Guest essay by Steve Goreham
Last month, Pope Francis visited Peru and spoke about preserving the biodiversity of the Amazon rain forest. For decades, environmental groups have lamented the shrinking of world forests. But trends now point to a coming regrowth of global forests.
Deforestation has long been an important environmental issue. President Theodore Roosevelt voiced concern in 1907: “We are consuming our forests three times faster than they are being reproduced. Some of the richest timber lands of this continent have already been destroyed, and not replaced, and other vast areas are on the verge of destruction.”
The felling of forests is blamed for habitat destruction, species extinction, and greenhouse gas emissions that reportedly cause dangerous global warming. Deforestation is labeled a crisis in Southeast Asia by the Rainforest Alliance, in Queensland, Australia by the World Wildlife Fund, and in Sudan by the United Nations, a few of many such characterizations.
Throughout history, people felled forests to clear land for farms and to gather wood for fuel. An estimated 60 percent of Europe’s forests were cut down during the last 2,000 years. About 30 percent of US forests disappeared, with most vanishing during the 1800s. Earth has lost an estimated 30 percent of original forests since agriculture began.
Today, world forested areas are still shrinking, but at a decreasing rate. The UN reports that from 1990 to 2015, global forested area declined by about three percent, but that the net rate of forest loss decreased by about 50 percent from previous decades. Developing nations in Africa, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia continue to lose forests, but forests are stable or growing in North America, Europe, and most of Asia.
Today, forested area is declining in about one-third of the world’s countries, stable in one-third, and growing in one third. Forests are stable or growing in more than 100 nations, including Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, the US, and in most of Europe.
Forests in the United States have been growing for about 50 years. Today, more than 90 percent of US paper comes from high-yield forests planted specifically to be harvested. Company promotional campaigns to “go electronic and save a tree” have little factual basis, at least in the US.
As the income of nations rises, deforestation changes to forest regrowth. Modern high-yield agriculture techniques reduce the need for additional farmland. Modern fuels, such as propane and natural gas replace wood for heating and cooking. The great promise of forest regrowth can be achieved by boosting the income of nations and the adoption of high-yield farming techniques, not by coercive sustainable policies to restrict forestry or agriculture.
Paradoxically, policies to “fight climate change” are causing deforestation. Biofuel programs pursued by Europe and the United States during the last two decades caused an additional 41 million hectares of land to be used for ethanol and biodiesel production, an area the size of Germany. Rain forests in Indonesia have been cut down and replaced with palm oil plantations, so that feedstock for biodiesel can be shipped 10,000 miles to Germany to meet biofuel targets.
At the same time, evidence shows that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, partly driven by industrial emissions, is boosting forest growth. Satellite data shows an eleven percent growth in global leaf area from 1982 to 2010. Scientists attribute most of this growth to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Despite all the concern about deforestation, the great news is that world forests will be growing on net within the next few decades.
Originally published in The Daily Caller.
Steve Goreham is a speaker on the environment, business, and public policy and author of the book Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development.
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I would like to be positive, but I read things like:
Approximately 450,000 square kilometres of deforested Amazon in Brazil are now in cattle pasture. Paraguay, southern Brazil, and northern Argentina have allowed Big Agra to cut down thousands of hectares of forests to plant transgenic soybeans. 4.4 million tons of wood pellets were cut from American forests last year to be burnt for energy…
Excerpted from above published commentary:
As a learned Biologist and a life-long avid student of the natural world around me, it is my honest opinion that iffen an honest and unbiased scientific study was conducted, …… it would prove that the felling of US forest during the 1800s and early 1900s, …… for the purpose of creating farmable land and for providing lumber for building homes, businesses and the “great cities”, …… was not responsible for any severe instances of “species habitat destruction” or the cause of any “species extinctions”.
On the contrary, very few animal species can survive in a heavily forested area simply because of the lack of food. Thus, the early “timbering” of the US to create farm and/or croplands actually created tens-of-thousands of acres of food producing “species habitat” and the species populations began increasing accordingly. Small prey animals, songbirds and raptors are probably the greatest success stories, along with their predator animals.
