Deforestation in Latin America and Asia
There are numerous factors that have contributed to the increased rate of tropical forest destruction in many parts of the world especially in Asia and the Amazon basin. These main factors are human encroachments in to the natural forest either for settlement, agriculture or ranching. Other factors include infrastructure development, massive logging and extraction of wood for domestic fuel or industrial use. The factors may vary from one region to another depending on the needs of the society around the forest or the potentials of the land under the natural forest. However, it is not in doubt that there in no single factor that can be considered as the only cause of deforestation but rather multiple factors are responsible for deforestations.
Deforestation in Latin America and Asia
The Brazilian Amazon deforestation has always attracted the attention of environments. The rate of deforestation of the Amazon tropical forests has been the highest not only in the Latin American but all over the world in the last two decades. It is estimated that over eighty percent of the land that has been created as a result of deforestation in the Amazon basin in the last one and half decade has been used for livestock ranching or cattle pastures (Pfaff, 1999). The most important factor that has contributed to deforestation of the largest tropical forest in South America and the world has been the increased need for pastures by the beef cattle ranchers. Beef cattles ranching is therefore the most important factor that has cost the destruction of the largest and most important natural forest in the world. It is estimated that since the mid 1990s over ten million hectares of forest which is approximately the size of the Iceland has been cleared in the Brazilian Amazon for beef cattle ranching. For this reason, Brazil has risen to the largest beef producer and exporter in the world (Walker, 2000).
The case in Asia is not very different from the case in the South American countries. Most parts of the Asia continent especially south Asia was covered by thick tropical forests until recently. The high increase in population especially in India has had an adverse effect on the natural forest cover. The southern Asia communities have been known to have flourished along the river banks for many years. For example, India got his name from the flourishing who lived along the great Indus River. The communities also had large settlements along great rivers such as Yamuna and Ganga. However, these societies were very sensitive to their environment (Collins Whitmore, 1992).
Deforestation however started in the pre-colonial period although it was not very pronounced. This was due to the expansion of agricultural activities in the fertile forested lands in the southern Asia. Large scale deforestation of the southern Asia tropical forests especially the expansive forests in India was initiated by the British in the colonial period. These expansive agricultural activities have continued where major forests have been destroyed in Asia. Some of these large scale subsistence farming activities in the previously forested land has been facilitated by the governments. The governments have backed the conversion of forest land into agricultural land. The increased cases of unemployment and poverty due to high population in south Asia and unequal land distribution among the populations has forced many landless small scale farmers to invade the natural forests as the only means of survival. For this reason, there are a large number of peasant farmers encroaching natural forests especially in India. In an attempt to control the invasion of these forest the governments in many regions have embanked on controlled conversion schemes where some of the forest lands are converted to subsistence agricultural land to increase the agricultural outputs of the country while at the same time improving the living conditions of the peasant farmers.
Impacts of deforestation in Latin America and Asia
The impacts of deforestation of tropical natural forests in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa have had adverse environmental impacts. Scientists have argued that the Latin America, due to the expansive Amazon forest is the biggest contributor of land scraping. Deforestation in the Amazon forest accounts for over half of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere. Deforestation in the Latin America has been rated the highest in the world and it has proved to be the hardest to fight by the environmentalist ((Frey, 2002).
In both regions, deforestation has had negative impacts on the natural resources that are renewable sources of revenues converting most of the land into grasslands. Although the forests are cleared for economic gains the natural forests provides greater potentials in economic prosperity. Deforestation is the major contributor of the current global warming which has resulted into environmental crisis especially in the Latin America. The natural control of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been tampered with by the reducing forest cover. The Latin American countries and those in the Southeast Asia and Africa have been hit hard by the climate change since most of them are developing countries. The water cycle has been affected by deforestation with water reservoirs in the Latin America being reported to have large decrease in water levels. Deforestation reduces the amount of water in the soil, increase surface runoff reduce cohesion in the soil which has resulted into frequent landslides and destructive soil erosion. The Loess Plateau in china is a clear evidence of the impact of deforestation. The forest cover was cleared in the plateau many years ago resulting into massive soil erosion. Many tons of soil sediments give the Yellow river its name and resulted into incised valleys (Prasad Badarinth, 2004).
Deforestation has also led to the loss of both plant and animal diversity. The tropical forests have been known to support a very rich ecosystem and have been a home of rich flora and fauna. Over 80 percent of the world diversity is under threat of extinction due to destruction of tropical forest. Many plant and animal species are being lost every day as a result of clearing of tropical forests. The Asian diversity is more threatened by this trend and scientists estimate that forty percent of all animal and plant species in Asia will be extinct by the end of the 21st century. The Asian countries have experienced economic difficulties as a result of declining revenue due to deforestation as compared to Latin American countries such as Brazil which have benefited economically from deforestation (Achard et al, 2002).
Market and Economic Mechanisms of Saving the Forests
The continuous degradation of natural resources especially tropical forest is partially due to unsustainable exploitation of the resources. The economic prospect of these forests in the developing countries in the future and sustainable marketing exploitation of these resources can be used to safe the forest from degradation. Most forest resources are under priced and therefore the society does not value them. By creating market and economic value for natural forest products can be used to reverse the situation (Richard, 1994).
Conclusion
The world is today under the threat of climate change partly because of the massive destruction of tropical rain forests. The greatest challenge in dealing with the tropical forests destruction is the fact that the forests are confined in the developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The destruction of the largest ecosystems in the world that are supported by the expansive tropical forest such as the Amazon forest in Latin America has had negative consequences on the environment.
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