Jennifer Duitman

English 102

T, Th 3:15

Proposal Paper

Saving the Forests

The rate at which we are loosing our world’s forests is steadily increasing. During the 1980’s, worldwide deforestation rates were at 15 million hectares per year for tropical forests alone (WRM, 1). This compares with 11.3 million hectares that were lost annually during the 70’s- a 50 percent increase (The Problems, 1). And as one might expect, this trend is being continued into the 90’s, as in most parts of the world, the rate of deforestation accelerated during this decade (WRM, 1).

First of all, the effects of deforestation are felt in the atmosphere. Trees soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so that we can breath clean, healthy air. If trees help us breathe, then why are we cutting so many of them down? Besides, forests help stabilize the climate. Cutting down forests releases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, causing 25% of the net warming effect on this planet (Durning, 21).

Another reason why deforestation is a serious issue is the fact that with deforestation comes eroded land which, in turn, leads to lakes and dams that are filled with silt (The Challenge, 9). Flooding can also be a result of deforestation as shown in 1979 when "India suffered $2 billion in property damage and numerous lives in the Ganges Valley in part because of deforestation in northern India and Nepal" (Thompson, 11).

In order to know how to reduce deforestation rates, one first must understand the causes of deforestation. Though the causes are many and varied, there are several main causes that I would like to point out. The first direct cause is probably the most obvious: industrial logging. In fact, industrial logging accounts for 20% of deforestation in low-income nations and approximately 84% in high- income nations (Causes, 2). Industrial logging accounts for the loss of about 1600 million cubic miles of forest per year (2). Today, the most important direct threat to forests in Central Africa, East Siberia, and British Columbia is logging (WRM, 2).

Along with logging comes international trade. Mahogany is a species of tree that is suffering because of export-oriented policy (WRM, 3). The forests of the poorer nations tend to be suffering more because of international trade, as they tend to be the exporters of timber (Causes, 2).

Another obvious cause of deforestation is population growth. As the world’s population increases, more farmland is needed for feeding the growing population, not to mention the fact that more area is needed for these extra people to live.

As strange as it may seem, the introduction of fast food restaurants contributed greatly to deforestation (WRM, 2). Thousands of acres of forest in Central America were cut down to provide pastureland in order to meet the needs of a nation hungry for hamburgers (2). In fact, human-created pasturelands have more than doubled in Central America between 1950 and 1975 (Causes, 2). Although the introduction of fast food contributed to deforestation, the underlying cause was population growth.

All over the world, forests are being cleared for cropland to feed the growing population. In Brazil, forests are being cleared for soybean production (WRM, 2). In Malaysia, 90% of all deforestation in the past decade has been linked to commercial, or plantation, agriculture (Krummer, 326).

Besides feeding the growing population, forests are cleared in order to provide living space as well. Urbanization takes place not only in the United States, but worldwide. In the Philippines, rural population growth was calculated with the regression of deforestation to produce a correlation coefficient of .20 (325). This shows that there is a clear correlation between rural population growth and deforestation rates (325).

The last and perhaps the most important cause of deforestation is government policy. This is an underlying cause of most occurances of deforestation. For example, "in many countries, it is common to find legal expropriation of land held customarily by native peoples, for logging, mining or pastoral use or for sale" (Causes, 4). In Ecuador, deforestation is more or less obligatory for farmers. Since the 1970’s, the Ecuadorian government strongly encouraged migration to forested areas and provided 45-50 hectare plots for the migrants as long as the farmers used the land for agriculture or other "useful" land (WRM, 3).

Along with government policies comes macro-economic policies. Most countries, when faced with monetary problems, tend to increase exports instead of decreasing imports (WRM, 3). Export products, such as coffee, beef, and soybeans, all require deforestation (3). According to the World Rainforest Movement, "one of the major contributory factors in deforestation is the failure of macro-economic bodies like the Bretton Woods Institutions to recognize this relationship between consumption patterns and macro-economic problems (3).

So what are we now to do about deforestation? It is obviously a worldwide problem that is negatively affecting many aspects of our environment and its causes are many and varied. In order to decrease the rate of deforestation to the point where it is no longer harmful to the environment, I propose that both our national and state governments should implement a plan to decrease deforestation in the United States over the next ten years.

This plan should target three main areas: increasing the amount of federally protected or privately owned forests, implementing an extensive reforestation program, and launching a nation-wide campaign to increase paper recycling. This plan alone will not totally eliminate deforestation, but it will at least significantly reduce the rate of tree loss to the point where deforestation will no longer be a major threat to the environment.