And it wasn’t the destruction of the US forests that caused the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. It was the unrestricted “harvesting” during their migrations.
Must be the alignment of the planets today Samuel – I agree with you regarding North American forests. They are too dense to support much life, especially larger species.
I am most concerned about the widespread clear-cutting of tropical rainforests.
There are places in Siberia where the forests have not been cut or touched in centuries. The trees grow so thick in numbers that it’s near to impossible to get through on foot. This heavy forestation saved many small villages from the rampages of the Mongolian horde. I don’t know exactly how many different species of birds and other animals there are there, but the fisher cat is one of them, and the bird species are innumerable. This is what will happen in the ‘no-go zone’ in Ukraine near Chernobyl. It took barely 20 years to revert to wilderness.
The larger species know how to get around quite well in denser old-growth US forests and everywhere else. A good example is the elephant population in Vietnam. Just because they choose to stay hidden from us prying humans doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
I used to consult on slope stability (large landslides and how to avoid them) to mines in the Canadian Rockies. Because there were extensive reclaimed lands that had been planted with grasses, there were remarkably healthy herds of large ungulates that chose to populate these areas because they could access large quantities of food. These herds were magnificent – huge, healthy specimens in considerable numbers, which were sustained very well because the reclaimed meadows provided them with ample grazing. This was in Central Alberta, west of Hinton.
In the Southern Alberta Rockies, the government of Canada decided to shut down some small older hotels and motels near Radium Hot Springs, reportedly to “protect” the large ungulate herds that had congregated there. This struck me as ill-founded, because the reason the ungulates chose to locate there was because the forests had been cleared in a relatively small area around the facilities and the grazing was much better than in the forests.
It seems that many so-called “environmentalists” have not spent enough time studying what actually happens in nature, and have a Pavlovian opposition for everything that humanity does, even when it clearly benefits the environment.
A good example is the increase in atmospheric CO2, reportedly due to fossil fuel combustion. Enviros say it is bad, wrong, terrible, destructive etc. etc. etc. and they are clearly wrong and utterly delusional in this belief.
The evidence is overwhelming that increasing atmospheric CO2 is highly beneficial to humanity AND the environment through improved plant and crop growth.
Furthermore, there is NO credible evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 causes dangerous global warming OR wilder weather. NONE! Global warming, aka climate change alarmism, is a multi-trillion dollar scam initiated and promoted by scoundrels and imbeciles.
Paraphrasing …… ALLAN M. to wit:
I have been doing some serious pondering every now and then and one thing that I have decided is that the “rise n’ fall” of the Age of the Dinosaurs, …. (the Mesozoic Period spanning from 252 mya to 66 mya) ……. had more to do with the extremely “warm” Average Global Temperatures and specifically the “rise n’ fall” of atmospheric CO2 quantities, …… which increased to 1,800 ppm at the start of the Mesozoic, ……… increased to 2,700 ppm by the mid-Mesozoic, …… and then began a dramatic decrease to around 800 ppm at the end of the Mesozoic, …… as per defined on this proxy graph, to wit:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
A dramatic increase in atmospheric CO2 “triggered” a dramatic increase in “green growing” biomass, …… which “triggered” a dramatic increase in larger & larger herbivore dinosaurs, …… which also “triggered” a dramatic increase in larger & larger predator dinosaurs ……. and then when the atmospheric CO2 began its dramatic decrease at around 149 mya ….. the dinosaur populations followed suite and died off due to starvation.
Now tell me why that isn’t a possibility.
I agree, Jonny Appleseed was a real person. His grave is in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Just because a place is a subdivision with mail delivery does not mean it is no longer a forest. We lived in Forest Virginia. Our half acre lot had more than 40 hardwood trees that were native and few ornametal trees that we planted.
We are currently in Shreveport, La. I was just enjoying a cardinal one foot outside the motorhone. I had to clear low hanging branches to park infront of the single wide. If you look at the satalite view, 75% is heavily wooded.
