Thesis: The forests and wetlands of the world
are being destroyed at unacceptable rates. This destruction is
causing many adverse effects on the environment, many of which
will not be felt by the global population until they are irreversible.
Outline
I. Introduction
A. Loss of plant and animal species
B. Disruption of global ecosystem
II. Value of Wetlands
A. Importance of wetlands
B. Benefits form wetlands
III. Destruction of Wetlands
A. Loss of total wetlands
B. Agricultural tolls on wetlands
C. Diversity of wetlands
IV. Aiding the Wetlands
A. National Wildlife Foundation (NWF)
B. Nation Wide Permit 26 (NWP 26)
V. Value of Forests
A. Benefits from forests
B. Frontier Forests
VI. Deforestation
A. Rate of forest loss
B. Demands of humans
1. Third world consumption
2. Wealthy nation consumption
VII. Aiding the Forests
A. Brazilian Amazon
B. World impact of legislation
VII. Conclusion
VIII. References
Human life cannot exist in the absence of complicated interactions
of millions of species in biological systems. Yet as humans, we
live during a period of the greatest loss of plant and animal
species since the mega-extinctions of the Jurassic Period 65 million
years ago. Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson estimates
"that 50,000 plant and animal species disappear each year
due to tropical deforestation, expanding agriculture, and human
settlement." (Hinrichsen, 1999)
Human activities impact the environment, including clearing agricultural
land; air, land and water pollution; urban and suburban development;
and the introduction of invasive or non-native wildlife species.
If land and wildlife are poorly managed, humans risk fragmenting
habitat, destroying essential wilderness, and altering food webs
and species relationships.
As the birth of the sixth billionth person on earth has come and
gone environmental consideration has never been a more important
issue. Wetland destruction and deforestation are issues in two
of the five major global environmental ecosystems; Water, Forest,
Soil, Air, Animals. The forests and wetlands of the earth are
being destroyed at unacceptable rates causing global damage that
may not be realize until it is too late.
Global wetlands are called "the nursery of much life" because they are one of the most valuable resources for life on earth. They are the source of nutrition and habitation for many species of life. Wetlands are the world's most productive acres for nutrition in the food web, and are particularly efficient converters of solar energy. The plants present in the wetlands convert sunlight into plant material and produce oxygen as a byproduct. This production is an integral part of the interdependent system of a food web.
The benefits from wetlands are many and generally recognized
to include: (1) ecosystem function (2) fish and shellfish habitat
(3) waterfowl and other bird habitat (4) furbearer and other wildlife
habitat (5) pollution filtration (6) sediment removal (7) heavy
metal removal (8) oxygen production (9) nutrient production and
recycling (10) chemical pollution absorption (11) aquatic production
(12) microclimate regulation (13) world climate (ozone layer)
regulation (14) flood control (15) wave damage protection (16)
erosion control (17) groundwater and recharge supply (18) energy
source (19) livestock grazing (20) fishing (21) fertilizer industry
(22) Hunting and Trapping (23) recreation (24) preservation of
genetic inventory (25) aesthetics and (26) scientific research
(Hinrichsen, 1999). From this list
of areas that wetlands effect it is no wonder that global wetlands
play a vital role in the earth ecosystem.
When the Europeans first arrived in the United States, there
were approximately 215 million acres of wetlands in what are now
the forty-eight coterminous states and that number has continued
to fall every day since. By the mid- 1970's, only 46 percent of
the original wetlands' acreage remained, which equaled 99 million
acres. The average loss of acreage per year between the mid-50's
to the mid-70's was found to be 458,000 acres (Finer,
1984).
There has been no estimate as to the total amount of pristine
wetlands the world originally contained, making the calculation
of total destruction a difficult one. The United States has the
history of being the best record keepers of wetland destruction.
