Forests

Serit arbores quae alteri seculo prosint (He plants trees to benefit another generation) -- Caecilius Statius, c. 200 B.C.

Key Facts on forest issues

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The Causes of Forest Loss
The State of the Rainforests
Seeking Solutions
Taking Community Action
Taking Action as an Individual
The Green Belt Movement --A Success Story

Forests are much more than trees-they are an entire ecosystem unto themselves. They are composed of trees, herbs, fungi, micro-organisms, animals, soils, and numerous plant species. All these interact to influence everything from the availability of freshwater to a region's climate. Forests provide shade to the traveller, food for the hungry, medicines for the sick and construction material for shelter. They also absorb carbon from the atmosphere, which could help to offset global warming trends.

Though only a component of the forests, it is the sustainability of trees that determines the longevity of a forest. A renewable resource, trees can replace themselves when harvested from the forest in a sustainable manner. A forest can expand at a rate of five or more per cent a year, which means that if that many trees are harvested, the forest will replace them. Many people who depend on trees for their daily needs, however, are harvesting them faster than they can grow back.

The loss of forests and woodlands around the world is a serious issue. It can contribute to changes in rainfall patterns, temperatures, wind speeds, aridity of otherwise fertile land, flooding and soil absorption characteristics. It can cause disruptions in lives of both people and animals. The burning of forests releases carbon into the atmosphere. If this exceeds the growth rates of plants, and if the oceans (which store much of the world's carbon) are not able to hold this additionally-released carbon, this condition could contribute to global warming.

Forests are the source of livelihood for millions of the world's poorest people. Many are losing their access to forests as a result of deforestation, currently estimated at 16.8 million hectares a year worldwide. Deforestation produces its own environmental refugees: millions have been forced to leave their homes in Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia-including more than a million in Java alone.

Forests also provide pulp for paper, sawnwood, plywood, gums, oils, resins, pharmaceutical plants and many other badly needed materials. In many countries, these are important exports. Poor or exploitative forest management inevitably reduces options, leading first to dwindling exports and then the need to pay for more and more imports. Although 33 developing countries are currently net exporters of forest products, only 10 are expected to be so by the year 2000.

Forests are home to millions of forms of life; when the forests disappear, so do their inhabitants. Forests prevent soil erosion and provide one of nature's principal means of water management. When trees are removed, torrents of water are allowed to run unchecked down steep hillsides, causing avalanches and flooding. When the foothills of the Himalayas were covered with trees, Bangladesh suffered a major flood about twice a century; one every four years is now the average.

The Causes of Forest Loss

There are many threats to the planet's forests, almost all of which are caused by human activity. The main cause of deforestation is the need to expand agricultural land-though logging often leads to deforestation by opening up previously inaccessible areas. Timber companies are often irresponsible in the management of their own resources. In harvesting the forests, logging companies usually seek out places where they can have high yields. But as soon as the harvests go down, they abandon the area to seek out new prospects, rather than trying to regenerate the logged area through reforestation schemes. A most appalling example is that of the Thai loggers, who, after being banned from Thailand's forests because of catastrophic floods in 1988, simply left for Myanmar (formerly Burma), where they are now depleting the world's last great teak forests.

The situation ought not to be as severe as it is. The world's live stockpile of wood amounts to 315 billion cubic metres, and generates a growth of six billion cubic metres a year. World consumption is only about half this amount. But much forest growth occurs in thinly populated areas of Alaska, Canada and Siberia. Other regions, notably South-East Asia and Latin America, are perilously short of timber. Africa is not far behind-tropical trees there are being cut much faster than they are being replanted. For every 29 trees felled commercially, only one is replanted.