Most of eastern Oregon and Wahington State was a barren semi-arid dust bowel before irrigation and farming. Now there are vast apple, cherry, and poplar forests. Our house in Richland was in a subdivision with large trees. We planted two more trees 20 years ago and they are now huge.
We currently have a house in Henderson, Neveda. We have palm trees, shade trees, and a fruit tree. We have several species of birds that visit the small fountain I made. Out in the desert, there is only an occational tree found at natural springs.
Humans like trees, we plant them whereever we go. So yes, we change things but I think it is an improvement. There is not really very many of us. I would suggest that the 35 million Buffalo that thundered across the US, change things too. The few humans back then were too busy staying alive to write studies saying how awful we are.
Samuel – what kind of biologist are you?
Kristi, I was educated to be and was awarded an AB Degree (circa 1962) certifying me as a HS Teacher of the Biological Sciences (and Physical Sciences). But my Teaching career only lasted 3 months …… because I was offered a job of Logical Designer of computers/peripherals @ur momisugly 2X the salary I was earning as a Teacher,
DEforestation v. REforestation: Black oak, white oak, red oak and burr oak are all increasing in my area, not to mention various maples and other tree species. Wildflowers, ditto.
The invasive species like buckthorn and honeysuckle need to be removed, but they’re hard to get rid of because birds love the seeds of the buckthorn, an import. If anything could be used for fuel, it should be the trash species like these. Vinca, a woody vine, is another one.
There are hundreds of invasive species like these that could certainly be cleaned out, mulched, dried and turned into pelleted fuels without damaging anything. That would be a practical solution to the issue of fuel sources.
I fail to understand the complete disconnect between burning wood pellets to generate electricity, which creates tons of “polluting” CO2 as a byproduct, and the loss of trees which soak up water and hold soil in place, reducing flooding, as well as absorbing that same CO2.
I just don’t get it – how can anyone be this stupid?
Yeah, we here in the Texas hill country have a problem with Ashe juniper, AKA “cedar”. As there is fire suppression, the juniper is taking over the environment, shading out the oaks. As fire is not practical in semi-rural residential areas, it comes down to chain saws.
Sara you do not sound stupid. Could it be that the people you think are stupid are just better informed than you?
One the most significant environmental issues in North America semi-arid forest is too many trees and non-native species. Native trees evolved with fire as part of the natural environment.
As a result of well intentioned fire suppression, there are too many trees. Too much fuel results in fire that are so intense that all the trees are destroyed. The intense fire bakes the ground into a hardpan. When it rains, soil and nutrients into the watershed causing more environmental damage.
Since excess biomass either rots or burns to produce ghg and other more significant pollution, using it for energy is a huge improvement.
As a result of well intentioned ……. Government’s ignorant meddling …..
In the 1960s and 70s, federal and state government agencies were recommending that property owners and especially farmers should be planting Autumn Olive and Multiflora Rose because they are an excellent food provider and “cover” for wildlife, especially birds.
What a disaster that turned out to be. The birds ate the berries off the bushes, then flew off to wherever, …. where they pooped the seeds out on the ground ….. where the seeds quickly took root and made the land pretty much unusable. You just can’t cut the bushes down to get rid of them, ya have to literally dig the roots out and burn them.
Sara – I helped research and write a manual for invasive plant management for the forestry division of our DNR. Things like buckthorn growing within forest would take more energy to remove and use as fuel than you’d get out of the fuel (unless you are removing everything).
OT – Leonardo DiCaprio finally does something useful for the environment – helping set up a marine reserve near the Seychelles. Marine reserves protected from fishing are probably the most effective way to protect species from overfishing and habit loss from human pressure.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43154686
My country – little Belgium – is listed among the countries with growing forests. I kind of doubt that, from my own personal observation. I guess it is based on biased government reporting.
Where I live, a number of pine plantations are replaced by heathen and sand dunes, the landscape from the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Before that it was mostly birch and oak.