel and materials than agriculture systems, with virtually no human inputs except harvest labor. Forests preserve the soil, provide temperature and humidity regulation to the local climate, and provide critical global climate regulation. Forests provide habitat for much greater biodiversity than other ecosystems.
Do the least to gain the most - live in the forest - presere it - benefit from it.
"It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."
The alternative is education so people know what locally-adapted edible and otherwise useful species can be mixed into the forest. There are huge bodies of knowledge accumulated in western university research programs just waiting to be applied to the development of forest civilizations. The reason it is not being applied is the capitaist influence/pressure to do the high energy intensive farming methods, and to drive the people into cities like cattle to work in factories. This is kaka.
In forest civilizations, food, shelter, tools, clothes and everyting else is made from the local materials. There is a small amount of trade, to bring in some materials and so forth, but most activity is closed loop local, and relies on trees.
4thefuture, rem acu tetigisti. No matter how much money the corrupt politicians and big corporation boys have, unchecked global warming will wipe out them all out, including their own children. I can see why they might not give a damn about us, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, the proletariat, but their own kids?
Whether people want to believe it or not, we have to respect mother nature, because she has no respect for us. None whatsoever.
Populstion control with none of the "sbstinace only" cr*p, cheap if not free condoms and abortion along with environmental awareness programs are the only ways to save the worlds forests, especcially in developing countries.
The tax on any more then 3 kids and logging is great as well.
But of course which government is going to spend that much money on a few trees.
SAVE THE RAINFOREST BE A VEGITARIAN WHO DOES NOT USE WOOD !!!!
Global Hemp Cultivation in marginal soils, with no input besides human sowing, will sequester carbon,provide ethanol.bio-deisel,food and fiber for the world economy.Forest land and Rain forests can then be left to grow ,while sustainably harvesting pharmacuticals ,fruit nut rubber and other crops without disrupting the ecosysems.Algae ,plankton waste resourse digestion can help clean our seweage and provide another source of bio-diesel and ethanol.Building materials can be made from hemp fiber and bast,recycled plastics and c+d demolition landfill materials too.There is no reason why the industrial empire can't stop the destruction of the rain-forrests.It is just profitable to log them! peace
How will soylent green taste squatting in the shade of a rock while drinking your own urine in a sandstorm?
Population control needs to be considered in this matter also. And that includes leadership from the US.Our population has doubled in about 50 years-if that repeats in the next 50 years there will be 600 million of us! I consider that unacceptable for my grandkids future.
Cultural pressure can be exerted along with changes in the tax code-more than 2 children is unpatriotic.
We are still as moronic as the buffalo killers. Kill em all.
With the world burning around them, the Republicans nominate a couple of moronic buffoons for president. Republicans and so-called conservatives think they can buy their way out. They only believe in money.
Nature doesn't believe in money, as money is an artificial fraud. To give an example of this, Satyajit Das, author of TRADERS, GUNS, AND MONEY: KNOWNS AND UNKNOWNS IN THE DAZZLING WORLD OF DERIVATIVES, estimates that the international bankers, high financiers, and hedge-fund con-artists like Mitt Romney, have ALREADY indebted the WORLD to the tune of FIVE HUNDRED TRILLION DOLLARS! in derivatives upon derivatives upon derivatives and interest upon interest upon interest, in such a tangled Gordian knot of Enrom accounting that no one can follow the trail, as McCain freely admits. It was purposely designed that way. (Well, time to put this knot to the sword.)
Yes, that's right, these Fraudsters, Flat-Worlders, and NeoCons have taken the American people and the world's people in a SCAM for ONE-HALF QUADRILLION DOLLARS! And yet that kind of person is who the psycopathic Republican party nominates for president! And these same folks have also given America the Two Trillion Dollar Unnecessary Illegal War and the Trillion Dollar-a-Year Defense Budget, And yet they hem and haw about how they are being fiscally prudent by not spending A DIME to SAVE THE PLANET! What a bunch of dangerous jerks.
The two numbskulls for the Republicans are just like that stubborn peabrained jackass Bush (way to go, Yale!). When the science or the evidence disagrees with their psychotic beliefs, they dismiss it. Because to admit the science or evidence disagrees, in this case and many others, would completely annihilate their value system. So, out you go, Mr. Scientist. Out you go Mr. Investigator. Out you go Mr. Journalist. Out you go Mr. Competent Agency Director. And in with a true believer who doesn't need to look at the hard evidence, who can read the truth from the party line. And the Republican party line is all about the money. What's in it for them?
On the one hand, the rich don't care because they feel above nature. They won't think more than a day ahead. On the other, the numbers of poor overwhelm their environment and create a Haiti or a Madagascar. They can't think more than a day ahead. So the rich destroy for profit, and the poor destroy for survival. Same result: environmental catastrophe.
Bad news for Earth, being eaten away at both ends of the social scale. Unless we can adapt progressive socialism to mitigate capitalism and individualism, life on Earth is doomed. Because if it's all for one and none for all, no progress will be made. And nature and the gun will settle things darkly.
my understanding is that soy is very unhealthy, and not at all as presented to us. i see that on soyonlineservice.
also palm oil is being used more and more, including in vitamin supplements, at the expense of the forests, so i am calling the companies who really sound like they were unaware of this and would consider an alternative. call on them.
The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming.
**soybeans going towards European livestock.
People take Nature for granted--on one hand some may say we can control everything--they still believe that if things get messed up Nature will fix it.
Of course it will, but humans wont register in the equation.
Human supremacy blinds them.
They think that at the end of the day the laws of physics will ensure that human interests are taken into consideration. Idiotic.
The planet's survival depends on us, humans .
Adopt a vegetarian life-style &
Men : keep your trousers zipped up
Women : keep your knees together
I saw an hour long program a few weeks ago on the Science channel about the Madagascar forests. __Oh my God, it will be another Haiti. It almost is already with litle left except rocks and dry dirt.
One of our neighbors just bought two nice Stikley style sofa chairs at JC Penny. Made in China of course, the reddish hued wood is beautiful. I could not have them, __ I'd be ashamed.
The 1/20/08 60 Minutes expose on global warming oly reveals the tip of the iceburg, but to their crecit is informative & well timed.
The US rejections of Kyoto, and now the Bali Conference, underscore the dangerous control that special interests exercise over this administration's policies. Their distortions of scientific data typifies their unconscionable war on science. Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic warming cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns--but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns--by contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial causes that will only intensify unless mitigated.
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting ice sheets absorb rather than reflect heat, as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane, and the list goes on. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changing ocean chemistry, & currents, are only some potential consequences.
Often overlooked is the fact that, the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were no issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our rejection of Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our participation in international efforts, China & India could no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their non-participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution can only worsen if we allow this administration, guided special interests, to continue their war against our planet.
The planet will survive, it is we who won't. We can only find a solution when we look at the problem in a clear-headed way. Maybe we could start by no longer conflating the continuation of our species, and many others, with the planet itself. Such thinking is counter-productive.