Slash-and-burn agriculture in the rain forest near Puerto Maldanado, Peru. (Photo by R. Butler)
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THREATS FROM HUMANKIND
The greatest cause of tropical rainforest destruction today comes from human activities, which, unlike natural damage, are unrelenting and thorough. Although most of this deforestation is driven by national and international economic forces, a significant proportion serves no long-term purpose; it results from subsistence activities on a local level. Many of the effects from human-induced destruction of the rainforests are probably irreversible within our time.
The role of humans in the deforestation of the world's forests is considerable and extensive. Many activities contribute to this loss including subsistence activities, oil extraction, logging, mining, fires, war, commercial agriculture, cattle ranching, hydroelectric projects, pollution, hunting and poaching, the collection of fuel wood and building material, and road construction. Under current practices, extractive industries (timber, oil, and mineral) promote the development of short term booms that encourage settlement. These booms and resulting settlements can attract large numbers of poor seeking a better life. They clear the surrounding land for agriculture and livestock. Meanwhile, the forest resource, whether it be oil, timber, or minerals, is rapidly depleted with little consideration for the long-term consequences. Once the resource is exhausted, developers move on to new areas, leaving behind a degraded environment and settlers with few livelihood options. Where forest remains, it may be cleared for subsistence agriculture. Most extractive processes in the rainforest are not sustainable as currently practiced.
Like most environmental assets, rainforests are endangered by their status as open-access resources or as common property. (Designating rainforests as open-access resources is not entirely accurate, in light of the lack of formal property rights in certain countries and the limited capacity of many governments to manage and regulate the rainforest lands. However, treating rainforest as such is adequate for this discussion). Under open access, no group has exclusive use of rainforest resources, but essentially everyone enjoys access to the resource. There is little incentive for conservation with the mentality of "If I do not get the resource someone else will," and forest is depleted by industry and small farmer alike. In addition, economic incentives like subsidies and tax breaks for forest developers distort the direct costs of harvesting and converting tropical rainforests. The result is market failure, where the prices for tropical timber products and other goods derived from rainforest destruction do not reflect the full environmental costs of the loss of goods and services provided by the ecosystem. Therefore, by offering these incentives, the government effectively makes it profitable for firms to convert forest for development purposes where it normally would not be profitable.
Another contributor to commercial forest destruction is the outstanding debts of developing countries, which cause them to seek quick ways to raise revenue to make debt payments. However, the elemental underlying cause of deforestation is population growth, both in developing countries, which depend on forest lands for sustenance, and in developed countries, which demand products made from forest resources.
We humans have always cleared the forest for our own interests, but in the past, the process was slow and only limited regions were deforested, generally for subsistence agriculture. However, today, humanity is far more efficient at clearing the forest with our advanced technology and machinery and the drive to earn profits in the near term.
Changing drivers of deforestation in the 1990s and 2000s
Drivers of deforestation have shifted since the 1980s and 1990s--today the bulk of deforestation is driven by international trade and commodity production, rather than rural poverty. For more on this change and its implications, please see:
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Continued: Subsistence Activities
This article was written by Rhett A. Butler [bibliographic citation for this page] and was last updated on the most recent date listed in the column on the right side.
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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Recent news
Humans drove rainforest into savannah in ancient Africa
(02/09/2012) Three thousand years ago (around 1000 BCE) several large sections of the Congo rainforest in central Africa suddenly vanished and became savannah. Scientists have long believed the loss of the forest was due to changes in the climate, however a new study in Science implicates an additional culprit: humans. The study argues that a migration of farmers into the region led to rapid land-use changes from agriculture and iron smelting, eventually causing the collapse of rainforest in places and a rise of grasslands. The study has implications for today as scientists warn that the potent combination of deforestation and climate change could flip parts of the Amazon rainforest as well into savannah.
New book series hopes to inspire research in world's 'hottest biodiversity hotspot'
(01/17/2012) Entomologist Dmitry Telnov hopes his new pet project will inspire and disseminate research about one of the world's last unexplored biogeographical regions: Wallacea and New Guinea. Incredibly rich in biodiversity and still full of unknown species, the region, also known as the Indo-Australian transition, spans many of the tropical islands of the Pacific, including Indonesia's Sulawesi, Komodo and Flores, as well as East Timor—the historically famous "spice islands" of the Moluccan Archipelago—the Solomon Islands, and, of course, New Guinea. Telnov has begun a new book series, entitled Biodiversity, Biogeography and Nature Conservation in Wallacea and New Guinea, that aims to compile and highlight new research in the region, focusing both on biology and conservation. The first volume, currently available, also includes the description of 150 new species.
New frog trumps miniscule fish for title of 'world's smallest vertebrate'
(01/12/2012) How small can you be and still have a spine? Scientists are continually surprised by the answer. Researchers have discovered a new species of frog in Papua New Guinea that is smaller than many insects and dwarfed by a dime. The frog trumps the previously known smallest vertebrate—a tiny fish—by nearly 1 millimeter.
As Amazon deforestation falls, food production rises
(01/09/2012) A sharp drop in deforestation has been accompanied by an increase in food production in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, reports a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The research argues that policy interventions, combined with pressure from environmental groups, have encouraged agricultural expansion in already-deforested areas, rather than driving new forest clearing.
Evidence mounts that Maya did themselves in through deforestation
(12/08/2011) Researchers have garnered further evidence for a smoking gun behind the fall of the great Maya civilization: deforestation. At the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, climatologist Ben Cook presented recent research showing how the destruction of rainforests by the Mayan ultimately led to declines in precipitation and possibly civilization-rocking droughts. While the idea that the Maya may have committed ecological-suicide through deforestation has been widely discussed, including in Jared Diamond's popular book Collapse, Cook's findings add greater weight to the theory.
More news on rainforest agriculture
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