E-Weekly-5/10
Green Earth Movement
An E-Newsletter for the cause of Environment, Peace, Harmony and Justice
Remember - “you and I can decide the future”
FORESTS
ARE
GREEN
LUNGS
We all have an inherent
understanding that our
lives are better because
of forests.
People heal faster when
they can see trees out
the hospital window.
People willingly pay much more for a home with
mature trees. Forests are called the “lungs of the
earth”, and work against climate change. There is a
purifying and moderating role for trees and forests
related to water that is more important now than
ever.
Forests are essential to our survival and well-being.
Forests clean our air, our water, our soil and they
regulate our climate, amongst many other things.
Trees and forests are not always associated with
urban landscapes. However, there too they provide
invaluable, often invisible, services. Simply by acting
as 'green oasis' in our concrete jungles, they offer
recreation and health services for many.
How many of us love strolling through parks and
green spaces in cities, tending our gardens and
filling our homes with green plants? Access to
green environments makes us happier and our
bodies healthier. Scientific studies show that urban
forests and green
spaces help improve
physical health and
mental well-being.
With more and more
people living in urban
areas, trees, forests and green spaces mean more
than ever before.
A. BENEFITS OF FORESTS
1. Forests Absorb and store carbon – Because trees
absorb carbon dioxide
and turn it into wood, where
the carbon stays bound up
for hundreds or even
thousands of years, living
forests are an important part
of the earth’s climate system.
Growing trees soak up CO2
from the atmosphere and store it in their trunks,
roots, leaves, and forest soils.
2. Home to people – Three hundred
million people around the world
actively live in forests and depend
on them directly as sources of food,
medicine and livelihoods.
3. Source of jobs and livelihoods – More than 1.6 billion
people around the world depend on
forests to some extent for their
livelihood, according to the FAO. Some
60 million indigenous people are
completely dependent on forests for
all aspects of their survival. And about
10 million people are employed in
forest management and conservation
around the world.
4. Wood for furniture, lumber, firewood and other
products – In the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, many
local communities sustainably harvest mahogany and
other wood, as well as chicle, which is used to make
chewing gum. Panama hats
are actually made from an
understory palm from the
coastal dry forests of Ecuador.
In total, about 30 percent of
the world’s forests are used
for production of wood and
non-wood products (such as food, resins, medicines,
etc.).
5. Habitat for mammals, birds, insects – Forests
are home to almost half of the world’s species,
with some of the richest biodiversity found in
tropical forests. Insects and worm help cycle
nutrients through the soil. Many rare and
endangered
species, such as
orangutans,
gorillas and pandas,
depend on dense
patches of isolated
forest.
6. Preventing flooding – During times of heavy
rainfall, lowland forests such as those in
floodplains help to absorb water and slow flood
flows, preventing damage to soil, property and
buildings. Lowland forests such as the blackwater
swamps of the Southeast are also spectacularly
beautiful habitat for a wide range of wildlife.
7. Conserving soil and water – Trees
are an important part of the water
cycle. By helping slow runoff and
allowing water to filter into the soil,
they can preserve groundwater
supplies that are important both to
people as drinking water and to fish
and other aquatic life in nearby
streams. Trees also help hold soil in
place, reducing erosion by both water
and wind. Deforestation in Inner Mongolia plays a role in
dust storms that afflict Beijing and other East Asian cities.
China has embarked on an ambitious reforestation effort
in part to alleviate these problems.
8. Regulating regional climate – When trees are planted in cities,
they can help to ease the “heat island” effect and provide cooling
shade for homes and buildings, reducing energy usage for air
conditioning in the summer. When planted strategically, they can
provide effective wind barriers. Large forests also play a role in
weather and rainfall patterns and micro-climates. For example, the
Amazon rainforest creates conditions that result in regular
precipitation for lands to the south that are productive agricultural
areas and are thought to even enhance rainfall in the Great Plains
of the United States.
9. Natural beauty – Trees and forests are
sources of human inspiration and enjoyment –
even from afar. Trees are
a symbol of life, and in
our modern times, of
a movement to sustain
the environment that
all people depend upon.
Polling by The Nature
Conservancy shows that more than 90 percent
of Americans report that trees give them a
feeling of peace and tranquility.
10. So we can put trail blazes on something – The
establishment of protected areas and parks often
allow for development of trails for hiking, snow
sports, and bird-watching, providing people who live
outside of forests with a refuge for recreation,
tourism, and educational
activities. Walking in a
forest can be a source of
spiritual renewal for many
(stillness broken by the
whispering of pines, the
call of an owl or the rustling
of a small animal through brush and dried leaves).
