Rain Forest | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The ethical and policy issues associated with rain forests are doubly related to technology and science: While technology has provided the tools for cutting down rain forests, science has produced knowledge about their importance that leads to the questioning of such practices.

If one compares maps of the world featuring maximum biodiversity, deserts, and desertification (for example, putting side by side Mittermeier et al., Hotspots [2000], p. 19; the Encyclopedia of Deserts [1999], inside cover; and the World Atlas of Desertification [1997], pp. 44–45), the most striking feature is the proximity of maximum and minimum biodiversity in well-defined bands that circle the globe—because of the heat of the sun at the Equator and related atmospheric and climate effects. That is, the areas that contain the highest levels of biological diversity are almost all endangered to a high degree as well.

Kathlyn Gay (2001) introduces her summary of worldwide research and activism on rain forests by describing tropical rain forests as those close to the Equator and characterized by a minimum of 80 to 120 inches of rainfall per year that make up 6 percent of the surface of the Earth. These are found in parts of Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and the United States, with the best-known being in Amazonia. Others are located in Papua New Guinea, the islands of Madagascar, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador. Gay's book covers temperate rain forests as well, such as those in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada. With respect to either kind, tropical or temperate, the reason for researcher and activist interest is the impact of forests on climate, including precipitation, soil, and the carbon cycle so necessary for terrestrial life. Decimation of the rain forests would have a lasting impact on world climate, and would also affect winds, rainfall, and heat patterns, especially in the rich equatorial band around the globe.

Deforestation is a particularly difficult issue in certain areas. The best-known problem area is the Amazon rain forest. Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn (1989) claim that Amazon deforestation is based in the policies of post-World War II Brazilian military governments. In 1964 Brazil began a massive interior settlement program that promoted forest clearing for cattle ranching. Much of the clearing also took place near gold strikes, since cattle grazing allows "large amounts of land—and the mineral rights below it—to be claimed with minimal labour" (Gay 2001, p. 46). Clearing also undermined rubber tapping in the forests, stimulating the rubber tapper Chico Mendes (1944–1988) to highlight the manifold social and environmental problems being created by deforestation (Burch 1994). His murder helped stimulate creation of the World Rainforest Movement (founded 1986) that has criticized the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Bank support for national forest clearing initiatives (World Rainforest Movement 1992).

Focus on the human dimension of deforestation is further emphasized in Tropical Deforestation (1996), which makes the sweeping claim that "government management of forests often results in deforestation, whereas local community management of forests is usually more likely to contribute to forest conservation" (Sponsel, Headland, and Bailey 1996, p. xx) This broad conclusion is based on anthropological studies that detail work in Mayan Mexico, Polynesia, India, Kenya and other areas of Africa, the Philippines and New Guinea, as well as Madagascar, the Amazon, and other areas of Central and South America.

A more extensive discussion of the problem is provided by Sing Chew (2001), who traces ecological tragedies from 3000 B.C.E. to the year 2000 C.E., under a series of imperial regimes. Chew argues that in every case, from ancient Mesopotamia through Greece and Rome to the Portuguese and Spanish Empires and later European imperialism, deforestation was a constant concomitant of political aggrandizement and empire building—along with the continuing rise in population.

Few scholars challenge the link between government policies and deforestation. But some observers such as Bjørn Lomborg, while admitting that overexploitation may be taking place, nevertheless argue that the situation has been exaggerated. For instance, although in 1988 the Brazilian space agency announced that its satellites showed 7,000 fires destroying 2 percent of the Amazonian rain forest per year, subsequent corrections reduced this figure to 0.5 percent, and "in actual fact, overall Amazonian deforestation has only been about 14 percent" since humans arrived (Lomborg 2001, p. 114). Such figures raise important questions of scientific ethics and responsibility on many sides of this important issue.

A number of other scientists, especially environmental economists, argue that tree cutting—even timber harvesting on a large scale—can be managed sustainably. Eberhard Bruening, for example, maintains that it is possible "to mimic nature and utilize inherent ecosystem dynamics and indeterminism to improve self-sustainability and economic viability" (Bruening 1996,
p. x). Bruening is not overly optimistic that current managers and their government supporters can do this, but he thinks matters could change if community-oriented

forestry were initiated or expanded. (In Bruening's opinion, it has begun in some places including Sarawak in Southeast Asia.) Others emphasize forest-related activities that may prove more profitable than cutting trees in rain forests. For example, Douglas Southgate (1998) discusses ecotourism and its successes in Costa Rica, along with that country's genetic prospecting agreements, debt-for-nature swapping, and offers to serve as a sink for other countries in carbon-sequestration trading deals. (Activity in Nicaragua and Guatamala underlie similarly optimistic assessments of profitable alternatives, as described at length by Olman Segura-Bonilla [2000]).

In terms of science, technology, and ethics as related to rain forests (especially tropical rain forests), there is a broad consensus (represented here by Gay) that unethical forest management policies and practices have been implemented by governments since the Bronze Age. The science to support this claim, usually deforestation mapping from satellites, points to continuing tree cutting in spite of environmentalists' outrage—although the precise extent is contested. Indeed others argue that sustainable management (of tree cutting) is possible, even in tropical rain forests, provided that scientifically sound forest management practices are employed (Bruening 1996). Proponents of this theory also point to the ever-increasing demand for wood and wood products in the world economy, adding that rain forests can be economically productive in other ways—some even as alternatives to deforestation.

Biodiversity;; Deforestation and Desertification;; Ecological Restoration;; Ecology;; Environmental Ethics;; Environmentalism;; Global Climate Change;; Sierra Club;; United Nations Environmental Program;; Water.

Bruening, Eberhard F. (1996). Conservation and Management of Tropical Rainforests: An Integrated Approach to Sustainability. Wallingford, England: CAB International.

Burch, Joann Johnson. (1994). Chico Mendes, Defender of the Rainforest. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook.

Chew, Sing C. (2001). World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization, and Deforestation 3000 B.C.–A.D. 2000. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira.

Gay, Kathlyn. (2001). Rainforests of the World, 2nd edition. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Hecht, Susanna, and Alexander Cockburn. (1989). The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon. London: Verso.

Lomborg, Bjørn. (2001) The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mares, Michael A., ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of Deserts. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Middleton, Nick, and David Thomas, eds. (1997). World Atlas of Desertification, 2nd edition. London: Arnold.

Mittermeier, Russell A.; Norman Myers; Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier; and Patricio Robles Gil. (2000). Hotspots, CEMEX, Conservation International; and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Segura-Bonilla, Olman. (2000). Sustainable Systems of Innovation: The Forest Sector in Central America. Aalborg, Denmark: University of Aalborg.

Southgate, Douglas. (1998). Tropical Forest Conservation: An Economic Assessment of the Alternatives in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sponsel, Leslie E.; Thomas N. Headland; and Robert C. Bailey. (1996). Tropical Deforestation: The Human Dimension. New York: Columbia University Press.

World Rainforest Movement. (1992). Rainforest Destruction: Causes, Effects and False Solutions. Penang, Malaysia: Author.

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