Before even considering any solutions, we have to know about the problem. So people are cutting down trees. What's the big deal? They're just trees, right? Who's going to miss them? Well, I could try to pull at your heartstrings and talk about all of the precious little animals that are using those trees as their home, and how they become homeless (or outright die) if their home is cut down. That may work to persuade some people, and it is true. There is a great deal of species loss associated with deforestation, both plants and animals (Britt). But, I said that I wasn't going to do that. So, let's talk instead about the effects on the soil of the deforested land. Trees, of course, have roots. Roots have the wonderful job of not only drawing nutrients from the soil to feed the tree, but holding soil in place (Butler). Think of straining pasta. The colander represents the roots, and the pasta represents the soil. When you put the pasta in the colander, and run water through, you might get the one piece of spaghetti that escapes into the sink, but for the most part, the pasta stays in place. If you take away the colander, though, you've just lost your dinner. It works the same way in nature. And, of course, once the area has lost its soil, it becomes barren, and much more difficult to do anything with (kind of like your kids who thought they were getting spaghetti for dinner, and end up with takeout because your colander disappeared).
Now, this begs the questions- how much soil is actually lost, and where does it all go? The answer to the first question is rather surprising. According to Rhett A. Butler in his article for mongabay.com, entitled “Erosion and it's Effects”, in Costa Rica, soil erosion accounts for a loss of
“about 860 million tons of valuable topsoil every year”, and that in Madagascar, the loss is even greater (Butler). That's a lot of topsoil! Now, where does it go? Well. It goes wherever the water goes. The runoff water goes into streams and rivers, and can wreak havoc with the fish in the streams, and even hydropower plants using that river for energy (Butler). While in the stream, the soil can cover (and kill) fish eggs and decrease the population, and even form new sandbars and other navigational nightmares in previously navigable waters (Butler).
Now, let's move on to what little soil is actually left in the area. Without the trees to provide shade, the sun gets to beat down on this newly exposed soil, and dry it out (Deforestation). Add to that, the fact that all that water that's running off with a lot of the soil isn't soaking in at all, and you've got two sources of soil aridity (Lavigne). According the the study, “Validation and use of a Semidistributed Hydrological Modeling System to Predict Short Term Effects of a Clear Cutting on a Watershed Hydrological Regime”, there was a significant increase in the amount of runoff, jumping from around 40% to around 63% (Lavigne). Basically, what they did in this study was they took one area and left it alone, and another area, and they clear cut it. Then, they measured the runoff in these two areas, and compared them (Lavigne).
Now, the sun beating down on an area does more than just dry it out. When you go and lay in the sun, you get all warm, right? Well the same thing happens to the deforested land. The thing is, though, that the trees used to regulate the temperature, shading during the day, and keeping heat in at night. Without the trees, it gets really hot during the day. That makes sense. But it also gets really cold at night. The temperature extremes increase, meaning that it gets hotter in the day, and colder at night. Many of the plants and animals in the area had adapted to live in the temperature regulated forest, and can't handle the new habitat. As such, they continue to die out, and contribute the the decrease in biodiversity (Deforestation).
Now, as you can see, deforestation is doing some pretty terrible things to our environment. This, of course, begs the question: If it's so terrible, why is it happening? There are many different reasons why it's happening, far too many to talk about here, but let's talk about a few of the main causes.
The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that most of the deforestation taking place is happening in some of the lowest income areas around the world (Freedman). Coincidence? I think not. The areas that are most affected by deforestation are the areas that don't have much else going for them. They need the wood from the forest for heating and cooking (Freedman). Clear cutting often occurs when looking for expensive hardwoods, like Teak and Mahogany (Freedman). Area is also cleared for cattle and other kinds of agriculture (Freedman). Another main source of deforestation comes from mountaintop removal coal mining. In his book, Lost Mountain, Eric Reece details how a mountainside is completely clear cut, and all of the trees are then burned (Reece). This process not only destroys entire mountainsides, but it releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing greatly to global warming (Reece, 33-34). He says, as he looks over the clear cut area on Lost Mountain, that “[t]his mountain has been scalped” (34).
