Shrinking Forests, Growing Dangers: The Consequences of Deforestation

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The biologically rich rainforest of Madagascar, an island country with 18 million people, is following in Haiti’s footsteps. As the trees are cut — either to produce charcoal or to clear land to grow food — the sequence of events is all too familiar. Environmentalists warn that Madagascar could soon become a landscape of scrub growth and sand.

When land is cleared for grazing or farming in the Amazon, the amount of rainfall that runs off and returns to the sea increases, while that which is recycled inland to provide more rainfall is reduced dramatically. The forest begins to dry out, and at some point, the weakened rainforest becomes vulnerable to fire. As the Amazon rainforest weakens, it is approaching a tipping point beyond which it cannot be saved.

A similar situation may be developing in Africa, where deforestation and land clearing are proceeding rapidly as firewood use mounts and as logging firms clear large tracts of virgin forests. As the trees disappear, rainfall runoff increases, depriving the land of the water pumped through trees and into the atmosphere. When the forests disappear, this rainfall declines and crop yields follow.

More and more countries are beginning to recognize the risks associated with deforestation. Among the countries that now have total or partial bans on logging in primary forests are China, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Unfortunately, all too often a ban in one country simply drives illegal logging or shifts the deforestation to other countries.

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