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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Reigniting
the Rainforest
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation
Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
1/13/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Following
is an excellent overview of the rainforest conservation
issue. It highlights the fact that while rainforest
conservation may
have
lost its place as environmental cause of the day, the problem is
no less
threatening to the Planet's functioning.
The linkage between
climate
change and deforestation is discussed.
"Forests could be the
determinant
between low-end temperature increase, slow enough to adapt
to
without major social disruptions, and high-end change, faster than
current
social arrangements will easily bear."
Take the time to read
this
illuminating article, chock full of facts, and pass it on to
others
that may use it for rainforest conservation education.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Reigniting the Rainforest
Fires, Development and Deforestation
Source: Native Americas Journal,
http://nativeamericas.aip.cornell.edu/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: Fall 1999
Byline: Stephan Schwartzman, Environmental Defense
Fund
The
rainforest used to be a most fashionable environmental cause in
Hollywood,
but movie stars, along with much of America, have limited
attention
spans, and lately, the rainforest has fallen from favor.
The
destruction of the rainforest is as real a dilemma as it was ten
years
ago, only fewer people discuss it.
The rainforest
has real implications and consequences for all of us.
Forest
destruction, particularly in the tropics, and the still-open
question
of whether or not it can be slowed or stopped, very likely
will be
more important to the ecological condition of the planet our
children
and grandchildren will inherit than anything else happening
in the
world today. The destruction is worse than you think, and is
likely
to affect you and your children. But the chances to stop it are
also
much better, in large part because of what people in the forest-
indigenous
peoples-and their allies in the environmental movement are
doing.
IS IT
JUST A CASE OF TOO MANY PEOPLE?
An area
of forest bigger than Belgium, Holland and Austria put
together,
or about 40 percent of California, was cut down and burned
every
year between 1980 and 1995, some 62,000 square miles per year.
NASA's
Landsat satellite photographs show that more than 200,000
square
miles, an area about the size of France, has been cleared and
burned
in Brazil alone. All of this has happened since the 1970s.
Clearly,
old-growth forest, or forest that has remained virtually
untouched
by industrial development, has a very different value in a
world
of 6 billion people. It does not look inexhaustible anymore. But
global
aggregates alone cannot be blamed for the devastation of old-
growth
forests.
A very
large part of forest destruction is driven by multinational
corporate
developments many times at the expense of poor people (such
as
Indians and other minorities).
Across
the tropics, energy and infrastructure development (pipelines,
oil and
gas extraction, roads and dams) and mining have taken a heavy
toll.
Guyanese Amerindians, the Ogoni minority of Nigeria and New
Guinea
tribal peoples all can testify that multinational investment in
the
tropics often has featured the dismal combination of environmental
damage,
compromised health for local people and human rights abuses.
Major
players in the global development race have used public money
and
(with the partial exception of U.S. export credit agencies) have
done so
with minimal or no environmental, freedom-of-information or
human
rights policies.
American
consumers are linked directly to tropical deforestation by
tropical
timber exports. Each piece of mahogany furniture and every
strip
of Indonesian plywood are a part of the devastation. Both
commodities
are key causes of opening up the most pristine rainforests
in the
world to depredation, fires and invasion of indigenous people's
lands.
Tropical timber is a small item in U.S. wood and wood product
consumption,
but it has environmental and human consequences
drastically
out of proportion to its economic value.
It is,
however, important to understand that most tropical timber is
consumed
in tropical countries-Brazil exports only 14 percent of the
timber
extracted from the Amazon. U.S. consumption of tropical timber
could
cease altogether with little or no appreciable effect on
deforestation
in most of the tropics, unless consumption patterns in
Asia
and the developing countries also change.
Americans
use 10 times more paper products than developing countries,
but the
consumption of wood and paper is growing much faster in the
developing
world than in the United States.
Some
scientists estimate that there are only 5.2 million square miles
of
old-growth forest (not just tropical, but temperate and boreal as
well)
left in the world. That 62,000 square-mile-a-year deforestation
figure
could be off by 10,000 either way, but if it does not radically
slow
down-and soon-no old-growth will be left in just two human
lifetimes.
Eradicating
the old-growth forests of the world would change the
course
of evolution on the planet in ways that we cannot imagine. It
could
also make global warming happen much faster than it already is,
and in
ways that could seriously impair the planet's ability to
sustain
life at the levels it presently does. Ecosystems, as Native
people
and, more recently, ecologists have long warned, are
interconnected
like a Chinese puzzle-take one piece out, and it all
starts
to come apart.
FIRE
AND RAIN
Forests
do things for us we continue to ignore and discount, to our
increasing
loss. These things are sometimes called "ecosystem
services"
and they are in ever-shorter supply. China, not a world
leader
in green consciousness, last year banned all logging in its few
remaining
natural forests after disastrous flooding wreaked havoc
along
heavily populated rivers. In so doing, China hoped to save
remnants
of forest cover on the upper headwaters. But so much forest
is
already gone that it may not make much difference.