As would be expected, early in U.S. history, agricultural efforts were responsible for nearly one hundred percent of wetland destruction. Recently, Agricultural development involving drainage was responsible for 87% of recent national wetland losses, while urban development and other development caused only 8% and 5% of the losses (Finer, 1984). It has been obvious in the past and present that agriculture has the greatest impact on forested wetlands and emergent wetlands. Surprisingly, wetland destruction is more impacted by expansion of agriculture than urban development, in light of the ever-growing population. "Only about 30 percent of wetland loss in rapidly growing southeastern counties is due to direct conversion for urban uses" (Finer, 1984). Wetlands that are converted to agriculture and forestry account for 65 to 70 percent of the gross estimated losses (Heimlich and Vesterby 1989).
The diversity of wetlands due to demography causes the rate of destruction in certain areas to weigh more than other areas. "In North and South Dakota, pothole wetlands originally covered 7 million acres. Today, only slightly more than 3 million acres remain" (Finer 1984). These prairie potholes are among the most threatened and endangered wetlands in the United States. Prairie potholes are small wetlands generally found in the Mid-West and Prairie States, they happen to be the prime nesting ground for many of the North American waterfowl. "Up to fifty percent of the population of migratory waterfowl is raised in the United States portion of the prairies in some years" (Goldstein 1988). The increasing loss of these prairie potholes has had a devastating effect on the duck population. In 1985, "the mallard population was at an all-time low of 5.5 million birds, which was a 47 percent decline since 1955." This was only a small decrease in population compared to the pintail whose numbers were down 69 percent from 1955 (Heimlich and Vesterby 1989).
Wetlands are not only damaged by drainage of land for agriculture,
but also by the run-off from these new fields. Pesticides and
fertilizers can migrate into water run-off from the fields, which
then lead into natural marshes and wetlands. A resent study conducted
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) indicated that agricultural
pesticides are killing large numbers of wild ducklings in the
prairie pothole region of the U.S. The insecticides are either
"acutely toxic to waterfowl, to the aquatic vertebrates on
which the adult and juvenile waterfowl depend for food, or both"
(Lorenz 1989). The agricultural run-off
in the Florida Everglades has affected the fishing industry and
the human water supplies. "The freshwater run-off from these
areas maintain the salinity balance of coastal estuaries, which
supports 85 percent of the off shore fishery" (Heimlich
and Vesterby 1989).
Coming to the aid of wetlands and natures ecosystems as a whole is the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF). With members nationwide, this coalition is determined to be the voice of Mother Nature when decisions concerning the environment are involved. The most recent battle that the NWF has been fighting, concerns Nation Wide Permit 26 (NWP 26). The rule that is being questioned is one of 39 that cover general permits. These give authorizations for certain wetland activities that have minimal environmental impact. Such activities include constructing small boat ramps; anchoring mooring buoys and placing crab and lobster traps. "The basic idea behind NWP 26 was to streamline the permit process and to avoid processing thousands of applications for similar minor activities," says Tony Turrini, a counsel in NWF's Alaska Natural Resource Center and a member of NWF's Wetland Team. Apparently, the impact of the permitted activities is anything but minimal. NWP 26 allows filling (for any reason) as many as 10 acres of isolated wetlands, such as prairie potholes or small streams that feed into larger waterways. The only stipulation is that the Army Corps of Engineers, which handles all federal wetland permits, is notified. The new guidelines will allow one acre of wetlands to be filled without any notification. One would think that the Army Corps of Engineers would be able to track the loss of wetlands and keep the loss minimal. The trouble is, the Army Corps. , which authorizes more than 130, 000 wetland fills every year under nationwide permits, "does not have the data or expertise to determine the cumulative impact on endangered species and their habitats," says Jim Adams, attorney and wetlands expert in NFW's Alaska office. It has been found that however small these projects seem to be, under NWP 26, they "add up to the destruction of 30,000 acres of wetlands a year, one acre at a time" (Hinrichsen, 1999).