Reforestation schemes, on the other hand, are not always possible in places where it would be needed, because of either economic or natural reasons. When they are possible, they sometimes fail. Reforestation is not always capable of recovering damage to the environment. Logging can deplete, fragment and homogenize forests. The worst, most widespread type of degradation, according to the Worldwatch Institute, is caused by timber mining. In its State of the World Report, the Institute states that this type of logging in tropical regions often removes large amounts of vegetation from rain forests, where nutrients are found mostly in the plant life itself and not in the soil. This leaves behind a nutritionally impoverished system that may take hundreds of years to recover.

The pressures from international financial institutions are sometimes another factor that contributes to deforestation, as developing countries increase timber exports in order to service interest on loans and pay back debts.

Since public policy usually defines the parameters in which a society can exploit or overexploit its resources, it is the politics of a country that is most responsible for the destruction of forests. Unfortunately, in many countries the political will to enact laws to minimize deforestation is lacking, despite international agreements to preserve forest resources. Often, difficulties in balancing priorities between sustainable development and socio-economic concerns lead to political inaction. Consequently, the environment suffers in the interim.

The State of the Rain Forests

Rain forests encircle the Earth in a 3,000 mile-wide green band around the equator. Rain forests once covered at least 14 per cent of the Earth's land surface. Now only six per cent remains. Brazil contains one-third and Indonesia and Zaire each have ten per cent of what's left. The rest is scattered in rapidly diminishing remnants in other countries of Africa, South America, South-East Asia and Oceania.

Although all types of forests are important for a balanced ecosystem, including deciduous forest, dry forest and desert forest, half the world's species are to be found in rain forests. This genetic storehouse has already provided many of the strains from which modern crops and medicines are derived. In India, more than 2,500 plant species have been officially recognized for their medicinal uses. In addition, the U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified cancer­fighting properties in 73 per cent of the 30,000 plants unique to the rain forest ecosystem. Preserving these species directly benefits humankind.

Rain forests also are one of the world's natural reservoirs of carbon dioxide, which is captured through photosynthesis and stored in trees, vegetation and soil. However, because so many rain forests are burned, releasing all their carbon dioxide, rain forests now contribute more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than they absorb from it. According to the Rainforest Action Network, 25 per cent of greenhouse gases now come from burning the rain forest.

A U.S. Global 2000 report estimates that as many as one million species found in tropical forests could become extinct by the end of the century. The point is well made: tropical forests contain a wealth of animal and plant material, much of it still unknown to humans. For the good of humanity, not to mention for the sake of biodiversity, steps must be taken to ensure that these lifeforms are not heedlessly driven into extinction.

According to the Rainforest Action Network, ill-conceived development schemes are the main cause of tropical deforestation. Many of these projects are financed by American, European and Japanese taxes and by private banks based in industrialized countries. The most destructive projects promote agriculture, cattle ranching, hydroelectric dams, logging, mining and road construction.

Population pressures, along with inequitable distribution of good agricultural land in tropical countries, are a major cause of agricultural settlement in rain forests. Rather than redistributing prime agricultural lands, which are usually used to grow export crops, some governments allow rain forests to be cleared to defuse movements for land reform. This policy, however, is doomed to failure because the newly cleared land is soon rendered useless. The heat and heavy rainfall in moist tropical regions leach the nutrients from the ancient soils so that only the top few inches contain any fertility. When leaves and other organic materials fall to the ground, they are recycled quickly through complex interactions among other living organisms such as microbes, insects, birds and plants. However, when the rain forests are cleared for agriculture, many of the nutrients in the soil that are necessary for plant life are destroyed with the forest.

