If we continue to think of the world as disposable there will be nothing left.
Is economic growth worth the risk of losing our forests?
As many of you have read several times in your life already by the time you read this sentence, this post or this blog hectares of the forests are being destroyed, every minute of everyday. While the logger can come home and rest and the corporate in charge of the whole shebang can take a break, the forest is never at peace. It is in constant survival mode attempting to declare sanctuary, but humans with our machines, our money and our thirst for development hack at the forest as if it will bloom again in days and repopulate the mess we created.
Only 100 years ago rainforests, alone, covered 14% of the earth’s surface. That is 200 billion hectares of rainforest. Today only half of that remains. And if we are to continue the way that we are, that 7% will very quickly become 0. As humans we are destroying our forests, and rapidly. The question becomes for what? What can possibly be as good as all of our forests? And in the eyes of too many, the answer is money and development.
Check out this website: http://philip.greenspun.com/cr/moon/conservation to discover more statistics on the disappearing rainforests
Personally, I believe the risk of losing our forests, and the evidence that we will lose our forests very quickly is not worth the economic gain. If I had control I would halt economic development and focus solely on the environmental destruction that has occurred and hopefully focus on the restoration of our environment. However, even I can see the many flaws in my plan and the naïvety and ignorance of my suggestion. When I see the world I am looking through the lens of the westernized society, one in which I personally know very few struggles and of those struggles none are struggles for survival. I have money for food and a house over my head and land that I can call my own. I am not in a society where the option to destroy forest in order to farm and survive is a necessity in life. And this is where the true problem arises.
How can I say all economic growth based off the destruction of our environment needs to halt when a banana plantation in Costa Rica provides money and food for thousands of people across the county. Who am I judge when a farmer has to destroy the forest to accommodate for his cattle herd that provide food on the table for his family and money for the home in which they it eat in. Truly I cannot say that economic development needs to stop. The destruction of a forest is sometimes done in order for survival.
Therefore in answering the question is economic growth worth the risk of losing the rainforests the answer becomes very muddled. I believe that there are courses of action that need to be taken in our world to severely reduce the loss of our forests This is not just for countries that have rainforests but for all countries despite some loss of economic gain. Further I believe that countries who need to survive should focus their energy on not destroying the rainforest to survive but using the rainforest to survive. By this I mean tourism and conservations that many countries, specifically in Central and South America have been working towards. Finally it is essential that everyone in our world become aware of the issues regarding the mass destruction humans have set upon the forests and focus on finding sustainable solutions so that survival does not rest on destroying the beautiful forests of our world.
Check out the site below to understand further details on the reasoning for
development in Costa Rica.
development in Costa Rica.
http://www.vivacostarica.com/costa-rica-information/costa-rica-deforestation.html
Something else to consider when we hack away at the forests, Biodiversity
Something else to consider when we hack away at the forests, Biodiversity
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