In addition to having the government protect more acres of forest land, many acres could be sold to private land owners. Currently, 9.9 million private land owners own a total of 422.3 million acres of forest in the United States (Agriculture, 5). The Stewardship Incentives Program by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service currently provides assistance to private land owners (9). This Private Forestry program represents important tools for "monitoring, management, protection, and better use of America’s forests, with emphasis on non-Federal forest land stewardship" (10). This is not a well known program as most of the public does not realize that there are incentives in owning and effectively managing our nation’s forests. This is an excellent program designed to protect our forests, and I think that our government should make full use of this program.

The next step in the implementation of this proposal is to implement a national reforestation project. It is true that planting trees from seedlings will produce a full grown forest in about fifty years, but at the rate that we are loosing our forests, in fifty years we will need those extra forests (Ecologists Trying, 3). As we all know, Arbor Day is dedicated solely for the purpose of planting more trees to help with the reforestation process.

According to Ex-President George Bush, "Arbor Day celebrates much more than the cultivation of trees. It calls increased attention to the importance of reforestation not only in our national forests but also in tropical forests, rain forests, and wetlands around the world" (The Committee, 1). I believe that Arbor Day should not be the only day that people plant trees. The reforestation process must be a well-planned process concerned with the maintenance of disease-free forests.

One such successful case took place in Brazil. Supported by a strong research program, 60,000 hectares of eucalyptus was planted by Aracuz. This allowed for not only mass reforestation, but also it allowed the researchers to study tree improvement, pathology, entomology, soils, and nutrition (Wadsworth, 350). This mass reforestation planning is what I suggest we do here in America.

The final part of my proposal has to do with launching a nation-wide campaign to increase paper recycling. The basic fact is, the more we recycle, the fewer trees will be cut down. In fact, "recycling all the copies of one edition of the Sunday New York Times could save 75,000 trees" (Why Recycle, 1). In addition, "compared to the manufacturing of new paper from raw woods, recycling can save up to 75% of energy, 50% of processing water, and reduce 75 to 95% of air pollution at the same time if it is manufactured from recycled paper (Paper Recycling, 1).

Many attempts have been made so far to increase recycling, but despite these valid attempts, the amount of paper recycling actually dropped considerably between 1996 and 1997 (Crawford, 1). I suggest that the government start an incentive program much like the five cent deposit for aluminum cans, giving the public an added incentive to recycle their newspapers and office papers.

It is obvious to me that something must be done to decrease the rate of deforestation before it harms our environment any more than it already has. The logging industry tends not to take public concern seriously. Dr. Jean Mater, manager of a sawmill equipment manufacturing company, mockingly states that, when asked how to supply enough lumber for houses with his proposed plan to reduce the allowable cut of the national forests by one third, Gordon Robinson, a Sierra Club representative, suggested that people live in stucco houses as he does (Mater, 4). The logging industry sees the public as being confused and bewildered. Mater later says about the public that "the information pours out, often replete with conflicting statements, garnished with so called facts, directing the public toward specific conclusion, but the public is bewildered and makes bewildering decisions" (16).

I would like to point out the fact that, without public concern and intervention, we would not even have a single acre of protected forest land today. It was concerned conservationists that fought to pass the Creative Act of 1891, which originally set aside forest preserves. Later, influential private citizens led to the Weeks Act of 1911 which regulated private forest activities to prevent continuing forest devastation (Mater, 6).

It is our job as concerned citizens to write to our congress representatives on the issue of deforestation. Without public awareness and intervention, nothing will be done to decrease the rate of deforestation. It is my concern that if we don’t make every attempt possible to decrease this rate, we will soon be facing many more problems which are caused by deforestation’s effect on our environment.

Deforestation is a problem that is effecting many aspects of our environment. The causes of deforestation are many, but the main underlying cause is government policy. I believe that if our government adopts the proposal that I have spoken about in this paper, the rate of deforestation will decrease to a point where tree loss will no longer be a major threat to our environment.

Crawford County Recycling Statistics. http://www.tcelcity.net/crawford/recstat.html.

Durning, Alan Thein. Saving the Forests: What will it Take? Worldwatch Institite: Washington, D.C. 1993.

Kummer, David M. and Turner, B.L. "The Human Causes of Deforestation in Southeast Asia" Bioscience Vol 44 May 1994, pg. 323-328.

Mater, Jean. Citizens Involved: Handle with Care! A Forest Industry Guide To Working with the Public. Timber Press: Forest Grove, Oregon 1977.

The Challenge of Sustainable Forest Management. Food and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations: Rome 1993.

The Committee for National Arbor Day. http://www.nationalarborday.org/426a.htm.

Thomson, M. and Warburton, M. "Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale." Deforestation: Social Dynamics in Watersheds and Mountain Ecosystems. Routledge: London 1988:1-13.

Wadsworth, Frank H. Forest Production for Tropical America. U.S. Department of Agriculture Handbook. December, 1997.