Stripping of forests cause for alarm

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 27

Stripping of forests cause for alarm

By

NIGEL SMITH

of the World Watch Institute Few people realise that the high price of that new house they long to buy but often cannot afford can be traced in part to the disappearance of tropical forests or that the rising price of their favourite newspaper or magazine is related to the soaring cost of newsprint and thus to deforestation in developing countries. A still-growing world population is putting increasing pressure on a dwindling natural resource and people round the world are feeling the pinch in their pocketbooks. Tropical forests cloak about one-tenth of the world’s land surface and account for one-half of the globe’s standing timber. Although the shrinkage of woodlands has slowed or stopped in industrial countries, in the tropics forests are falling at an alarming rate. An area the size of Britain or possibly even West Germany is being stripped of trees in tropical countries annually. By the year 2000, forests in the developing nations are expected to be 40 per cent smaller than they are today.

Three main forces are pushing back the forest cover. Throughout the tropics millions of farmers need to clear space each year to grow crops. In Latin America, cattle ranching is opening up vast tracts of pasture cleared from forests to raise beef, mainly for export to North America, Europe, and Japan. In the Brazilian Amazon alone, seven million square kilometres of jungle are being felled to make way for cattle ranches.

Timber firms, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, have takn advantage of- huge concessions offered by governments to extract commercially valuable trees. In 1950, the devel-'-oped world imported only 4.2 million cubic metres of tropical hardwoods. By 1980, the figure had in-

creased 12-fold, In the process of removing teak, mahogany, and cedar, logging companies tear large swaths through the forest. Burdened by a mounting external debt often generated by the need to import oil, developing countries have turned to their natural resources to generate foreign exchange. But as they do this, many nations are cutting into their capital. Tropical forests are not being exploited on a sustainedyield basis: the resource, potentially renewable, is being mined.

People in both industrial and developing countries stand to lose much if tropical forests continue to dwindle. These areas contain more species of plants and animals than any other ecosystem on earth, a veritable storehouse of potentially use-' ful drugs. Only 1 per cent of the plants growing in jungles have been screened for chemicals useful to medicine and the yield has already paid off. Curare, a muscle relaxant that Indians tip their blowgun darts with, is used in open heart surgery. Quinine, a valuable medicine used to combat malaria, is now synthesized in laboratories but it was derived from the bark of cinchona, . a tree that grows on the forest-clad slopes of the Andes. Possible cures for cancer or a new contraceptive drug may be forever lost if topical forests continue to fall. • _■ ....

The shrinking forests could also have adverse climatic effects. If the equatorial jungles are stripped, rainfall will decrease in tropical areas and rivers will silt up more quickly, reducing the useful life of hydro-elec-tricity dams. .Even the long-term viability of the Panama Canal is, being threatened by soils that are being washed into the channel from surrounding slopes denuded by trees.

If forests continue to be cut and burned at the

present rate they will contribute a worrying amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The content of the gas in the air has been steadily increasing in the last 125 years as a result of the burning of fossil fuels and vegetation. If this trend continues, temperatures could rise by 2 degree to 3 degree within the next 70 years. This warming of the earth could dry out the temperate grain belt, a big supplier of food to the world. To avert the potentially, serious ecological consequences 'of continued tropical-forest destruction and to ensure a sustainable supply of timber and wood products from developing regions, two basic programmes are needed at the same time. First, large-scale reforestation is urgently needed, Using ag r o-forestry schemes, cut-over lands can be planted with a protective cover of trees and food crops to reduce soil erosion as well as to provide timber and food. Agro-forestry plantations can thus help to solve two chronic problems in developing areas: the scarcity of both jobs and food. Equally important, Is the need to conserve. Re« cycling and using wood products more wisely would slacken demand for imported timber. . Every time a building is pulled down timber is destroyed. Renovation of older buildings not only saves energy but reduces the need to replace , timber used in construction.

Beef from pastures cleared in tropical forests finds its way to the dinner tables and into pet foods in the industrial world. By cutting down on the amount of hamburgers, steaks, and roasts eaten, the pressure to open more pastures will ease. It is not just the peasant In the Third World whose hands are on the axe: people in developed countries are also indirectly- responsible for the present destruction of a world heritage.