In
February, numerous people died and hundreds of millions of dollars
in
property was destroyed in massive floods that shut down the
industrial
capital of South America, Sao Paolo. Paving over every
patch
of green that could have absorbed run-off is one major reason.
Some 70
percent of Brazil's population lives in the coastal Atlantic
forest
region. Their water supply, flood control, soil conservation
and
regional climate all ultimately depend on this forest, which is
more
than 90 percent gone. Experts now expect a third of the world's
population
to face serious water shortages in the next 25 years-the
most
and worst where there are the least old-growth forests.
The
Amazon is a good example of how trees and water connect-about half
of the
rain that falls on the forest is produced by the forest itself,
which
breathes out water through its multi-billions of capillaries.
Cut the
forest down and there are fewer plants to hold the rain and
cycle
it back. More water runs off, carrying more topsoil, leaving
less to
make rain. The Amazon has about a fifth of the fresh water in
the
world, so it is not drying up-yet.
FRUITS
OF THE FOREST
Tropical
forests hold between 50 and 90 percent of the living species
on the
planet. This margin of uncertainty accounts for what biologists
do not
know about the plants and animals in tropical forests. No more
than
one-tenth of the species alive are known to science (and maybe
only
one-one hundredth).
Tropical
forests have given us rubber, chocolate, vanilla, quinine,
d-tubocurarine
(which, made from the arrow poison curare,
revolutionized
modern surgery) and vincristine (extracted from
Madagascar
periwinkle, which greatly increased survival rates for
childhood
leukemia). Scientists have recently reported a new
generation
of painkillers under development, much more powerful than
heroin,
but non-addictive-based on frog venom traditionally used by
Amazon
Natives for shamanic purposes.
Diminished
forests will mean diminished biotic resources. Biologists
have
calculated that the greatest wave of extinction since the
dinosaurs
disappeared 60 million years ago is happening now because of
tropical
forest loss.
WHERE
THERE IS SMOKE . . .
The
grand master of ecological disasters is global warming. It covers
everything.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, some
2,000
climate scientists strong, has concluded that the Earth is
already
warmer than it was a century ago, and could become between one
degree
and 3.5 degrees Celsius warmer on average over the next
century,
largely because of the carbon dioxide and other gases we are
pouring
into the atmosphere. How quickly and how much warming occurs
could
make a big difference. Scientists are already documenting rising
sea
levels and melting glaciers, and looking at shifting ecological
zones,
more rapid evaporation and more extreme weather patterns.
Scientists
point to carbon dioxide as the primary suspect in this
unfolding
story of ecological cataclysm. Specifically, carbon dioxide
from
fossil fuels in industrialized countries-with the United States
first
and foremost. But the burning of tropical forests runs a strong
second-tropical
forest destruction has contributed some 20 percent of
the
carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere. The burning of the
Brazilian
Amazon as measured in the Landsat pictures alone contributes
about 5
percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions.
Furthermore,
recent research suggests that forests may act as carbon
"sinks"-which
take up and store more carbon than they give off in
photosynthesis,
and absorb even more in an increasingly carbon-rich
atmosphere.
Forests could be the determinant between low-end
temperature
increase, slow enough to adapt to without major social
disruptions,
and high-end change, faster than current social
arrangements
will easily bear.
The
recent wildfires in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and the United
States
have triggered an alarm. More fires mean even more carbon
dioxide
in the atmosphere. But the truly hair-raising prospect is that
climate
change may be making the forests drier and more fire-prone,
while
more fires hasten the change, making bigger fires more likely.
The
Woods Hole Research Center has found that for every acre cleared
and
burned in the Amazon, at least another acre burns in ground fires
under
the forest canopy and/or is degraded by selective logging (not
picked
up by the satellites). The frequency and extent of these ground
fires
skyrocket in El Ni¤o events, which can then cause drought in
some
tropical forests-and such fires are likely to increase in
frequency
and intensity with global warming.
The
fire that burned out of control in the Amazon forest for two
months
last year may look like kindling the next time around. Runaway
industrial
energy consumption plays out in everyone else's atmosphere,
and so
do the fires in the Amazon. The carbon dioxide emissions of
Amazon
fires may be close to 10 percent of the world total.
WHAT
CAN BE DONE?
In
order to change the way things are headed in tropical forests,
people
and organizations in the United States have to work with allies
that
are there, who can do something about it and who have a real
interest
in changing the status quo.
Indigenous
peoples in the Amazon have made major gains over the last
decade.
