Monday, April 22, 2013

The Problem - What is deforestation?


Something to think about:


What are forests?
Forests are very productive natural ecosystems. Forests store more carbon than any other kind of ecosystem, which make them very important when absorbing carbon dioxide. Also, forests are important for the control of precipitation levels and to control the soil level of minerals, controlling the levels of erosion and controlling floods by stopping sedimentation processes (Lerner et al, 2003). Forests provide habitat for species of plants, animals and microorganisms, being those species required a forest to live. The global area of forest of all kinds was about 8.4 billion acres (3.4 billion ha) in 1990.  
Deforestation is the process of forests by the action of mankind, and converting forest to other kinds of ecosystem, such as agriculture or urbanized land. It happens for several reasons, such as exploration of wood, opening to agriculture areas or to creation of animals. Wood is one of the most important harvested products in the forests, being material for production of paper, lumber, plywood and other products (242). There are many methods and reasons that lead to deforestation, as we will further see. The goal in this research blog is to find out what is the connection between deforestation and the threats presented to human security. The model presented in this blog is a way to find out how deforestation affects and threats human security. The analysis will look at the factors that lead to deforestation, and the process in which deforestation threatens human security, and apply this model to different case studies to test the connections.

 Underlying Factors
 Primary factors             =>             Deforestation  =>         Threats to human security

For now, we will see how deforestation happens, and why we should worry about it. Deforestation is a global concern, as the consequences from deforestation in a specific place can be shared in various ways throughout the whole globe. Deforestation counts for 12 to 17% of all gas emissions (Schroeder, 2010), which contributes to global warming, that can lead to several consequences throughout the world, such as desertification, melting of glaciers, migration, agricultural issues, epidemics and environmental disasters.

Also, there are many drivers of deforestation, as you can see in “Causes”. The reasons leading to deforestation and underlying factors vary “widely across countries, regions and localities (Schroeder, 2010).”Also, the economical importance of the activities that lead to deforestation varies as well, in the local, regional and national level (319).

Did you know? 

  • If the global average in temperature rises in about 4 to 5 degrees Celsius, several species of fishes and other water animals will become extinct (William et al, 2010).
  • 90% of the around 1.2 billion people living under the poverty line depend on forest resources to live. (GCP, 2008).
  • According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), from the United Nations (2006), about 13 million hectares of tropical forests are deforested every year (an area of the size of Peru). 


Photo from http://blogs.uww.edu/introtolatinamerica/2011/10/03/deforestation-in-latin-america-3/ 

According to the Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2010 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Africa and South America have the largest loss of forest in the worldwide. Also, forests serve as natural carbon storage, storing 650 billion tons of carbon. However, due to deforestation, not only this carbon storage is going down by 0.5 GT every year from 2005 to 2010 due to decrease in global forest area, but also more carbon is being emitted into the atmosphere in the process of deforestation, such as fires (45).
 Another problem in deforestation is the fact that tropical rainforests are home to more than half of all species in the planet, and there is a big difference between primary forests (those that are untouched by humans) amount of animal and plants species from the number of species that live in reforested areas (86). It is also known that the main cause for deforestation is human activity, which means that the future of deforestation is, therefore, in our hands.
            In Europe and United States there are almost no native forests left (Schroeder, 2010). Also, the process of deforestation is occurring for thousands of years, but has been intensified as population grows and consumption levels rise. Deforestation should be a concern shared throughout the world, as its consequences can be fatal to human life on Earth, as we will further see. 
            There are many consequences to deforestation, and this consequences can be direct and indirect threats to human security, as many of them interfere with the ability of people be provided and help in the process of providing for their own basic needs. Some consequences can be more direct, such as threat to people's lives, which is the case of several indigenous population living on forests and depend directly on the forests for food and shelter. Deforestation can also be the underlying factor behind global warming and climate change, which in return will bring increase in temperatures, increase in number of extreme weather and many other consequences that the whole global population will be exposed to. The problem and its consequences need to be understood to cause awareness and a perception of urgency in this matter. 

             
Work Cited:
          Schroeder, Heike. "Agency In International Climate Negotiations: The Case Of Indigenous Peoples And Avoided Deforestation." International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law & Economics 10.4 (2010): 317-332. Environment Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
          Irwin, William, and Brian Williams. "An Ethical Defense Of Global-Warming Skepticism." Reason Papers 32.(2010): 7-28. Humanities International Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
          Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Global forest resources assessment 2010 : main report [Electronic resource]. - Rome : FAO, 2010. - xxxi, 340p. - FAO forestry paper; No. 163 .
          "Forests and Deforestation." World of Earth Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Vol. 1. Gale Cengage, 2003.18 Apr, 2013 < http://www.engrz.com/books/World%20of%20Earth%20Science%20Vol.%201(365s).pdf/>
          GLOBAL CANOPY PROGRAM. The Little REDD Book: A guide to Governmental and non-governmental proposals for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. 2008. Disponível em: www.the littleREDDbook.org

