threatened forests
The Center for International Forestry
Research has calculated that 100 million
people depend on forests to supply key
elements needed for their survival, whether
it be resources like food, fuelwood,
medicine, bushmeat, housing, compost for
agriculture, or income. However, half of
global forests have already disappeared,
deforestation continues apace, and the
health of remaining forests is declining
rapidly.
There are many pressures on forests, but
the greatest threat is the expansion of
large-scale monocultures like soy, oil palm
and pulp plantations. An important
underlying cause of deforestation is the
growing production and trade of forest
products fueled by rising consumption,
especially in wealthier countries. Paper,
pulp and plywood are the fastest growing
commodities, and make up the lion's share
of the global forest trade in terms of
value. Wood consumption is far from evenly
distributed: in 2000, more than half of the
industrial timber and 72% of the world's
paper was consumed by the 22% of the
world's population which lives in the US,
Europe and Japan .
There is a clear link between forest
degradation and human poverty. Friends of
the Earth Costa Rica has documented a
strong correlation between rural poverty
and timber exploitation in tropical forests
(Coecoceiba, 2003). Extensive logging in
the past decades in Malaysia has destroyed
the health, rivers and livelihoods of
indigenous forest communities (
see page 13
). The Katkari
indigenous people of India have been forced
to learn to cultivate land due to the
disappearance of their native forests as a
result of colonialization, leaving them
vulnerable to malnutrition and starvation (
see page 39
).
In addition to jeopardizing people's
livelihoods, forest destruction increases
the vulnerability of communities to
environmental threats. It is widely
acknowledged that the destruction caused by
Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998
would have been significantly lighter if
the affected areas had been less
deforested. Similarly, the tsunami that
ravaged Asia in 2004 would have been less
devastating to coastline communities and
ecosystems if mangroves and coastal forests
had still been intact.