Seeking Solutions

There are encouraging signs amidst the somber facts of planetary deforestation. Although less than five per cent of the world's forests are formally protected, some countries have made major progress in preserving them. Nearly every country of the world is now devoting more attention and financial resources to forestry concerns. In the Asia-Pacific region, three million hectares are being planted every year. In Indonesia, the government has pledged to channel $300 million annually to reforest 20 million hectares over the next 65 years. In South America, the Environment and Development Commission for Amazonia is working with eight Amazon countries to strike a balance between development and the preservation of the Amazon.Brazil

Brazil has launched an ambitious system of forest parks and conservation areas covering 15 million hectares. Costa Rica has protected 80 per cent of its remaining wildlands. Cote d'lvoire has banned log exports, Bolivia has declared a five­year moratorium on logging concessions, and several countries are developing nondestructive uses for forests. Improved wood stoves have helped reduce consumption of fuelwood, notably in Nepal, Kenya and Central America. Some international organizations are developing an innovative approach to conservation which involves purchasing a portion of a country's foreign debt in exchange for the establishment of protected areas of forest.

Equally encouraging is the growing public awareness about forests. Throughout the world, there are numerous local initiatives aimed at protecting and re-establishing trees. Many of these have come from NGOs, but others have come from the private sector as it has realized the economic potential of forest replenishment.

At the Earth Summit, the governments of the world agreed to a "non­legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests." Albeit only a rhetorical acknowledgement of the problem, the statement did put the issue on the global agenda. What is needed now is for communities to take action both to participate in the preservation of the planet's few remaining forests, and to encourage governments to establish policies that ensure the sustainable use of forest resources.

Taking Community Action

There are many things communities can do to ensure that the world's forests do not disappear. Specific efforts to preserve forest resources will, as with other concerns, depend on your specific regional situation and capabilities, and whether you are in a developed country or a developing one. Following are a few ideas to get your group started:

• Work with your community schools. In order to reach out to a broader public, schools can create increased public awareness through, for example, theatre and youth publications. Youth also offer an amazing resource that can be tapped to help your organization in its objectives. The youth in your community may have organizations of their own with which you can cooperate.
  
  
• Adopt a tree. Organizations and youth groups can adopt a tree-or a number of trees-and ensure their well being. The practice of taking care of a tree can provide an insight into how trees function under different conditions and why it is important to conserve them for the future.
  
  
• Plant a tree. Logging companies and governments need to take responsibility for managing the country's forests on a sustained-yield basis, such as by replacing the trees that are harvested. However, tree-planting campaigns run by organizations or individuals also can make a direct contribution to reforestation.
  
  
• Support pro-forest candidates. If your country has elections, make sure environmental issues are addressed by the candidates. Humourous or serious campaigns, publicizing the environment and at the same time stressing its importance could raise the awareness of politicians to what voters want.
  
  
• Encourage the proper valuation of forest resources. A pricing of forest products should reflect the environmental costs of deforestation. Tariffs also could be placed on forest products from countries where deforestation is a threat to the ecosystem. When the price for a given product puts it out of reach for most consumers, substitutes will be found.
  
  
• Cooperate with other organizations. Community organizations can cooperate with churches and other non-profit groups to start projects that will help protect the forest. It is often more effective to assist existing organizations to adopt forestry initiatives into their current activities, instead of creating new organizations to address these issues. Find out how other organizations are working to preserve the forests, and either learn from them or suggest alternative activities.
  
  
• Support women's groups. Rural women-many of whose families depend heavily on forest or tree products-have proved to be powerful allies in conservation programmes. Traditionally, women in developing countries have played a dominant role in most areas of their family's daily life. They are responsible for meeting the daily needs of the family by providing basic commodities such as food and wood fuel (or biomass) for cooking. Women's organizations can therefore do a lot to encourage women to help their families to conserve, as much as possible, the wood fuel and biomass they may be using. In East Africa, for example, simple cooking stoves are being introduced that burn more efficiently, thus reducing the need for larger amounts of wood fuel and biomass.
  
  

Taking Action as an Individual

Actions at the individual level are important and should be encouraged by your community organization. All of us are consumers of forest products. We can, through our consumption patterns, selectively decide not to consume certain forest products that are considered overexploited, such as furniture made from wood species found in areas where deforestation is a threat to the ecosystem. Following are a few more action ideas that your organization could promote among its members and the individual members of your community:

• Reduce, reuse and recycle all paper products. Everything from newspapers to cardboard boxes can usually be recycled if your community has a recycling system.
  