Historical process



We need to be careful when comparing rates of deforestation. To know exactly how much they really mean, we have to see in how these rates were affected by history in specific locations. For example, Europe has a much longer historical deforestation process than in Brazil, enough time to have sixteen Brazilian civilizations, which makes comparisons hard to judge due to the historical differences.  
The people that got into Europe found a very forested place. Practicing the cut and burn type of agriculture, the same technique that would later be used in many places around the world, they not only planted the agricultural way but they also opened ways to Holland and Ukraine. Little by little, agricultural land replaced the original forests, new roads opened and civilization started to form. Fearnside (2005) claims that deforestation enables the claims for land, and cutting for cattle pasture was a cheap and effective way to claim a land in the past (681).
The history of deforestation continues after the navigations and discovery of America, as the Europeans found a market in selling the resources such as wood and gold from the New World. This was combined with a “discovery” process, which included chopping down the trees to reach new paths to connect the discovered places, as well as the search for gold and precious metals, that were many times connected to legends such as the myth of El Dorado (Fox, 2011), the city of gold, which many explorers tried to find, and the effects continued, as Houghton (1994) mentions that “28% of the forest area in Latin America was lost between 1850 and 1985 (308)”, which was due mainly to an increase in agricultural rates. Houghton also mentions that the numbers of land usage have been exponentially increasing as decades went by.   


1946 Educational Film about logging and sawmill in America available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MDgxNLDR64
Logging and loading process in 2009. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwaRh1dsu5Q



          The first video above shows how logging was in 1946, when this video was made. The second video is the same process, but more than 60 years later. It is clear how logging became stronger as technology allowed not only one log to be loaded but dozens. The two videos compared show the illustration of progression in our way of consumption, as demand of wood products increased, due to an increase in population and increase in consumption, and thus the logging process had to be perfected to meet this increase of demand. 


As cities started to grow and cars came along, there was also a need to construction of infrastructure, such as roads, and an even greater increase in the amount of land needed for agriculture, as well as the need for bigger cities and construction of houses, hospital and other infrastructural needs of cities. According to Houghton (1994), the land usage rates are parallel with population growth, and this can be seen as population starts to grow and the problem of deforestation starts to grow as well (305).
            When you go through years of consequences with deforestation, you learn how to improve. As for now, Europe has more than 35% of its forests reforested according to the Environmental Indicators in the United Nations website, and this numbers are growing every year*.The number of reforested area increased more than 25% since 1950, and in the Nordic countries the rates in forest covering come together with increase in development. The increase in reforestation measures in Europe can be seen as a consequence of its history.
            The graph below shows the land usage in our world today, and shows how much of the lands are now used for agriculture, a number that tends to rise as population grows and more food needs to be provided, and more houses and infrastructure need to be built in order to accommodate all the people. The world map illustrates how much of the soil is being used for agriculture purposes. What is already a big number tends to increase as population grows, which will further worsen the deforestation rates as land will become needed in order to provide food for the estimate of 9 billion people by 2050. 




            Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Major Agricultural Systems, available at http://www.fao.org/nr/solaw/maps-and-graphs/en/

* Compared to previous years of data


Work Cited:

Houghton, R.A. "The Worldwide Extent Of Land-Use Change." Bioscience 44.5 (1994): 305-313. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.
FEARNSIDE, PHILIP M. "Deforestation In Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, And Consequences." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688. Environment Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
Arturo A. Fox - Latinoamérica: presente y pasado - Boston - Prentice Hall - 2011 - 4th Ed.
ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS: Forests" United Nations Statistics Division - Statistics compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/forestarea.htm.


Forest degradation


Forest Degradation:




Forest degradation started to bring concerns as the selective logging and fire damage that was not usually accounted in deforestation studies, since it doesn’t entirely destroys the area but rather partially or selective destroys it (Schardt et al, 2013). The practices also have emission of gases as a consequence, as it consists in forest disturbance such as gaps, logging roads and skid trails. The REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, aims to includes the idea of having the emissions of gases that come from deforestation and environmental degradation in the total rate of emissions (Schroeder 318). In the Global Canopy Program, the argument consists in saying that tropical forests are the responsible for stabilizing the climate on Earth through the threes, and the efforts to keep them up should be an responsibility of everyone in the world.

The difference between deforestation and forest degradation can be seen in the Food and Agriculture Organization, deforestation is “a decrease in the area covered by forest”, as degradation doesn’t necessarily involves this decrease, but rather a “quality decrease in its condition”, or interaction between components of the ecosystem, and are more locally described than globally, as it can differ a lot between places. It is not easy to find a general literature in forest degradation, and its consequences can be overlooked in the global scenario due to this fact, but we should pay attention on it since it can bring several consequences and threats to human security.  

The image below shows how forest degradation can be seen.
            A)   Moderate intensity, area is in regeneration after wood extraction.
            B)   High intensity, very high exposure of soil
            C)   Low intensity, roads of access shown.