Leaders such as Davi Yanomami, Ailton Krenak, Jose Adalberto
Macuxi,
Euclides Macuxi and many others have built the alliances
needed
to move the Brazilian government to recognize 20 percent of the
Amazon-an
area twice the size of California-as indigenous territory.
This is
the largest expanse of tropical forest protected anywhere.
Indians
in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have also won substantial gains
in
recognition of their land rights. While many areas are invaded and
leaders
sell timber and strike deals with miners, protecting
indigenous
land in the Amazon objectively halts deforestation.
Many
around the world remember Chico Mendes, the rubber-tapper union
leader
from the Amazon who was murdered ten years ago. He led the
movement
of forest people who make a living collecting wild rubber
latex
against invading cattle ranchers. This was the first social
movement
to seek alliance with indigenous organizations in the region.
Neither
Indians nor rubber tappers look familiar to most people in
North
America, but they and their colleagues have made significant
gains
in the last ten years. This forest peoples movement and sectors
aligned
with it have elected two state governors in the Amazon-
something
almost no one believed possible a few years ago.
Chico
Mendes was killed creating a reserve for rubber tappers to live
in and
manage sustainably-the first "extractive reserve." The idea for
these
reserves was drawn from indigenous reserves. The National
Council
of Rubber Tappers that he founded has created 21 of these
reserves.
A glance at the satellite images shows that Indian areas and
extractive
reserves actually stop deforestation on the Amazon
frontier.
The Council of Rubber Tappers is honoring the tenth
anniversary
of Mendes' assassination with a campaign for new
extractive
reserves-the council wants 10 percent of the Amazon as
extractive
reserves by 2002-and for policies to make these and the
Indian
lands sustainable and economically viable.
The
rainforest is not destroyed. It is shrinking but there is still
time to
do plenty about it. The Amazon is a forest almost half the
size of
the continental United States, well more than three-quarters
intact.
We have an historic opportunity to build strong constituencies
for
protection and sustainability before the natural ecosystem has
been
practically eliminated.
Accelerating
Destruction
Probably
the most significant new data on forests worldwide in the
1990s
is the result of the work of the Woods Hole Research Institute
team on
fire in the Amazon (Nepstad et al. 1999). Woods Hole has
demonstrated
that more forest destruction and degradation is occurring
in the
Amazon than is seen by the satellite images.
For
every acre of forest cleared and burned, at least another acre is
either
degraded by selective logging or damaged by runaway ground
fires,
or both. Current satellite images register clearing and
burning,
but not selective logging or ground fires. In El Ni¤o years,
this
fire-induced damage is even greater. This research in fact
predicted
the unprecedented kind of fire that occurred in Roraima in
1998,
when primary moist tropical forest burned as a result of runaway
fire
from deforestation. Previously, moist tropical forest has been
fire-resistant,
because of the ability of deep root systems to tap
subsoil
water reserves. The 1997-1998 El Ni¤o, however, depleted the
subsoil
water enough so that the forest became flammable.
El Ni¤o
events may become more frequent as a result of global climate
change
(Nepstad et al. 1999). Exacerbating the problem, forest once
burned
is much more likely to burn again. As is the case with
deforestation
rates, the effects of logging and ground fires have been
best
studied in Brazil (even if much more research is needed there).
But as
massive fires in Indonesia and Mexico demonstrated, the
phenomenon
is far more widely distributed.
The
prospect of climate change inducing drier conditions in tropical
forests-leading
to larger and more destructive fires, which in turn
speeds
climate change, provoking a vicious circle of drying, fires,
more
drying, greater conflagrations-all represents a qualitative
change
in the process of forest destruction. Previously, essentially
all
discussion of the issue has been grounded in the deforestation
data-the
area cleared and burned as registered in Landsat images. Fire
itself,
under conditions of climate change, may threaten much greater
areas
of forest much more quickly than deforestation per se.
In
addition, local deforestation or burning reduces the leaf surface
available
for evapo-transpiration, or the cycling of rainwater through
plants
and trees back into the atmosphere. Since evapo-transpiration
accounts
for about half of the rain that falls on the Amazon forest,
increasing
deforestation could lead to reduced rainfall on a local
level,
further exacerbating a cycle of more drying and greater fires.
The
most extensive exercise in analyzing the state of the world's
forest
cover is the world forest map compiled by the World
Conservation
Monitoring Center (WCMC 1997). By this analysis roughly
half of
the world's original primary forest is now gone-and a
disproportionate
share of this has been lost in the last three
decades.
The largest remaining areas of primary forest are expanses of
boreal
forest covering parts of Siberia and northern Canada, and the
tropical
forests of the Amazon and Guyana shield region. Most sources
agree
that primary temperate forest has virtually disappeared (WCMC
1997;
FAO 1997).
Stephan
Schwartzman is a senior scientist with the International
Program
of the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington DC.
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