L185_Tma04_Part_2

L185 TMA04 part 2 Rainforests have been declining rapidly over the last few decades. There are various factors responsible for this decline, resulting in serious impacts on the environment and the economy. Critically discuss the causes of deforestation and solutions to it. Irresponsible and destructive activity caused by the human beings has resulted in deforestation. This phenomena have extended rapidly, and the rainforests are severely threatened of extinction. Forests are seen mainly as a primary resource, an exhaustible resource of high commercial value. On the other hand, trees are the foundation of our life on the earth, give us oxygen, so we are able to breathe and live. Rainforests are the domain of nearly half of the world’s species; a comprehensive biological and genetic bank. They offer various specific environments, which generate and maintain the biodiversity. Rainforests are also crucial in the climate situation by regulating gases in the atmosphere, protecting the environment from desertification. The importance of these elements, which generates an intense and critical debate, would assist in the betterment of the deforestation problems. These valuable ecosystems are the most threatened on the globe. Recent FAO statistics show that each day at least 80,000 acres of forest disappears along with several hundred species. While these forests vanish, more CO2 is added to the atmosphere contributing to a change in climatic conditions. CO2 emissions are generating nearly 20% of the global greenhouse emission. Despite the Amazon deforestation, the rate is at a lower point since the data record was introduced in previous decades. According to WWF Brazil, nations should focus on decreasing deforestation along with the reduction of the emissions generated. Claudio Maretti WWF-Brazil Conservation Director, suggested an implementation of a regular payment mechanism support, which would compensate those who conserve the standing forest. The problem of deforestation has many different causes., in order to understand, how to implement an effective cash incentive, the benefit or value accrued by the society and the private agents as a result of the deforestation need to separated. It seems to be sure that one of the causes of deforestation is the result of market failure, where society and private agents such as corporation, community, entrepreneurs and cultivators ignore each other and the complementary actions. Adam Smith’s opinion is that a free trade with rules does not guarantee the reciprocal and adequate exchange of goods, products and services while the “invisible hand” would handle the related parts to interchange goods in the most mutually beneficial way (OU Block 4 Section 4 text 4.5 good). However, many private agents have no interest in protecting the forests’ biodiversity as the forests are providing value which could not be charged. Add a more general theme sentence here. According to the World Bank Forestry Policy (1991), Pearce and Watford (1993), poverty is another reason of the deforestation, a common shared view is “high discount rates” to poor countries are a cause of deforestation. Caused by the forests’ long term dynamics, private agents from poor countries consider the forest as an immediate benefit to be trade today and not as a valuable future resource. However, in a recent World Bank examination, Ekbom and Bojo (1999) challenged those opinions by demonstrating that poverty does not always guide towards the resources excessive usage as in the previous centuries. Recourses were used in a conservationist manner by the rural population. Ostrom (1990) has identified that rural people used resources in a sustainable manner for long periods of time. As determined by WWF International, there are many other process that are being taken in an attempt to avoid an Amazon tipping point. Landowners burn the forests to prepare the property for the intensive agriculture and cattle grazing. The forests are rapidly recovering from fire, landowners are instructed to refrain from using fire as a tool for the creation of new plantings, especially during the forest re-growing periods (Uhl et al.1988, Nepsad et al.1991, Jipp et at.1998). In Brazil, in order to promote responsible land stewardship, customers or buyers to purchase products, with the desire to identify the producers and production stage more transparently, a certifications scheme such as the Registry of Socio-environmental Responsibility have been created by nongovernmental organizations (Cadastro de Compromisso Socioambiental – CCS). Another key factor to reduce the negative impact of logging in the rainforest, is the creation of forest reserves and management of the timber (Holmes et at.2002, Barreto et al 1998). Therefore, the creation of forest reserves helps to build a large source of political support (Campos and Nespad 2006). There are arrangements to establish a pattern of financial incentives based upon a satellite analyses of deforestation (REDD) and to repay forest people in their role as forest guardians. (Nespad et al. 2006a). In conclusion, the causes of deforestation are varied. The forests are one of the most valuable ecosystems in the world. Ecology and environmental awareness are controversial topics which connect all the globe. National and local conservation initiatives have multiplied in the last few decades showing that the feasible solutions of this problem depends on many aspects. People need to be awarer and educated about the importance of nature that surround us. Authority should offer us alternative by educating how to live and respect the environment. The development of new conservation policy are based on the sustainable use of the rainforest, including the rehabilitation and restore of degraded forest along with the establishment of protected areas. These are the basic pillars to overcome this planet’s cancer. Reference: (OU Module L185 block 4 section 4) Contreras-Hermosilla, A. (2000) The Underlying Causes of Forest Decline, Occasional Paper No. 30, Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia, pp. 7–10 (Nepstad, D.C. (2007) The Amazon’s Vicious Cycles: drought and fire in the greenhouse, Gland, Switzerland, WWF International, pp. 16–18)