A few reactions to the video:

* I was surprised that the best practices mentioned are referred to as “voluntary”. I would have expected there to be clearly articulated and enforced guidelines that specify establishment and size of conservation buffers or streamside management zones. Do such guidelines exist in some countries?

* I spend a lot of time walking on the slopes of Table Mountain (in Cape Town) with my dog and witness the effects of heavy rains immediately. I had never thought about it this way, but it’s very easy to see how the rain water prefers to run down the walking paths that were created through the thick bush growth (fynbos – http://www.google.de/) and bring a lot of red soil down with them.

* In Cape Town, there is a strong movement to eradicate alien plants, including what appear to my naive eye, beautiful trees. Can bush provide some of the important functions of forests with respect to water quality, or are we risking soil and water degradation by getting rid of the alien trees?

I am asking more questions than I am answering …

The effects of deforestation can be both local and global. In the local forest ecosystem, trees, water, soil, plants, and animals are all dependent on one another to keep healthy. When trees are cut this natural balance is upset and the important functions that trees perform such as holding the soil in place, protecting groundwater, and providing food and shelter for plants and animals cannot take place. Overcutting forests and the disruption of the forest ecosystem are causing erosion of soil, the drop in water tables , loss of biodiversity as plant and animal species become extinct, loss of soil fertility, and the silting up of many water bodies. When the process continues for a long period of time or over a large area there can be total environmental collapse. Parts of the world that are now desert, such as Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, were once covered with healthy forests.
Globally the effects of deforestation are more difficult to see. Forests play an important part in the greater natural cycles that make and affect the weather and that clean the air in our atmosphere. They keep the hydrological cycle healthy by putting water back into the atmosphere through transpiration , making clouds and rain. They also capture carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels from the atmosphere, replacing it with oxygen and thus reducing the risk of global warming. If too many forests are cut these important functions cannot be carried out. The result could be less rain, higher temperatures, and more severe weather patterns in many regions of the world.
Local and global effects of deforestation are beginning to have devastating consequences. Some areas in West Africa, for example, are already feeling the effects of lost precipitation , higher temperatures, and increased desertification . Other areas, like Venezuela, have experienced devastating floods due to treeless slopes being unable to catch the rain from heavy storms, sending it rushing into valleys. All of these problems impact the environment, but they also take a heavy toll on humans.

There are several things that can be done to decrease deforestation and to offset its negative effects. Many communities are trying to reduce the burden placed on forests by instituting recycling programs and by using alternative materials like plastics in place of wood. In business, companies have begun to use wood products that come only from certified renewable forests that are carefully managed to ensure that they are cut in a sustainable way. Alternative methods of agriculture, such as agroforestry and permaculture , promote the use of trees and the diversification of crops to reduce the stress placed on forests by large-scale agriculture. Protecting forests by creating parks and reserves is another strategy to keep forest resources intact. For those areas that are already devastated, great efforts are being made to replant once-forested lands with native species.
Other efforts are aimed at changing our ideas about the value of forests. Economists are now trying to calculate the true value of the forest as an ecosystem and the benefits it gives as a whole, not only the value of cut logs. This reevaluation will help us make more informed choices about how we use forest land. All of these efforts have helped reduce the burden on the forests, but cutting continues unsustainably. Without the cooperation of all humans to create alternative strategies to deforestation, it will continue with terrible results for the health of our planet.

I think this helps in a way

Have a great day
Paulus

As mentioned in the Kingsbury article on the Gran Sabana region of Venezuela and deforestation’s impacts there, water from Gran Sabana (which obviously flows through much forested land) feeds the Guri Dam, the world’s second largest. Providing almost three-quarters of Venezuela’s hydroelectricity, the removal of water from the Gran Sabana would seem to have an obvious negative impact on forests here. Vegetation that had relied on a consistent supply of water from natural sources now has found itself competing with the needs of the Guri Dam and also affecting the Pemon people that live in the forests.

Rajesh also mentioned the Narmada project in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh state, India,which is to include over 30 dams and is facing a lot of controversy right now. Began in 1979, it is an enormous project which will displace up to 2 million people in the area for the purposes of hydroelectricity,according to a 2005 Friends of the Earth report. A brief from the report:
“The Omkareshwar Dam will flood over 5800 hectares of pristine forest and is expected to displace up to 50,000 people, many of whom are small farmers. Not only will this project displace many tribal communities who depend on the forest resources for most of their income, there also has been no resettlement plan and the project authorities have refused to provide any land-based compensation for farmers.”
The Omkareshwar Dam and Guri Dam offer a very visceral example of post-Industrial forest use, at the expense of the forest and the entities that use it.

Anyway, an article in the book by Walter Fernandes, Director of Research at the Indian Social Institute, mentions that Indian forests had little value until the British began laying their extensive railway lines. Since then forests have begun to represent sources for several industries, including paper, plywood, poyfbre, matches, turpentine, drugs, and more.

The British Empire had destroyed much of the forests in their own country, the southern United States and South Afric before they came to India in the 18th century. They had no idea how to manage forests, other than stripping them bare and moving on. Germany apparently had a history of forest management and so were brought in to manage India’s forests after British rule, but it entailed a type of monoculture approach that did not work in India.

And anyway, the Bill was intended to take into account the many “forest dwellers” living in the forests (farmers, villagers, etc.) and their rights. But the German monoculture approach and the industrial view of forests influenced the Bill more than the needs of the forest dwellers.

Now, as is the case with many other governmentally run endeavors, forest management is wrought with inadequacy. There’s no database for the forest, ignoring important rural factors when allocating forest space for different uses, excessive grazing and all sorts of violations by commercial interests and industry that simply isn’t overseen. As a result, 98.8 percent of India’s forest are marked for industrial or other “productive purposes.”

This is as of 1983. But with a new Forest Rights Act in 2006, there are more areas of protection not only for forest dwellers but for areas of title rights, use rights, development rights, and forest management rights. It is meant to recognize and consolidate land already in use by minor industries (small farms, etc.) and owned by individuals/families, communities.

Here’s the new link! Thanks for reminding me!!!