B. CAUSES FOR DELCINE IN FOREST COVER
1. AGRICUTURE:
About 60 per cent of the
clearing of tropical moist
forests is for agricultural
settlement. Millions of
people live on the tropical
forest with less than a dollar
a day where a third of a
billion are estimated to be foreign settlers. However, as the
land degrades people are forced to migrate, exploring new
forest frontiers increasing deforestation. Deforestation is
proxied by the expansion of agricultural land. Thus
agricultural land expansion is generally viewed as the main
source of deforestation.
2. Forest and other plantations:
Plantations are a positive benefit
and should assist in reducing the
rate of deforestation. The fact that
plantations remove the timber
pressure on natural forests does
not translate eventually into less,
but rather into more deforestation.
Indeed, it is feared that agricultural expansion which is the main cause
of deforestation in the tropics might replace forestry in the remaining
natural forests. The impact of timber plantations could thus turn out to
be quite detrimental to tropical forest ecosystems . Tree crops and
rubber in particular plays a more important role in deforestation in
Indonesia than subsistence-oriented shifting cultivation. Moreover
plantations can promote deforestation by constructing roads that
improve access of the shifting cultivators and others to the forest
frontier.
3. Logging and fuel wood
Logging does not necessarily cause deforestation. However,
logging can seriously degrade forests . Logging in Southeast Asia is
more intensive and can be quite destructive. However, logging
provides access roads to follow-on settlers and log scales can help
finance the cost of clearing
remaining trees and preparing land
for planting of crops or pasture.
Logging thus catalyzes deforestation .
Fuelwood gathering is often
concentrated in tropical dry forests
and degraded forest areas. Fuelwood is not usually the major
cause of deforestation in the humid tropics although it can be in
some populated regions with reduced forest area such as in the
Philippines, Thailand and parts of Central America.
4. Overgrazing
Overgrazing is more common in drier areas of the tropics where
pastures degraded by overgrazing are subject to soil erosion.
Stripping trees to provide fodder for grazing animals can also be a
problem in some dry areas of the tropics but is probably not a
major cause of deforestation. Overgrazing are causing large areas
of grasslands north of Beijing and in Inner Mongolia and Qinghai
province to turn into a desert. Animals remove the vegetation and
winds finished the job by blowing away
the top soil, transforming grasslands
into desert. When a herder was asked
why he was grazing goats next to a sign
that said “Protect vegetation, no
grazing,” he said, “The lands are too
infertile to grow Crops — herding is the
only way for us to survive.”
5. Fires
Fires are a major tool used in clearing the forest for
shifting and permanent agriculture and for developing
pastures. Fire is a good servant but has a poor master.
Fire used responsibly can be a valuable tool in
agricultural and forest management but if abused it
can be a significant cause of deforestation .
6. Mining
Mining is very intensive and very
destructive. The area of land involved
is quite small and it is not seen as a
major cause of primary deforestation.
Mining is a lucrative activity promoting
development booms which may attract
population growth with consequent
deforestation. The deforestation rate due to mining activities in Guyana from
2000 to 2008 increased 2.77 times according to an assessment by the World
Wildlife Fund-Guianas . Similarly, in the Philippines, mining, along with logging,
has been among the forces behind the country’s loss of forest cover: from 17
million hectares in 1934 to just three million in 2003 or an 82 per cent decline.
Nyamagari hills in Orissa India currently threatened by Vedanta Aluminum
Corporation's plan to start bauxite mining will destroy 750 hectares of reserved
forest. Massive and unchecked mining of coal, iron ore and bauxite in
Jharkhand, India has caused large scale deforestation and created a huge water
scarcity.
7. Urbanization/industrialization and infra-structure
Expanding cities and towns require land to establish the
infrastructures necessary to support growing population which is
done by clearing the forests. Tropical forests are a major target of
infra-structure developments for oil exploitation, logging concessions
or hydropower dam construction which inevitably conveys the
expansion of the road network and
the construction of roads in pristine
areas. The construction of roads,
railways, bridges, and airports opens
up the land to development and
brings increasing numbers of people
to the forest frontier. Whether
supported or not by the
governmental programmes, these settlers have usually colonized the
forest by using logging trails or new roads.
8. Air pollution
Air pollution is associated with degradation of some European
and North American forests. The syndrome is called
“Waldsterben” or forest death. In 1982, eight per cent of all
West German trees exhibited damage that rose to about 52
per cent by 1987 and half of the trees reported dying of
Waldsterben in the Alps. High elevation forests show the
earliest damage including forests in the north-east and central
United States.
