Deforestation: enough already

[Destroying rainforest for

economic gain] is like burning a
Renaissance painting to cook a
meal.
E. O. Wilson1

In todays ecologist groups, one of the most popular themes of debate

and reasons of lobbying various governmental institutions is the one of
deforestation. Its partisans, as well as its adversaries, fight quite a fierce war
on barricades built on trees on one side and probably recycled plastic on the
other. They all bring arguments more or less founded but leaving aside the
irony of writing Save the Trees on paper placards it is the side of forestfriendly people that should have the last word, although in most cases it
ultimately happens otherwise. Forests and especially rainforests, since they
are the greatest in size, number of species and so on are of unquestionable
importance to the survival of humankind as a species.
When it comes to justifying deforestation, what its supporters place on
a golden pedestal is the rapid growth of world population and, as a
consequence, the just as rapid growth of food necessities. This naturally
leads to greater need for cultivable land and pasture land for animal farms
so down go the forests to make space for agriculture. But if one takes a look
at the statistics made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, it is revealed that the real reason why the food consumption has
reached unprecedented peaks and is definitely going to increase further on is
in fact very different from what most people think. It is not the consumed
food, but the wasted food that has become an actual problem. While the
daily food consumption per capita in the US, for instance, is more than
double the necessary amount (3770 vs. 1800 kcal 2), it is a worrying fact in
the first place that more than half the African continent has to survive on
1 Edward Osborne Wilson, American biologist and environmentalist, quoted in
Sheppard, R. Z., Nature: Splendour in The Grass, Time Magazine, New York, 3 Sept.
1990, retrieved 19.11.2013 from
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,971049,00.html on
2 FAOUN quoted in List of countries by food energy intake on Wikipedia.org,
retrieved on 19.11.2013 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_food_energy_intake

subsistence rations3. But the things get a lot worse: the amount of food lost
or wasted annually on world scale is about one third of global food
production4: around 220 million tonnes of food are wasted by rich countries,
leading to a $165 billion loss in the US only 5. And that happens because of
the flawed logic of people who mistake best before for use by and throw
away otherwise good food, or simply cant manage their own grocery
buying6. So basically, its not that the food is insufficient: it is simply that the
food management on world level is bad beyond all imagination and that
results in the huge disparities between rich and poor countries, as well as the
virtual ( to be read not real) need for an increased food production.
Returning to the main issue here, that of deforestation, the facts that
lean the balance in favour of the green side are far from being over. This
strategy of cutting down forests and replacing them with food producing
land, though useful at the very moment of its implementation, is bound to
work against itself in the long run, researchers say. The current rate of
decline in natural resources is expected to reduce the global GDP by 7% by
2050, says the report issued at the Convention on Biological Diversity in
Bonn and that is the global GDP: the low-income population that relies on
these resources will suffer a drop of about 40-50% 7. Then, there are some
keywords that ring a bell in pretty much anyones mind: landslides,
pollution, greenhouse gases, global warming and so on things that
are known to be unstoppable but by the things that one either hangs a swing
or takes apples from. As such, it should be as clear as clear gets that
removing the immense number of trees that we currently do is only going to
make all these matters worse.
Another thing of major importance that many seem to forget is the
huge potential that forests present in many significant domains. Who knows
whether the cure for cancer or AIDS could have been discovered among one
3 Idem
4 One third of all food wasted! retrieved on 19.11.2013 from
http://www.unric.org/en/food-waste/27133-one-third-of-all-food-wasted
5 US Natural Resources Defence Council, in People misread use by label; 40% of
U.S. food is tossed, The Seattle Times, 18.09.2013, retrieved on 19.10.2013 from
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021850636_foodwastexml.html
6 Idem
7 Black, Richard, Nature loss to hurt global poor, BBC News, 29.05.2008, retrieved
on 19.11.2013 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7424535.stm

of the 50 000 species of animals and plants lost annually due to rainforest
being cut down8, since there is a huge number of pharmaceuticals already
using ingredients taken from the rainforests. 9 Same goes for lots of kinds of
food: if our ancestors had burnt the South-American forests, nobody would
now enjoy the taste of chocolate.
Nobody can ever estimate how much good forests could do us if left at
peace. On the other hand, there are lots of estimations of the damage
caused by their removal, and it is enough to look at the statistics, if not read
or see the actual stories, in order for any sane person to immediately put the
axe down. The conclusion of all these fights between human and nature
should be an urgent and permanent stop, since we are almost literally
cutting the branch beneath our feet.

8Taylor, Lexie, Rainforest facts, Milton County, TX, U.S., 1996, retrieved on
19.11.2013 from http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm#.UouJm8SGrRc
9 Idem