Deforestation | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

For millennia people have known the importance of trees. The Sumerians described in their tablets how the forest canopy shades the earth and moderates the climate. The authors of the Old Testament realized that trees were necessary for year-round springs and rivers. Plato told how forests prevented flooding and runoff, thereby preserving the earth's fertility. Today it is known that forests and their soils absorb great quantities of carbon dioxide, and that the forest canopy exudes oxygen and provides living space for a myriad of creatures.

Throughout history people have plundered forests to obtain the wood needed for construction and fuel. Until the late nineteenth century, all ships were built from hull to mast of timber. The spokes, wheels, and chassis of almost every cart, chariot, or wagon were made of wood, as were the bridges they crossed. Transportation would have been impossible without wood. Timbered beams and rafters held up ancient palaces and propped up the world's mines. Wherever trees have abounded, people invariably build their homes of wood, and wood has been used for uncountable tools and domestic items; more trees have been lost to fuel than have been lost to lumber.

When civilization first arose in Asia, so too did large-scale deforestation. Today, Asia still leads the world in the aggregate amount and percentage of forestland lost. Since the rise of the first great civilizations, the continent had a little over 15 million square kilometers of forest; today, only around 4 million square kilometers of forested land remain.

The first accounts of humanity's attack on forests come from ancient Mesopotamia, China, and India. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's first written saga, tells of Mesopotamia's founding king and his entourage stripping the mountains of their forests. Mesopotamian kings of the third millennium BCE boast in cuneiform script preserved on clay tablets how they made paths in cedar mountains and cut its cedars with their great axes.

Likewise, deforestation dominates the founding legend of historical China. According to the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius (c. 372–289 BCE), the legendary emperor Yao (c. twenty-fourth century BCE) felt great anguish to see the land overgrown by vegetation and crowded by swarming birds and beasts. Yao's handpicked successor, Shun, acted to rid the landscape of what had so offended his mentor. He ordered his forester, Yi, to set fire to the forests and vegetation on the mountains and in the marshes so that the birds and beasts fled away and grain could be planted. Over the centuries the mountains and plains of China underwent a similar transformation.

The policies of Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the leader of China's Communist revolution, continued the destruction of forests. His Great Leap Forward resulted in tens of thousands of villages cutting down nearby timber stands to fuel their backyard iron furnaces. A loss of over 100,000 square kilometers of forest resulted from Mao's other initiative: "Taking Grain as the Key Link." That program converted 700,000 square kilometers of forestland to agricultural uses.

The topic of forest destruction also comes up in the Mahabharata, the national epic of India. The ancient Aryan heroes Krishna Vasudeva and Arjuna help the fire god devour the great Khandava Forest in northern India and make sure none of the fleeing creatures survive. They want the forest cleared so that the new kingdom they have fought for will be assured of sufficient farmland. In India's other ancient epic, the Ramayana, the hero Rama shows no compunction in ordering the felling of whole forests to build a great causeway for his troops to cross. Thousands of years later, the British continued the destruction of India's woodlands. Independence did nothing to ameliorate what the British had done to India's forests; in fact, deforestation accelerated. Taken together, only 20 percent of China and India's original forests remain.

The accelerated deforestation of China and India's neighbors to the east and south has more recent origins. As late as 1919, almost 70 percent of the original forests in the Philippines were intact, but as of 1989, that figure had dropped to 20 percent. Other recent deforestation flash points include eastern Myammar (Burma), northern and northeastern Thailand, Vietnam, the state of Sarawak in eastern Malaysia, and Sumatra and East and South Kalimantan in Indonesia. This rapid loss of forests coincides with an almost twelve-fold increase in logging in the region since 1950 and the population explosion that began in the 1960s. Loggers cull hardwoods from among other trees in the forest. To gain access to these trees and to haul the logs overland for export, they build roads that allow the landless masses to enter the forests. Once there, the landless burn down what trees are left, and plant what crops they can. When that patch inevitably gives out, they move deeper into the forests and continue to slash and burn. In this fashion, more and more forested land turns barren.

Deforestation in Asia follows a world pattern. Between 1990 and 1995, the developing world has cleared 65 million hectares of forestland. Deforestation in Asia as well as in the rest of the developing world ranks along with global warming among the world's gravest environmental problems faced in the new millennium.

Forest Industry—Mongolia; Forest Industry—Southeast Asia; Mangroves

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——. (1988) World Deforestation in the Twentieth Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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