France, Alternative Libertaire AL #248 - Deforestation: A
programmed disaster (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
The destruction of forests is increasing and with it that of biodiversity and living
conditions of many people. Industrial exploitation of nature is in question and to avoid
total destruction, an alternative development model to the capitalist growth model is
needed. ---- According to a global remote sensing survey published in December 2011 at the
request of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the total forest
area totaled 3.69 billion hectares in 2005, or 30 % of the global area. Thus, according to
the World Resources Institute, 80% of the original global forest cover has been cut down
or degraded, largely over the last thirty years. At present rates, tropical forests have
almost disappeared in Africa in ten years in Southeast Asia in fifteen and forty years in
the Amazon.
Catastrophic
Forests are sources of timber, fuel, food, medicine, and shelter for many people. And
two-thirds of the large cities of southern countries depend on forests for their drinking
water.
They are essential to the fight against avalanches and landslides, to stabilize sand dunes
and protect coastal areas. Mangroves act as barrier against tsunamis, cyclones and hurricanes.
Forests play an essential role in the regulation of stormwater deforestation promotes
increased flooding. Deprived of the protection of forest cover, soils are eroding.
Agricultural land reclaimed from tropical forests are rapidly affected. According to the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the area affected by erosion exceeded two
million square kilometers for Latin America while 70% of productive dryland had been
affected by desertification.
About 40% of the terrestrial carbon is stored in vegetation and forest soils. Due to
deforestation operated for centuries at middle and high latitudes, and in the latter part
of the twentieth century in the tropical regions, considerable amounts of carbon were
released. In the 1980s, the net carbon emissions from deforestation accounted for almost a
quarter of human carbon dioxide emissions per year[1].
Primary forests account for 80% of the biodiversity of the land area and the Amazon
concentrates more than 70% of animal and plant species in the world. It is a place of
habitat for thousands of species that could not survive elsewhere. The current rate of
species extinction is 260 times faster than the rate measured since the appearance of life
on Earth[2], a major share is due to deforestation. An estimated 27,000 plant and animal
species disappear every year because of it. This loss cut the humanity of services and
invaluable resources as food systems are highly dependent on biodiversity and a
considerable proportion of drugs is of biological origin.
The illegality involved
The expansion of industrial crops and livestock is a major cause of deforestation. In
Brazil, primary forests are destroyed to grow soybeans that feeds our cattle and sugar
cane to produce ethanol. In Indonesia, they are cleared for palm oil already flooded the
products of our supermarkets.
Mining of precious metals and minerals, oil and gas extraction also play an important
role. Vast tracts of forest are degraded by mining areas, drilling and installation of
pipelines, oil spills or oil sands ... The illegal logging heavily involved in
deforestation. Europe has a responsibility in this degradation: a quarter of its wood
imports are presumed illegal origin. Research by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and Interpol emphasize that between 50 and 90% of the logging in the Amazon,
Central Africa and South Asia, are the fact of organized crime.
At this damage related to international trade adds causes related to population pressure
in the South. Many small farmers clear and burn the forest to plant small plots of land
and also contribute to deforestation. With soil leaching laid bare, crops only last two or
three years. It is then clear elsewhere.
For a drastic control
The European Union wants the forefront in the fight against deforestation. A resolution
adopted at the European Parliament 23 April 2009 outlines the proposed solutions: one for
devices such global mechanism for forest carbon), a facet of the "carbon market" that
never allowed the changes to the margin of ecological disturbances. By cons they offer
multinationals - and the Mafia - new opportunities for profit. On the other hand a "calls
on the EU to advocate REDD[mechanisms 3] "proposing to make the protection of forests more
profitable than the pursuit of their degradation.
REDD is criticized by some NGOs such as Friends of the Earth International: "Stop
deforestation is essential to stabilize the climate but REDD does not meet that goal.
Rather than strengthen the rights of forest communities, to prohibit conversion of forests
to monoculture or industrial logging, this mechanism provides a great escape for those
companies that can continue polluting by buying forests by planting trees . "[4]
The careful reader will subscribe to this analysis. Combating deforestation requires
drastic control over the operation and clearing primary forest or the origin of imported
tropical products. To this must be added the defense of a development break with
capitalist growth and accompanied by real mechanisms of international solidarity ... to
enable developing countries to free themselves of their dependence on the export of raw
materials. Expect anything international institutions is a complete illusion. Combat
deforestation is first fight here against the great and imposed unnecessary projects
(GPII) is fighting to change the laws on imports in our country and it is popularize and
support the struggles of the peoples of south, especially indigenous people.
Jacques Dubart (AL Agen)
[1] State of the World's Forests, FAO, SOFO 2002.
[2] Robert Barbault, National Museum of Natural History in An elephant in a game of
bowling, Seuil, 2006.
[3] Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
[4] Sylvain Angerand, campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth International.
http://alternativelibertaire.org/?Deforestation-Une-catastrophe
