Clear cut
Revisiting the deforestation dilemma
BY Heather Kohlmann
Photography by Reuters: Rickey Rogers
In the early ’90s, research linking the greenhouse effect to destruction of the world’s rainforests spurred massive campaigns to save the trees.
The destruction of the Amazon—the planet’s largest rainforest—received the bulk of the attention. The media frenzy peaked in 1994 when McDonald’s successfully sued two Greenpeace activists for handing out pamphlets in London that accused the company of using beef raised on deforested Brazilian land.
But while McDonald’s may have been singled out as the bad guy, the truth is the forest was being destroyed by everyone from local farmers to international logging companies. By 1993, the Amazon had shrunk from 4,100,000 square kilometres to 3,650,000.
Fifteen years later things have only slightly improved. While there have been some victories—pressure from Greenpeace forced McDonald’s to stop using chicken fed on soy grown on deforested land—the Amazon is still losing an estimated 10,000 square kilometres each year, mainly due to continued clearing for pastureland. Today, 18 percent of the original rainforest cover has been lost. Deforestation rates slowed between 2005 and 2006, but this was the result of a drop in Brazil’s economy rather than concern for the environment.
Dr. Philip Fearnside, a research professor at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon in Brazil, says if current deforestation rates continue, we could lose the Amazon rainforest completely by 2080, and with it one of the planet’s largest carbon sinks.
The Amazon isn’t the only rainforest still at risk. Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest—the world’s largest temperate rainforest—is also threatened by clear cutting, which has led Environment Minister John Baird to pledge $30 million as part of a $120 million project to protect it.
While mainstream media may have pulled rainforests from the front page, their preservation is still a priority for environmental organizations and many are still actively campaigning to save the Amazon. In October 2007, nine NGOs, including Greenpeace, created a proposal that would end deforestation in the Amazon region by 2015.