Recently the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to phase out
NWP 26. They will allow people to fill only three acres with notification
and one-third of an acre with no notification. The only real benefit
will come form the complete elimination of NWP 26, which the Army
Corps plans to replace with a series of "activity based"
permits to cover very specific activities. The NFW plans to monitor
that process "very closely with the intention of litigation
if any of the permits do not meet the letter of spirit of the
law," says Turrini.
The lush green blanket on the earth that forests provides humankind
and nature with multiple benefits. Forests absorb carbon dioxide
and produce oxygen, regulating the climate. They anchor soils
and prevent erosion. They regulate water flow and protect watersheds.
Forests also provide habitat for countless species of plants and
animals. Yet over the course of the past half-century, this green
blanket has been reduced to tattered scraps. Presently, about
39.5 million acres of forest, an area that is nearly the size
of Nepal, are cut, bulldozed or burned each year (Hinrichsen,
1999). According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), an
environment think tank based in Washington, D.C., half the worlds
original forest cover has been lost. The majority of this destruction
has taken place during the last four decades. The WRI reports
that only one-fifth of the world's remaining forests are classified
as frontier forests. These are pristine areas that have not been
disturbed or degraded by human activities.
Forests around the world have been decimated because of human demands for resources from the forests. We are left with patches of cathedral like forests that are silent reminders of what has been taken and possibly lost forever. "In the continuos 48 states in the U.S., 99 percent of frontier forests are gone leaving behind an empty echo of what once was" (Hinrichsen, 1999).
The unacceptable rate of deforestation is being attributed either, directly or indirectly, to human population growth and the insatiable demands of people. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, which monitors human usage of resources, believes that 75 percent of the historical growth of population and 75 percent of loss in global forest cover has taken place in the twentieth century. These statistics make sense considering the additional requirement for farmland, pastureland and forest products as the human population number increases. The largest conversion of forest into human resources is found to be in Third World countries where population numbers are high in a smaller area. These human resources are mostly for everyday human needs. Dirk Bryant, a senior researcher at WRI, estimates that fuelwood collection and overgrazing of domestic animals are currently responsible for degrading about 14 percent of the worlds remaining frontier forests. All of these, besides northern Canada and Russia, can be found in non-industrialized countries.
The deforestation cannot be solely blamed on developing countries, but on industrialized nations as well. A prime example of the deforestation in rich countries is the consumption of paper and paperboard. The use of paper and paperboard per person has almost tripled since 1960, in the developed countries of North America, Europe and Asia accounting for the majority of the consumption. The continents of North America, Europe and Japan house only 16 percent of the world's population. However, these three regions consume nearly two-thirds of the world's paper and paperboard, along with half of its industrial wood.
In the United Kingdom, researchers at Friends of the Earth
have determined that humanity's demand for forest products is
already 25 percent past what the point of sustainable consumption.
With the population expected to reach 10 billion by the year 2025
major problems will begin to arise, due to this exponential population
increase. This means that with population and income growth in
developing countries, combined with those from rich nations, demands
for forest products will rise beyond all possibilities.
In the summer of 1990, the German chancellor, Helmut Kohl proposed to his fellow Western leaders a plan to save the world's rain forests. They should start, he said, with the Brazilian Amazon. The project is a pioneering attempt to blend Brazil's desire for economic development to an international desire to save large parts of the world's largest rain forest. It is also a model for saving other forests and crucial ecosystems around the planet. As Roberto Smeraldi from the environmental group Friends of the Earth International and author of a critique of the program, explains, ``This is a critical test of the political will of governments to solve global environmental problems" (Pearce, 1992).
But how do you stop the destruction of a rain forest that is as large as Western Europe? The program has four aims. The first is to "conserve bio-diversity and Indigenous areas,'' (Pearce, 1992) where people still live in general harmony with nature. Creating and policing national parks and reserves will do this. Another aim is to "consolidate environmental policy changes and strengthen implementing institutions." Economic and ecological zoning of the forests is included in this aim. The program should also "develop scientific knowledge and applied technologies for sustainable development" (Pearce, 1992). This includes everything from researching rain-forest ecosystems to investigating Western markets for fruits, nuts, and other forest products. Finally, the scheme should "build support for environmentally benign development," which could mean any number of possibilities (Pearce, 1992).
