Threats to human security in deforestation

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 According to the Human Security Initiative website, human security issues include, but are not limited to:

•        Organized Crime and Criminal Violence – Resource scarcities can lead to conflict, as well as an increase in the grievances between groups.
• ·      Human Rights and Good Governance: Human rights can be infringed as indigenous populations are thrown out of their lands and government is weak and can’t handle the situations.
• ·      Armed Conflict and Intervention: Conflicts can happen when resource scarcity separates groups causing a demand greater than the supply.
• ·      Genocide and Mass Crimes: The number of tribes in the native forests keeps going down and many civilizations were lost in the last decades by deforestation.
• ·      Health and Development: As seen in previous entries of the blog, deforestation and forest degradation can bring diseases and health consequences, such as bad air quality that is resulted in breading issues, and bad air quality can also lead to several health issues.
• ·      Resources and Environment: Resources become scarcer as environmental changes contribute to food scarcity, and soil degradation leads to food security issues, and many other consequences can be seen that relate to human security.

           The diagram shows the interconnections between the several vulnerabilities that come as consequences of deforestation, leading to threats to human security.  

Little and Cocklin related vulnerability to human security, and deforestation brings several vulnerabilities into place, as you can see in the “Human Security and Deforestation tab. They also relate decrease in vulnerabilities to an increase in human security, and a decrease in deforestation rates can bring a decrease in vulnerabilities, leading to higher human security.

Threat of human security: humans are exposed to potentially harmful developments and lack the means to prevent, limit or cope with the damage.

In the case studies, several threats to human security were caused by the vulnerabilities brought by the consequences of deforestation. 

From the case studies there was a connection between deforestation and the indigenous native population in the forests. Besides, between 350 million to 1.2 billion people depend on forests for basic needs (Schroeder, 2005). The deforestation exposes the indigenous population to diseases, chock of culture and exposes their natural habitat to biodiversity loss and soil production decrease, as well as different precipitation rates. 

Not only the indigenous population can suffer the consequences and vulnerabilities, but people in the cities can often be faced with blackouts as a result of low water levels, such as in Sao Paulo in 2001, when the levels of the hydroelectric reservoirs went down due to a drought period (Fearnside, 2005) 

Besides, the rain seasons can be responsible for stopping diseases, keeping the water levels in the air. When this level goes down, diseases can occur (683). 

Deforestation is a driver of loss in biodiversity level. This loss can have several consequences, as the ecosystems are very connected, and the extension of one species can lead to another. Also, other life forms might depend on the specie that is no longer present due to deforestation, such as parasites, leading to many other consequences and a vulnerable system. 

Deforestation can also lead to resource scarcity, as seen in the case studies, when the desertification rates starts to grow as deforestation rates grow. Besides, resource scarcities can lead to food insecurity, due to soil erosion, creating vulnerabilities that affect human security. Besides, floods are also related to the soil erosion, as the water cycle is broken and consequences can be several for people.

The consequences of global warming are many. Global warming is a big threat to human security due to all the vulnerabilities that it can bring. Deforestation is contributing to the problem, as the process of deforestation is a big part of the emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The process can go reverse, however, due to the forests capacity for naturally retaining carbon dioxide levels. Therefore, deforestation is a direct component in human security, as it can either contribute to the problem and raise vulnerabilities, or do the reverse by conserving forests and increasing forested areas, in a way to lower the threats of global warming.

Work Cited: 

       Little and Cocklin, “The Vulnerability of Urban Slum Dwellers to Global Environmental Change.” In Matthew et al.

                Soroos, “Approaches to Enhancing Human Security”, In Matthew et al

FEARNSIDE, PHILIP M. "Deforestation In Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, And Consequences." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688. Environment Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.

Conclusions

The conclusions reached in this research project are that deforestation is a threat in various ways to human security, directly or indirectly. Some of the factors that can threat human security as such as food security, caused by soil erosion and resource scarcities, which can lead to the population inability to be provided or provide food for their basic needs.

Also, the human security is threatened as resources become scarce, and water and other basic survival needs can no longer be provided due to the breaking in the water cycle, leading to a abnormal precipitation levels. 

Also, the human security can be threatened to all the population that lives in forests, such as indigenous people, and the more than 1.5 billion people that depend on the forests for food, fuel and other basic survival needs. The human security can also be threatened by a non direct factor of global warming, which can bring world wide consequences due to the inability of chopped trees to retain carbon dioxide and the huge levels of carbon dioxide that can be released in the process of deforestation.

Therefore, deforestation is a threat to human security and should be stopped in order to prevent worldwide consequences and guarantee our human security.