Rainforests
Rainforest deforestation is a big problem, according to “The Scientific American” we are losing about 80’000 acres of rainforest each day and are degrading another 80’000 acres on top of that. With the cut down of the rainforests we are making extinct about 135 plant, animal, and insect species per day or about 50’000 species a year. This is a devastating effect on the ecosystem of the planet.
About 50% of our modern pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforests. If we lose the rainforest we could be in serious trouble. In addition to this, only about 1% of the original total species in the rainforest have been tested for medical applications (medicine). This means that we don’t know what we are losing when we cut down more trees. For all we know, the only plant/herb/animal that held the cure for cancer already extinct.
In addition to the above reasons, there are many native and indigenous tribes and people. Some of these tribes have participated in slashing and burning of trees to make charcoal and to create farmland. This is worrying because the slash and burn method also releases carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere. Plus, apart from charcoal and farm land there isn’t much to be gained from the slash and burn technique as a large portion of the wood is rendered unfit of commercial sale. The more of the rainforest that we cut down the less living space the tribes that live in the forest have, and like most tribes, some of them have bad relations with each other. Pushing them closer together would inevitably increase tensions between two tribes thus leading to conflict. Then, if we continue to cut down all of the rainforests, the tribes would be left with forest for them to live on them at all.
Some solutions that are feasible are, encouraging logging companies to use tree farms opposed to cutting down rainforests, increase the amount of legislation to protect rainforests, and enforce current legislation to attempt to stop illegal logging. To encourage logging companies to use tree farms, we could pressure governments to give subsidies to tree farm produced wood or we could pressure governments to place higher taxes on wood that is produced from cutting down rainforests. The cost of giving subsidies could be quite high, so I think that it would be more reasonable for (mostly third world governments) to use the second option and place more taxes on rainforest wood. Currently, rainforests are one of the most protected pieces of land in the world. I don’t think that more legislation will help, however I believe that tougher enforcement of current laws to reduce illegal logging. The cost of increased enforcement could be extremely high, for example, say you wanted to employ 2 Million police officers to cover about 4.24 square kilometers of rainforest each. Let’s assume that you are in Brazil as they have one of the highest quantities of rainforests in the world, the average yearly salary of a police officer is about 7367 USD, this means to recruit 2 Million police officers it would cost about 14 Billion USD per year. The only feasible way to get the public to agree with this would be for a large amount of countries each pitching in amounts relative to their surplus.
In conclusion saving the rain forests will be a hard and arduous task, however it is necessary to start now before it is too late to start.
