Deforestation

Deforestation is a global concern. Even more important is the depletion of the tropical forested areas that lie along earth's equator in Latin America,Africa, and Asia, and cover 6% to 7% of the earth's total land area. These irreplaceable storehouses of earth's planetary bio diversity, which have existed for more than 100 million years, are being degraded for timber, cattle grazing, fuelwood, mining, and farming at an alarming rate. The area of land now covered by tropical forest is about half of what it once was, and the area of these forests cleared per year more than doubled in the 1980's. Three countries -Brazil, Indonesia, and Zaire - account for 44%of the current annual loss. Brazil has more tropical forest and probably more of the earth's species than any other country. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Resources Institute, satellite sensing shows the world's tropical forest are vanishing at a rate of 171,000 kilometers (66,000 square miles) a year - or about 37 city blocks every minute.

Loss of the world's rain forests also mean loss of potential resources that mankind would benefit from. There have been hundreds of drugs that have been derived from tropical plants: reserpine, from the serpintine root for tranquilizers, diosgenin from the Mexican yam for anti-fertility drugs, quinine from the cinchona tree to combat malaria, and vincristine and vinblastine from the rosy periwinkle to fight cancer. Among the most indispensable plant-based drugs are anti-cancer agents, enzymes, hormones, antiparasite compounds, ulcer cures, laxatives, dysentery treatments and anticoagulants. It is calculated that 25% of all prescription drugs in the United States contain ingredients that are extracted from plants. Given that total prescription retail sales in 1990 were 62 billion dollars, a rough estimate of the total value of plant-derived drugs is more than $15 billion per year. The key active ingredients in 1/4 of the worlds prescription and non-prescription drugs come from plants growing in tropical rain forests. Almost 3/4 of the 3,000 plants identified by the National Cancer Institute as having chemicals that fight cancer come from tropical rain forests.

While you are reading this paper, a plant species that can cure a type of cancer, AIDS, or some other deadly disease could be wiped out forever!

More significant yet is the fact that the rain forests serve as an important filter for carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. The Amazon region alone stores at least 75 billion tons of carbon in its trees. Furthermore, when stripped of its trees, rain forest land soon becomes useless and inhospitable because the soil lacks the nutrients to support any kind of agriculture. Regeneration of a tropical rain forest may not be possible or, where it can occur, may take hundreds of years. Is man so blind as not to foresee the devastation?

In our quest for short term economic gain, we will eventually kill the Earth, and along with it, we will unknowingly kill the very thing that helps sustain our planet.According to one calculation, a typical tree provides $196,250 worth of ecological benefits in the form of oxygen, reduction of air pollution, soil fertility and erosion control, water recycling and humidity control, wildlife habitat, and as protein for wildlife. Sold as timber, the same tree is worth only about $590. As long as the lasting and renewable ecological benefits of forests are assigned little or no value in the world's market-oriented economic systems, we will continue to destroy and degrade these vital ecosystems. I cannot see people's views changing in the future. Man seems more concerned about his economic gain today than his children's future of tomorrow. How very sad!