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OUR PERILED RAINFORESTS By Stacy Karron In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, midday silence is pierced by the grinding whine of a chain saw. It is the sound of destruction, echoed from tree to tree, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe. From Brazil to central Africa to the once-lush islands on Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests. This takes a huge toll on wildlife by threatening their food supply, shelter and habitat. Experts warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else; the fate of trees and the climate. Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest with dying forests “feeding” global warming. Conservation groups, religious leaders and over three-hundred scientists appealed for action in December's Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia. The burning or rotting of trees contributing to deforestation at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timber men sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control, according to Roman P. Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International, warning that this is “a very big deal”. December’s U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may create the first global financial plan to compensate developing nations that preserve their forests. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), deforestation continues at an alarming 32 million acres a year. Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher in Africa. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including large portions of forests in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania. The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, for its oil which is used in cosmetics, food processing and other products. A community benefiting from such small-scale forestry is likely to keep out those engaged in illegal, uncontrolled logging. But enforcement is difficult in a state with about 3,500 square miles of pristine rain forest — and few forest rangers. Environmentalists say such a conservation approach may work for rural people but a global strategy is needed to mobilize all rain-forest governments. This is the goal of the post Bali talks - looking for ways to integrate forest preservation into the world's emerging "carbon trading" system. A government would earn carbon credits for by avoiding deforestation and could then sell those points to a European power plant to meet its emission-reduction quota. Environmentalist Prince Charles said in the lead-up to the Bali talks, "These forests are the greatest global public utility". "As a matter of urgency, we have to find ways to make them more valuable alive, not dead." Hundreds of researchers are putting in thousands of hours to try and figure out how much carbon dioxide forests are absorbing, how much carbon is stored there and how the death of the Amazon forests might affect the climate in New York City or in the American Midwest. In the meantime we must continue to conserve and preserve. If global war divides us, global loss may force to unite us.
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