Deforestation
Deforestation refers to the deliberate removal of trees from an area which has historically been forest, allowing use of that land for purposes other than to grow trees. That may be for growing specific crops, grazing animals, extracting minerals or urban development. Logging operations, which provide timber for the world’s wood and paper products, also cut down vast areas of forest each year, many of these, often acting illegally, construct roads to allow them access to more remote forest areas. Scientists tell us that approximately 42 million trees are cut down each day, which amounts to a staggering 15 billion trees each year.
Forests presently cover around a third of the world’s surface, but that is diminishing at an alarming rate. Since 1990, the world has lost 420 million hectares of forest according to the United Nations, which is the equivalent of about a billion acres. Much of that has been in Africa and South America, with just under 20% of the Amazonian rainforest having been destroyed in the past 50 years. These losses have been allowed to increase to record levels due to the policies of a sympathetic outgoing Brazilian presidential regime. On his election to president in the recent Brazilian elections, incoming president Lula placed putting an end to deforestation central to his priorities. During his first term in office from 2003 until 2010, he successfully clamped down on deforestation. Since then, the Amazon rainforest has become a net emitter of carbon dioxide, rather than an absorber of global carbon emissions, due to the rate of deforestation carried out by loggers and farmers.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, forests are cut down to make way for the production of palm oil, which is an edible vegetable oil that comes from the fruit of oil palm trees. Oil palm trees are native to Africa but were brought to South-East Asia just over 100 years ago. Now, Indonesia and Malaysia make up over 85% of global palm oil production. Palm oil can be found in products ranging from pizzas, cakes, chocolate, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and cosmetics. It is often used in animal feed and in certain instances as a biofuel. All of this makes Palm Oil a very lucrative crop for the growers and would explain why the product is one of the main motivators for deforestation in the main production areas. Sadly the race to produce palm oil and the attendant replacement of the natural habitat of the area, is having a detrimental effect on the indigenous animal population. Already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino as well as many species of birds are having their natural habitats destroyed in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Deforestation affects a great many things in the natural cycle of the areas affected by the practice. Removing trees from an area can affect the canopy of the forest which in turn alters the amount of sunlight which reaches the forest floor and causes greater swings in temperature from hot during the day to cooler at night. This has a detrimental effect on wild life and plants. It also has an adverse effect on the people who live in the forests as they rely on the cycle of nature for food and water and to allow them to make a living. Unfortunately carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the earth’s ability to protect itself from the damaging rays of the sun, so the more carbon dioxide the forests release, the more damage will occur to the more sparse forest umbrella.
As the world population grows, there is an increasing demand for meat to feed that population and therefore more land is required for the grazing of cattle. Around 80,000 square miles of forest is lost every year to fuel the soaring demand for beef, around 65,000 square miles in the Amazonian forests alone. This not only deprives us of much needed forest but means a big increase in the carbon dioxide and methane emissions from the cattle, which add to the greenhouse gasses contributing to global warming. Developed countries such as the USA and China are among the biggest consumers of meat and are therefore among the biggest offenders when it comes to deforestation.
Not all deforestation is a deliberate act by humans working to release acreage for other uses. As global warming is fuelled by ever increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, rises in temperatures and resulting heatwaves are resulting in huge forest fires across the globe. Some of these fires may be due to the action of humans and are deliberately started, spreading wildly out of control but others are as a result of the forest floor becoming too dry and overheating to the extent that the slightest spark will cause ignition. The result of either can ingite a massive forest fire burning wildly out of control, killing animals, birds, vegetation and destroying homes as well as releasing plumes of thick, dark smoke which will be released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming.
But why is any of this relevant to our everyday life? How does cutting down trees in the Amazonian rainforest or the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia affect life in the rest of the world? It matters because forests act like sponges, they soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and store it in very much the same way as oceans store carbon dioxide. As the trees grow they absorb carbon dioxide through their leaves. They convert this into carbohydrates which enables them to grow. So long as that tree lives, and trees live for decades or centuries if left to grow, it will retain the converted carbon dioxide. The more trees there are in the forest, the more carbon dioxide that forest will store and conversely the less will be released into the atmosphere as a harmful greenhouse gas.
The Amazonian rain forests now release nearly 20% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it has absorbed and this is down to one factor, deforestation. Many of the trees are being felled because the land is wanted by others wanting to farm cattle, providing beef for human consumption, grow palm oil trees to meet the needs of consumers across the world or soya to produce feed for animals and surprisingly, poultry. If we cut down on our consumption of meat, both beef and poultry and our use of palm oil, there would be no need to continue to decimate our forests in this way and we would all be helping to reduce the emission of both carbon dioxide and methane into our atmosphere.