GLOBAL DEFORESTATION

Global Deforestation

Global Deforestation

Introduction

In some cases, deforestation can be beneficial. Given the right mix of social needs, economic opportunities, and environmental conditions, it can be a rational conversion from one type of land use to a more productive one. It can lead to highways of communication being created. Minerals that bring a country much needed capital can be used to create a better life for the peoples of that country. In the long term these activities may be fuelling Brazil's advance into a major trading power.

Global Deforestation

These are far reaching and all encompassing effects. The tragedy lies in the fact that most lands that have been deforested in recent decades are not suited for long-term farming or ranching and they quickly degrade once the forest has been cut and burnt. Unlike the fertile soils of temperate latitudes, most tropical forest soils cannot sustain annual cropping. The carrying capacity of the soil will not support intensive annual cropping without rapid, irreversible degradation. Similarly, intensive cattle grazing cannot be supported because grasses grown on forest soils do not have the same productivity levels as those on arable soils. In fact, there are very few forested soils in developing countries today that are available for future agricultural expansion, underscoring the urgent need to increase agricultural production on existing farmlands rather than converting more forests to farms.

In many cases, political decision-makers knowingly permit deforestation to continue because it acts as a social and economic safety valve. By giving people free access to forested lands, the pressure is taken off politicians to resolve the more politically sensitive problems that face developing countries, such as land reform, rural development and power-sharing. However it means conflicts spring up between groups in the rainforests .Conservationist and loggers go head to head. Miners and drillers may clash over a piece of land. Nonetheless, the problems do not go away. They persist as do the injustices associated with them.

The local, human social consequences of deforestation are many, often with devastating long-term impacts. For indigenous communities, the arrival of "civilization" usually means the destruction of their traditional life-style and the breakdown of their social institutions. Individual and collective rights to the forest resource have been frequently ignored and indigenous peoples and local communities have typically been excluded from the decisions that directly impact upon their lives. Many of the indigenous peoples of the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Rondônia have been encroached upon by slash-and-burn farmers, ranchers, and goldminers, often resulting in violent confrontations. The intrusion of outsiders destroys traditional life styles, customs, and religious beliefs, unique to these last outposts of self sufficient peoples.

Watersheds that once supplied communities with their drinking water and farms with irrigation water have become subject to extreme fluctuations in water flow. This can also be due to dam building. The off shoot of this is that many of Brazil's inhabitants will gain electricity, something positive. This is a local physical and human consequence. Logging has directly and indirectly damaged spawning grounds, blocked river channels, raised ...