The big problem of the deforestation

Nowadays deforestation is a major problem throughout the tropics. Uncontrolled logging of trees, especially in rainforest still goes on. Subsistence farming is practiced by millions of people who farm the land by burning a part of the forest and planting crops in the seemingly rich soil. The problem is that despite the lush appearance of the forest, the underlying soil is not that fertile. Its fertility is not inherent but comes from a complex interaction of the plants, trees, bacteria and insects that live only in the forest. After burning the forest, crops can only be grown for a couple of years before the soil is depleted and the farmer moves on to burn another section of forest. He leaves behind a dead space directly exposed to the burning sun and torrential rain. The land will take many years to recover. Sometimes it never recovers. What's more, if the topsoil is lost, the land will never recover at all and the topsoil washes into rivers and streams causing further ecological disruption downstream. Even if the fertility of the land recovers it will never truly return to its original state, as discussed below. 

About one half of the forests that covered the Earth are gone. Each year, another 16 million hectares disappear. The World Resources Institute estimates that only about 22% of the world's (old growth) original forest cover remains "intact" - most of this is in three large areas: the Canadian and Alaskan boreal forest, the boreal forest of Russia, and the tropical forest of the northwestern Amazon Basin and the Guyana Shield (Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Columbia, etc.)

Today, forests cover more than one quarter of the world's total land area, excluding polar regions. Slightly more than 50% of the forests are found in the tropics and the rest are temperate and boreal (coniferous northern forest) zones.  

The saddest aspect of forest destruction is the loss of species. The rainforest is a virtual laboratory of interdependent bacteria, moss, lichen, bromeliads, epiphytes, trees and insects. Most of these have not even been cataloged, much less studied. Some of the most beneficial medical discoveries in recent times have come from rainforest life forms. It has been learned that each part of the forest contains some unique species that evolved and live only in that part of the forest. Each square mile of the forest reveals new species unique to that area. When that part of the forest is destroyed, the species unique to that part are lost forever.

The area around El Rancho along the Caribbean Highway between Rio Dulce and Guatemala City is an example of what can happen after clearcutting of the forest. The whole area around El Rancho is a desert with exposed tan colored soil, occasional scrub and brush, yellow weeds and two prominent types of cactus. But it didn't used to be this way. Hank McLaughlin, a long-time resident of Guatemala remembers in the early 80's when it still was an evergreen forest. In the space of 20 years, hundreds of square miles of Guatemala have become a hot, uncomfortable desert. Residents of the area can remember when there were plentiful pine trees and the temperatures much cooler. Local effects are also observed in Guatemala City which has grown much in the last 20 years and now sprawls in all directions over the surrounding hills. Local residents complain that temperatures in the city used to be much cooler, before the surrounding hills became covered with concrete and asphalt.

This situation is happening in most of the world's rainforest like in the Amazons or in the woods of Borneo, and the effects are ver clear. The solution to the deforestation is obviously clear, we have to look after te foest and prevent uncontrolled logging. However, it is not as easy as we think because there are a lot of companies that take many benefits from this situation. These companies only care about short-term benefits but they know that long-term will not have trees to cut down if they continue down that road. This seem very stupid but this mentality is deeply rooted in our society.

If you want, you can answer these questions about the text:

1-Are the rainforest areas good for farming?

2-Why do the farmer have to burn another section of forest if they have one yet?

3-How many hectares of woods disappear every year in the Earth?

4-In your opinion, why the last world's original forest are intact?

5-What is the connection between the deforestation and the loss of the species?

6-What happened in the area around “El Rancho”?

7-Do you know other place that happens something similar?

8-Do you think that most of the big companies in our world do not care abot the climatic change?

Why or why not?

Kevin Manzanera