Forest mapping and image available at www.obt.inpe.br/prodes

Consequences to forest degradation can go from increase in gases emissions to health related issues to the population in the cities. A study done in the epidemic of spotted fever in Brazil, the conclusion was that the fever was a result of forest degradation, and concluding that in places where the parasite has wild animals to feed from, but where the wild animals no longer exist due to forest degradation, the parasite becomes a host in house dogs, bringing the fever to humans, which can be a threat to human security in the area (Ogrzewalska et al, 2012).





Work Cited:

      FAO. Forest Degradation Definitions. Available online: http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/j9345e/ j9345e08.htm (accessed on 14 April 2013)
    Mathias Schardt, et al. "Mapping Tropical Rainforest Canopy Disturbances In 3D By COSMO-Skymed Spotlight Insar-Stereo Data To Detect Areas Of Forest Degradation." Remote Sensing 5.2 (2013): 648-663. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Apr. 2013.
    MARIA OGRZEWALSKA, DANILO G. SARAIVA, JONAS MORAES-FILHO, THIAGO F. MARTINS, FRANCISCO B. COSTA, ADRIANO PINTER and MARCELO B. LABRUNA (2012). Epidemiology of Brazilian spotted fever in the Atlantic Forest, state of São Paulo, Brazil. Parasitology, 139, pp 1283-1300.
    FAO. 2001. Global forest resources assessment 2000. Main Report. FAO Forestry Paper 140. Rome. 479 pp.
    GLOBAL CANOPY PROGRAM. The Little REDD Book: A guide to Governmental and non-governmental proposals for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. 2008. Disponível em: www.the littleREDDbook.org

Causes


Causes of Deforestation:

The reasons leading to deforestation can vary from one region to another. Some of the causes can be:

  •         The increase in population, which leads to the increase in demand for food and land (McCarthy et al, 2011).

The increase in food demand will lead to an increase in the food supply, which can be achieved by deforestation for agricultural or animal farming purposes.
The increase in the land demand will lead to an increase in deforestation to use the land for expansion purposes, with the construction of the necessary infrastructure needed, and in the process of construction (such as furniture and material for construction), can increase even more the rates of deforestation.
  • Recently, what a lot of people also talk about is the “clean energy” factors, which can be achieved in several ways, for example ethanol production with sugarcane in Brazil or palm oil in Southeast Asia. What seemed to be green turned out to be a driver to the deforestation rates in the country to rise in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia  (Rosenthal, 2007).

  • According to McCarthy el at (2011), corruption is a factor that can be a factor to deforestation, which consists in a facilitation of access to the deforested areas, together with a lack of law enforcement (127) In Brazil, for example, with very extensive borders, the patrol of the area can be very hard to do. There are often blind spots and lack of proper control of the affected trade areas, which can lead to illegal trading systems.

  • Economical reasons, since it is profitable to sell materials that are extracted from the forests (McCarthy et al, 2011). Woods are used in various processes of production from daily usage products, such as paper and furniture. Even money is made out of paper. On the image below we can see furniture, paper and materials that are originated from wood.  


From left to right: WWF-Canon / Edward PARKER; WWF-Canon / WWF-Switzerland/A. della Bella; WWF-Canon / Edward PARKER; WWF-Canon / Michel GUNTHER; WWF-Canon / Edward PARKER available at http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_forests/importance/ 










     
      From the chart of IBM Website above, it is possible to see alarming numbers. We use around 1 million tons of paper every day, and every kilogram of wood produces one kilogram of paper, giving us  4 million tons of wood everyday just to produce our everyday paper. 

  •   The building of medium to large cattle ranches, which are related to food supplying (Fearnside, 2005). In the image below, we can see how from 2000 to 2005, 60% of the deforestation in the Amazon was caused by cattle ranches. Another big part of the deforestation is due to agriculture, and therefore we can see how providing food to the population has became a big driver of deforestation, situation that tends to increase as population numbers increase. 






  •  Infrastructure, since the transportation routes increased as cars came along, demanding connections between remote villages and big cities (Fearnside, 2005). Many times, deforestation follows the road building leading to, many times, unclaimed territories and forest areas.

The following graph shows the amount of deforested area from 1990 to 2005. These numbers are very alarming and can be seen in the various parts in the world, indicating a global problem. 





Graphic by Robert Simmon, based on data provided by individual countries to the U.N. Foreign Agricultural Organization for the Global Forest Resources Assessment Report 2005.) Available at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php






Work Cited:

McCarthy, Stephen, and Luca Tacconi. "The Political Economy Of Tropical Deforestation: Assessing Models And Motives." Environmental Politics 20.1 (2011): 115-132. Environment Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
FEARNSIDE, PHILIP M. "Deforestation In Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, And Consequences." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688. Environment Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
Rosenthal, E. (2007, January 31). Once a dream fuel, palm oil may be an eco-nightmare. New York Times Online. Accessed April 20, 2013.
Laurance, William F., Mark A. Cochrane, Scott Bergen, Philip M. Fearnside, Patricia Delamônica, Christopher Barber, Sammya D’Angelo, and Tito Fernandes. 1998. "The Future of the Brazilian Amazon."