Now that we understand a little better why all of this deforestation is taking place, we can try to find a solution. Here's where that compromise that we touched on earlier comes in. We can, by now I think, agree that something needs to be done with these deforested lands. What makes the most sense would be to reforest them right? We cut down the trees, and it's causing a lot of problems, so let's plant a bunch of trees. It makes sense. Sadly, it's a little more complicated than that. There's a lot that goes into a reforestation project. Simply put, “[r]eforestation is expensive, difficult to plan, and even harder to execute” says Ashley L. Camhi in her commentary on mongabay.com (Camhi). There are many factors that go into the planning of a reforestation project, such as the purpose of the reforested area (Camhi). Will it be used as a carbon sink, to help counteract the effects of global warming (Camhi)? If so, then fast growing, species that pull a great deal of carbon from the atmosphere would be ideal (Camhi). These may not necessarily be native to the area, so that must also be taken into account when planning (Camhi). What about logging? If the area is going to undergo logging, then completely different trees would be planted (Camhi). Then, of course, there is the question of whether or nor genetically altered trees could be used (Camhi).
Sadly, the hard part isn't over once you've decided what trees you're going to plant. You now have to protect the newly planted trees from parasites, weather, and weeds, and continued maintenance has to be provided (Camhi). This can also get pretty expensive. If the proper care is not provided, then the young trees will not survive, and the attempt at reforestation will have failed (Camhi). Another difficulty with any given reforestation project is the possibility that the nearest natural forest could be too far away for cross pollination and recolonization in the reforested area to occur (Toothman).
But, just because it's an expensive and difficult process doesn't mean that it's not possible to turn it into an economically sound investment. There are ways of using the forest in sustainable, yet still profitable ways. There are a couple of different examples of this sort of thing working. Take the Amuesha Indians in Peru- they do what's called “Strip Logging” (Reduced Impact Logging). What they do, is they log a strip of land that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 feet wide (Reduced). When that area is logged, they move on to another location that is far removed from the area just logged, letting that area grow back completely before they touch it again (Reduced). This allows the forest to recover the area before it gets logged again.
Another possibility is the process called “Sustainable Logging” (Sustainable Logging to solve Deforestation). This is practiced in the South Konawe district in Southeast Sulawesi Provence (Sustainable). For those of you like me, who have no sense of geography, this is in Indonesia. This process has actually increased profits from logging going on in the area (Sustainable) Logging in the area was mostly done illegally, and the timber was bringing in a much lower price than it should (Sustainable). A man named Silverius Oscar Unggul took a group of students who had just graduated from college, and went to Indonesia (Sustainable). While there, they learned about how the unemployed were using illegal logging to support their families (Sustainable). They showed them how to do legal, sustainable logging (Sustainable). By planting 10 seedlings for every tree that was cut down, they helped to keep the forest growing strong (Sustainable).But that's not the only thing that grew strong- their profits grew as well. According to Mr. Unggul, “Illegally felled timber fetched Rp 600,000 a cubic meter back then, but eco-labeled logs brought in Rp 6.4 million a cubic meter” (Sustainable). Rp is the abbreviation for Rupiah, which is the currency of Indonesia. So, as you can see, there was a definite increase in the value of their timber.
With practices like sustainable logging and reduced impact logging, it is easy to see how both the interests of the environment, and the needs of humanity can coincide. There is no reason whatsoever to destroy the environment to extract resources from an area, when you can still get the resources you need, while maintaining the health and viability of the environment. All that is needed is a simple compromise between the two needs.
Works Cited
Britt, Dorian. "Environmental effects of deforestation; The facts." Environmental Effects of Deforestation. Google sites. Web. 7 Feb. 2010.
Butler, Rhett A. "Erosion and its Effects." Mongabay.com. 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2010.
Camhi, Ashley L. "Reforestation: Challenges and Opportunities." Mongabay.com. 23 Nov. 2009. Web. 06 Feb. 2010.
"Deforestation." National Geographic. Web. 26 Jan. 2010.
Freedman, Bill. "Deforestation- Causes of Deforestation." Web. 21 Feb. 2010.
Lavigne, Martin-Pierre, Alain N. Rousseau, Richard Turcotte, Anne-Marie Laroche, Jean-Pierre Fortin, and Jean-Pierre Villeneuve. "Validation and Use of a Semidistributed Hydrological Modeling System to Predict Short-Term Effects of Clear-Cutting on a Watershed Hydrological Regime." Earth Interactions Vol. 8.1 (2004): 1-19. EBSCOhost. Web. 26 Jan. 2010.
Reece, Eric. Lost Mountain: a year in the vanishing wilderness: radical strip mining and the devastation of Appalachia. New York, New York: Berkley Group, 2006. Print.
"Reduced Impact Logging." Mongabay.com. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.
"Sustainable logging to solve deforestation." DFID. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.
Toothman, Jessika. "Can we replant the planet's rainforests?." 23 June 2008. Web. 07 February 2010. HowStuffWorks.com.