9. Wars and role of the military
It is well established that military
operations caused deforestation
during the Vietnam war and
elsewhere. More recently, linkages
have been documented between the civil war in Myanmar
and the timber trade between Myanmar and Thailand.
Myanmar regime sells timber to the Thais to finance its civil
war against the Karen hill tribe. Forest destruction in El
Salvador has resulted from war. Apart from military
involvements in wars, the role of military in deforestation has
been documented in Southeast Asia and South America. The
authors also observed that role of powerful military in
Brazilian politics are a major cause of Amazonian forest
destruction.
10. Tourism
National parks and sanctuaries beyond doubt protect the forests, but
uncautioned and improper opening of these areas to the public for tourism is
damaging. Unfortunately, the national governments adopt tourism for easy
way of making money sacrificing the stringent management strategies. Further,
many companies and resorts who advertise themselves as eco-tourist
establishments are in fact exploiting the forests for profit. For instance, the
Chilapatta Reserve Forest is opened for eco-tourism for its ancient ruins deep
in the forest and a tree species Myristica longifolia that exudes a blood like sap
when injured. The site has become a
popular eco-tourist destination because
of the ruins and for this blood exuding
tree. In the whole forest only eight
individuals were found but two of the
trees in the near vicinity of the ruins
completely dried away due to
repeated injuries caused to the plants by the curious tourists. In fact, in the
name of eco-tourism, infra-structure development is taking place mostly be
the private players in these wilderness areas which are further detrimental to
the forests.
DECLINE IN FOREST COVER
Forests cover 31 percent of the world’s land surface, just over 4 billion
hectares. (One hectare = 2.47 acres.) This is down from the pre-industrial area
of 5.9 billion hectares. According to data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization, deforestation was at its highest rate in the 1990s, when each
year the world lost on average 16 million hectares of forest—roughly the size
of the state of Michigan. At the same time, forest area expanded in some
places, either through planting or natural processes, bringing the global net
loss of forest to 8.3 million hectares
per year. In the first decade of this
century, the rate of deforestation
was slightly lower, but still, a
disturbingly high 13 million
hectares were destroyed annually.
As forest expansion remained
stable, the global net forest loss
between 2000 and 2010 was
5.2 million hectares per year.
The World Rainforest Movement’s ‘Emergency Call to Action for the
forests and their Peoples’ asserts that “deforestation is the inevitable
result of the current social and economic policies being carried out in the
name of development”. It is in the name of development that irrational
and unscrupulous logging, cash crops, cattle ranching, large dams,
colonisation schemes, the dispossession of peasants and indigenous
peoples and promotion of tourism is carried out. Harrison Ngau, an
indigenous tribesman from Sarawak, Malaysia and winner of the
Goldman Environment Award in 1990 puts the cause of tropical
deforestation like this, “the roots of the problem of deforestation and
waste of resources are located in the industrialized countries where most
of our resources such as tropical timber end up. The rich nations with one
quarter of the world’s population consume four fifth of the world’s
resources. It is the throw away culture of the industrialized countries now
advertised in and forced on to the Third World countries that is leading to
the throwing away of the world. Such so-called progress leads to
destruction and despair”! Such a development leads to overconsumption
which is the basic underlying cause of deforestation.
TO CONCLUDE WITH A QUOTE
“What an irony it is that these living beings
whose shade we sit in,
whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb,
whose roots we water, to
whom most of us rarely give a second thought,
are so poorly
understood. We need to come,
as soon as possible, to a profound
understanding and appreciation
for trees and forests and
the vital role they play,
for they are among our best allies
in the uncertain future that is unfolding.”
― Jim Robbins
This educational PowerPoint Presentation (editable)
is prepared by GEM Team
(courtesy: internet).
For other similar GEM PowerPoint Presentations on
various environmental issues see next slide.
These PPTs may be downloaded from our website
www.stfrancisxavierpanvel.in
Or visit GEM FACEBOOK
http://www.facebook.com/gemenewsletter
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Solar Energy -(Darkness
to Light)
Junk Food
Twenty Tips To Save
Nature
Plastic – a boon or
bane?
Green Passion
Soft drink – A Health
Hazard
Waste to energy
Rain Water Harvesting
Eco-friendly Religions
Happy Green Diwali
Climate Change
The future of Biodiversity
Genetically Modified
Foods
Waste Water Treatment
Give thanks, Give Life
(Body, Organ, Tissue
Donation)
Organic Farming
Waste to cooking gas
Reduce, Reuse. Recycle
Protect Mangroves
Say NO to Bottled water
Save Lakes and Ponds
Forests are green lungs