harelb@cabot.dartmouth.edu (Harel Barzilai) (06/09/91)
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Loss of Tropical Forests Is Found
Much Worse Than Was Thought
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Loss of Tropical Forests Is Found
Much Worse Than Was Thought
=================================
By Philip Shabecoff, Special to the New York Times
Friday, June 8, 1990 NY Times
================================================
Study Sees Climate Peril and `Tragedy' for World
================================================
"WASHINGTON, June 7 -- Tropical forests, which play a vital role in
regulating the global climate, are disappearing much more rapidly than
previously estimated, an international research group said today. Each
year recently, 40 Million to 50 million acres of tropical forest, an
area the size of Washington state, has been vanishing....
"The rate of loss, measured in most countries in 1987, was nearly 50
percent greater than the last global estimate, prepared by the United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in 1980, according to the
Institute. `"We were startled to uncover this rate of global
deforestation' said James Gustave Speth, president of the institute..
`We were saying we were losing the forests at an acre a second, but it
is much closer to an acre and a half a second'...
"Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate
Agriculture Committee, said in a statement: `This is the first reliable
data we've had on tropical deforestation in 10 years. A situation we
knew was bleak is now shown to be truly horrendous.'...
"The report, `World Resources 1990-91,' prepared [by the World
Resources Institute] in collaboration with the United Nations...was
based on remote sensing date from National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and Landsat satellites...
"Since preagricultural times, the report said, the world has lost
about one-fifth of all its forests, from more than 12 billion acres to
under 10 billion acres...Brazil, with the largest remaining tropical
forests area, is also experiencing the worst losses -- between 12.5
million and 22.5 million acres [per] year... Myanmar (formerly
Burma)is loosing 1.7 million acres per year, more than 500 times the
1980 estimate by the Food and Agricultural Organization. India,
according to the data, is losing its forests at the rate of 3.7
million acres per year. Large areas legally designated as forest land
`are already virtually treeless,'...
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N O T E :
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Re:
"Each year recently, 40 Million to 50 million acres of tropical forest,
an area the size of Washington state, has been vanishing..."
and
"Since preagricultural times, the report said, the world has lost
about one-fifth of all its forests, from more than 12 billion acres to
under 10 billion acres..."
The 10 billion figure refers to *all* forests; in pasting together
excerpts from the article, I missed:
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"The group said 1.9 billion acres of TROPICAL FOREST remained"
------------------------------------------------------------
So the rate is roughly 50M/2B, or about 2.5% [1/40] of all
rainforests on planet earth are destroyed each year (going by 1987
rates)... I don't [*some* people will still want to think of these
as "small" figures, not realizing that maybe 5% or 10% per year
could well mean "too late" by the time we know what hit us.]
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E N D O F N O T E
=================================
"The group's report said that in nine major tropical countries, the
estimates of total annual losses of tropical-forest acreage were about
four times as high as estimates from the years 1981 to 1985...however,
in Brazil, the rate of deforestation declined in 1988 from 1987,
largely because the levels from the latter year were the highest on
record for that country"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated annual loss of tropical forest in nine key countries
(in Thousands of acres)
------------------------------------------------------------------
1981-1985 estimates Recent Estimates
Vietnam 161 427
Thailand 437 981
Philippines 227 353
Myanmar (Burma) 254 1,673
Indonesia 1,482 2,224
India 363 3,707
Costa Rica 160 306
Cameroon 198 247
Brazil 3,657 19,768
[From: U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization;World Resources Institute]
------------------------------------------------------------------
"The disappearance of tropical forests is regarded by environmental
experts as one of the most serious global environmental problems.
Through photosynthesis, the forests absorb huge quantities of carbon
dioxide, the most important of the gases that are accumulating in the
atmosphere. Many scientists believe that carbon dioxide, if not kept
in check, will cause a significant warming of the earth in the next
century, through a process known as the greenhouse effect
"As tropical forests shrink, their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide
declines, thereby hastening the onset and increasing the magnitude of
the warming phenomenon. Moreover, as the vegetation from the cut
forests decays or is burned, it emits more carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere.
"The tropical forests also contain the largest and most diverse
population of plant and animal species of any habitat in the world. As
the forests vanish, so do many of these species, many before they ever
have been discovered, named and analyzed for possible use by human
beings. Tropical forest generally have infertile soil because most of
the nutrients are in the vegetation, not the soil. Thus, when these
forests are cleared they tend to regenerate very slowly, if at all."
"the World Resources report also contains a new index of countries
that are the greatest net contributors to the atmosphere of carbon
dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and methanes, the major gases
contributing to global warming. The U.S. and S.U. are the first and
second-largest net producers of these greenhouse gases, the report
found, adding that if the European Community were considered a single
country, it would rank second behind the U.S. But the next three
countries on the index, surprisingly, were developing nations: Brazil,
China and India"
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[I've re-ordered some of the excerpts from the original article --HB]
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Originally appeared as:
Activists List #11,
R-forest ALERT
Satuarday, June 9, 1990