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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Deforestation, Climate Change & Poverty Aggravate Latin America
Floods
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation
12/21/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
Deforestation and climate change, combined with poverty, "have made
many areas in Latin America disasters waiting to happen." Every
year Venezuela loses 1.2 million acres (1.1%) of its forests--some of
the richest in the World. Unusually strong rains, likely to have
been exacerbated by climate change, and lack of forest cover, means
rainfall runs off hillsides faster, increasing erosion, which can
lead to flooding and mudslides. Gaia, the global ecological system,
is the sum of its parts. Continued local degradation of ecological
systems, such as forests and the atmosphere, will eventually effect
the integrity and ability of the whole to function. Gaia's demise
may be portended by climatic havoc, as is clearly happening now.
g.b.
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Title: Environment, poverty aggravate Latin America floods
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 20, 1999
Byline: Fiona Ortiz
MEXICO CITY, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Catastrophic floods -- aggravated by
deforestation, haphazard building and climate change -- are becoming
a recurring Latin America nightmare, striking Venezuela this week and
killing more than 10,000 people.
The carnage and desperation are a grim replay of last year's
Hurricane Mitch, which drenched Nicaragua and Honduras, wiping out
bridges, roads, towns and plantations, causing $6 billion in damage
and killing perhaps 9,000 people.
Disaster groups and environmentalists say that a dangerous cocktail
of environmental factors and poverty have made many areas in Latin
America disasters waiting to happen. Because of ripe conditions,
death tolls are worse than they have to be.
``Everyone is aware of the environmental problems of global warming
and deforestation on the one hand, and the social problems of
increasing poverty and growing shantytowns on the other. But when
these two factors collide, you have a new scale of catastrophe,''
Astrid Heiberg, President of the International Federation of the Red
Cross, said earlier this year.
In an annual report, the Red Cross predicted more and worse crises in
Latin America, and worldwide, because of climate change and poverty.
Forecasts for more deadly and devastating natural disasters seem to
be coming true in Latin America.
Mitch was called one of the century's most deadly Atlantic storms and
the flooding was the worst of the century in Honduras.
Houses that had stood for 150 years in colonial towns were torn away
by raging rivers.
In Mexico two months ago, the strongest floods and landslides of many
decades melted hillsides and filled valleys with water in four
eastern states, killing about 400 people. A year earlier,
catastrophic floods in southern Mexico also killed hundreds.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Scientists are not in agreement whether temporary extreme weather
fluctuations such as El Nino and La Nina, or overall global warming -
- blamed on emissions of greenhouse gases -- are causing killer
storms, but experts in Latin America say higher temperatures have
meant stronger and more intense rains.
``In the Venezuelan case, you can clearly see a climate change over
50 years, that there are higher temperatures,'' said Julio Cesar
Centeno, a doctor in forestry and professor at the Universidad de los
Andes in Venezuela.
Ricardo Sanchez, director of the U.N. Environment Program's Latin
American region, told Reuters that recent disasters have claimed more
lives because of climate change.
``Even if all the evidence is not in yet, we are having a strong
climate change influence, which in our region is manifesting itself
with an increase in hurricanes and an increase in frequency and
intensity of rains ... which makes the impact more intense,''
Sanchez said.
DEFORESTATION
Centeno said the average annual deforestation in Venezuela over two
decades is 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares), 1.1 percent a year,
twice as high as in Brazil.
Environmentalists say that a lack of forest cover means that rainfall
runs off hillsides faster, increasing erosion, which can lead to
flooding and mudslides.
Ed Harp, a geologist with the Central Geologic Hazards team of the
U.S. Geological Survey, told Reuters that while the link between
deforestation and landslides or flooding is not as dramatic as many
people suggest, ``there is an effect, and I think sometimes it's
fairly marked.''
Harp explained that heavy rainfall soaks through the soil, saturating
it completely and then pooling on the top of bedrock, destabilising
entire areas of topsoil until they slip away. A big slide can move
down hill rapidly, tearing away at other areas and gathering more
material, moving as far as 9 miles (15 kms).
Although landslides can occur in forested areas, forest cover could
prevent some landslides by absorbing moisture, he said.
POOR NEIGHBOURHOODS AFFECTED MORE
In Venezuela, Honduras and Mexico, while the floods did not spare the
rich, the precarious buildings of the poor, on steep cliffs or on
flood plains, suffered disproportionately.
``Many poor people live in areas that should not be inhabited and in
houses not designed to resist any unstable earth movement. It's a
lethal combination. This happens every year on a smaller scale here.
This year it came a lot stronger,'' Centeno said.
Red Cross and U.N. officials said the region needs to learn from
these lessons, and quickly.
``These are elements that are surfacing time and time again, and it
underscores the need for us to not only deepen our work in the area
of community education and disaster preparedness, but also amplify it
geographically,'' Martha Keays, head of the Guatemala-based regional
delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross, told
Reuters.
Keays pointed out that developed nations -- which pledged $9 billion
to Central America after Mitch -- could spend less and get more
results through prevention efforts such as promoting better-built
houses structures in safer areas.
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