The first and most obvious job of the pilot project will be to beef up national parks. These need urgent protection from squatters, loggers, and miners. Within three years, 15 parks would receive extra protection because of better-trained park rangers and better demarcation of boundaries.
Brazilian Indians and the many generations of colonists who have arrived over the past century inhabit most of the rain forest, yet still live in the forest without destroying it. So a second task is to bolster these uses: "as an alternative to destructive activities such as cattle ranching, logging, or colonization, to develop appropriate [and] sustainable economic and ecological management models" (Pearce 1992). In this statement probably lies the key to success or failure of the entire project.
Another test for the project will be the detailed economic and ecological zoning of the Amazon. Much of its biological diversity resides in a few core areas. Likewise, the heartlands of the Brazilian Indians and other identifiable groups cover only about a quarter of the region. The key question is what will happen to the rest of the forest. Will it be handed over to miners and cattle ranchers or set aside for other benign uses?
One of the most controversial features of the pilot project is the rehabilitation of the huge stretches of former forestland left for dead by miners, timber companies, and cattle ranchers. ``Rehabilitation is often thought of as restoring an area of land to its original conditions, however, this solution is rarely feasible.'' The possibility of restoring land to its original condition is costly and takes decades to begin to see signs of returning vegetation and wildlife. Often, it says, rehabilitation will mean simply restoring a cover of vegetation to eroding soil. And here, too, alarm bells begin to ring" (Pearce 1992). This method of rehabilitation treats the present problems of vegetation and soil erosion but does not address long term needs for continuing forest and wildlife development.
The pilot project is a large step to get governments to cooperate
on issues that effect the entire globe. It is just one of the
major steps being taken to ensure that the rate of deforestation
is reduced to an acceptable level.
The effects of decades of wetland destruction and deforestation have added up to become a global environmental concern. True effects from this destruction of our environment, has not been felt by the entire human population. Each year the unacceptable loss of wetlands and forests, that are so crucial to the global ecosystem, are continuing. The massive destruction that is occurring in the global forests and wetlands to provide land for agriculture may help ease the growing food shortages, but the true effects on the environment are not completely known. With the destruction of forests and wetlands, habitat for millions of wildlife creatures is being destroyed. Destroying wildlife habitat effects these creatures and ultimately the global food chain, in ways that are very subtle. However, if this unacceptable destruction continues all of these subtle environmental changes will add up until it will be too late to repair the damage done, forever scaring our natural environment.
Steps are being taken to slow this destruction. Scientists and environmental groups are beginning to become noticed in governments, resulting in legislation that changes the way our forests and wetlands are being treated. Sadly these changes are coming very slowly, compared to the rates of continuing global destruction. It will require monumental efforts to slow the destruction of our global forests and wetlands. The cease of destruction at unacceptable rates needs to happen, but it will only happen when everyone listens and helps do something about it. The hope is that people will begin to listen and help before they have no other choice.
Finer, David. 1984."Agriculture as the Problem: New Agendas and the New Opportunities." Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics.20(Dec.):1-11
Goldstein, Jon H., 1988. "The Impact of Federal Programs on Wetlands." Washington D.C.: US Department of Interior.
Heimlich, Ralph E.,and Vesterby, Marlow. 1989. "Conversion of Wetlands to Urban Uses: Evidence from Southeastern Counties" Wetlands. Concerns and Successes. pp.161-73
Hinrichsen, Don. Sept./Oct. 1999. "6 billion Consumption Machines." InternationalWildlife..websource:http://www.nwf.org/nwf/international/pop/y6b/
Lorenz, Jack. 1989. "Press Release." Izaak Walton League News. 3(June):pp.1-3
Pearce, Fred. Jul. 92. "Saving the Amazon." World Press Review. vol.39. Issue 7. p.42