Chapter 13. Chapter 13: Forests

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Guiding Question 13.4

What is the current state worldwide of forest resources? What threats exist?

Why You Should Care

As the world population grows and industrializes, the demand for cheap lumber and cheap meat is growing exponentially. To meet that demand, forests, especially tropical forests, are being cut down at an alarming rate to provide the lumber and create the pastureland. Tropical forests are also in danger of being cleared to make room for high-profit commodity crops like coffee, tea, and chocolate. For many people living in developing countries, clearing a forest is a matter of making a livelihood and feeding one’s children, so preventing environmental degradation is understandably not their first priority. Some experts have suggested it would take a few billion dollars to protect the remaining tropical forests, mainly by giving local people employment and incentives not to clear trees. That may sound like a large sum for an individual, but it would be a small matter for governments or corporations in the developed countries.

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Thought Question: It initially seems counterintuitive that preventing forests from burning can actually be a threat to them. How can this be?
Many forests have a natural fire cycle; occasional fires release nutrients, open up the canopy for seedling growth, and, most importantly, remove excess fuel (for example shrub thickets or tall grasses) from the understory. A buildup of hot-burning biomass in the understory can cause fires to actually kill a large proportion of trees, something that doesn’t happen with routine fires, which are normally cooler-burning and extinguish themselves quickly.

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