  
• Buy recycled products. If possible, use only recycled paper at the home and office.
  
  
• Plant trees in your yard and property. Make sure the trees you plant are indigenous (natural) to your area.
  
  
• Replant. If you do take wood from the forest, learn how to replant seedlings to replace the trees that you take.
  
  
• Write now, right now. Write a letter to a government official, expressing concern for your country's forests. Write letters to your community newspaper to encourage concern about forest issues. Ask them if they use recycled paper, and if they recycle unsold newspapers.
  
  
• Use efficient stoves. If you use wood for cooking and/or heating your home, make sure the stoves you are using are efficient and do not burn more wood than is necessary to get the job done.
  
  
• Spread the word. Share all your ideas and concerns for the forest with your neighbours and friends. By getting your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues to all take action on forest issues, the collective impact will make a big difference. This holds true for all environmental issues.
  
  

The Green Belt Movement
A Success Story

Harambee-'let's all pull together'-was a popular movement in Kenya when Wangari Mathai, a women's rights and environment campaigner, finally got a response to her tireless efforts to start a tree-planting programme.

On World Environment Day in 1977, the Green Belt Movement was formed as an indigenous grassroot environmental campaign. Although its objectives are many and varied, the tree is used as a focal point around which other environmental issues are discussed and brought to the attention of the public and decision-makers. At its first tree-planting ceremony, the following dedication was made:

"Being aware that Kenya is being threatened by the expansion of desert-like conditions, that desertification comes as a result of misuse of land and by indiscriminate cutting down of trees, bush clearing and consequent soil erosion by the elements; and that these actions result in drought, malnutrition, famine and death; we resolve to save our land by averting this same desertification by tree planting wherever possible.

In pronouncing these words, we each make a personal commitment to our country to save it from actions and elements which would deprive present and future generations from reaping the bounty which is the birthright and property of all."

Since its beginnings, the movement has worked with more than one million children in 3,000 schools to plant trees on school compounds, gotten more than 50,000 households and small-scale farmers to plant trees on their farms, and produced numerous booklets and films on reforestation issues. In the last ten years, more than seven million trees are recorded as having been planted and survived. More than 50,000 Kenyan women have been involved in the campaign, and their leader, Professor Mathai, has been added to the UN Environment Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement. The movement is now spreading to other countries and may soon be replicated throughout East and Southern Africa.

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References

Agriculture in the Tropics Tropical Forest Ecosystems amid Their Tree Species-Possibilities and Methods for their Long­Term Utilization, Lamprecht, H., Technical Cooperation, Federal Republic of Germany, 1989 - Energy Options for Africa: Environmentally Sustainable Alternatives, Karekezi, Stephen and Mackenzie, Gordon, Zed Books, Denmark, 1993 - Forests, Trees and People, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Forestry Topics Report No. 2, Rome 1985; - The Forest for the Trees? R Repetto, World Resources Institute, Washington D.C. 1988 - Tropical Forests Action Programme, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, 1986 - Tropical Forest Resources Assessment Project, FAO, in cooperation with UNEP; Rome 1981 - Green Inheritance, Huxley, Anthony, Anchor/Doubleday, New York, 1985 - Tropical Forests: A Call for Action, World Resources Institute, Washington DC, 1985 - Rainforest Action Guide; Rainforest Action Network, USA 1989  Tropical Forest Conservation, Position Paper, WWF International, August 1989 - World Resources, 1994-95: A Guide to the Global Environment, a report by the World Resources Institute with UNEP and UNDP, Oxford University Press, 1994 - Youth Action Guide on Sustainable Development, Hrabar, Dean and Ciparis, Ramona, AIESEC International, London, 1990.

All photos, text and illustrations Copyright ©1996 The United Nations Environment Programme.