Deforestation and the growth of drugs

By Shoryu Zaman-Das

As you already know, deforestation can severely affect the environment, and can cause the loss of many trees and plants. A human reason as to why trees are being cut down is for the growth of illegal drugs. Every year, “Narco Traffickers” (Narco literally meaning dope) are cutting down parts of rainforest and using them to grow drug content, like “Coca”, which is the main ingredient in cocaine. We’ll explore where “coca” is grown, what else the Narco Traffickers are getting up to, and most importantly, how we are stopping this horror practice from occurring in the first place. Deforestation is harmful, not only to the environment, but to the people as well.

The Narco Traffickers produce illegal drugs, mostly cocaine (which is punishable by public execution in Saudi Arabia). The land that they produce from is often deforested land in economically and socially unstable countries. This allows them to simply bypass laws, if there are any, which ban the production of drugs. The places traffickers are located and the coca is planted are often very remote, and hard to reach. These places are quite small because coca is a unique plant that produces lots of leaves in a small area. Because of the difficulty in reaching the plantations, many authorities have given up in their hunt to track Narco traffickers, and have let the traffickers continue their illegal trade.

There are many countries that produce coca leaves, but there is a main emphasis on South America, as coca in a native plant. Besides South America, many Central American nations, like the Honduras, produce large amounts of coca. With the coca, traffickers send it upward through Central America and Mexico where it is processed, and turned into the infamous drug COCAINE. Small amounts of the cocaine is sold to back Central American countries, but most of the shipment moves on and gets transported in underground tunnels towards the United States, the world’s largest cocaine market.

Growing prohibited drugs and cutting down trees are not the crime that traffickers commit. They have known to threaten locals and offer bribes to authorities to ensure that the truth is unheard. In unstable countries, this is an unwelcome practice, and in the Honduras, (whose forest loss has multiplies 50 times between 2004 and 2011, coinciding with an increase of coca movements) the homicide rate is now the highest in the world, with 85.5 people in 100,000 being murdered in 2012. This has terrified locals to act and report illegal activity to already bribed authorities, paid to keep their mouths closed.

So how are we going to fix what seems like a colossal problem? A 2004 survey about Coca plantations in Columbian national parks showed that, out of the 50 national parks in Columbia, only 13 had active coca plantations. 60,000 families grow coca in Columbia, and many want to grow within the proceeds of the law (Growing coca in not illegal in Columbia). Putting national parks in will help curb the amount of people growing coca in the first place, and not cutting trees down for it.

In conclusion, as coca plantation is now slowing again since peaking in 2011, we know what traffickers get up to when they cut down trees for the growth of illegal drugs, and this is one of the causes pushing deforestation along. We also know the target areas where deforestation and coca growth collide, and most importantly, we know how to curb the cutting down of trees related to growing drugs. Hopefully, drug growth will slow to a halt, bringing deforestation down with it…

Sources:

1.      http://www.vice.com/read/drug-dealing-in-saudi-arabia-sounds-like-a-very-stressful-business

2.      http://ask.metafilter.com/66881/Why-is-coca-only-cultivated-in-South-America

3.      http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-24/us-still-worlds-biggest-cocaine-market/2769880

4.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cocaine

5.      http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/us-honduras-homicides-idUSBREA1G1E520140217

6.      Pages 44-47, Columbia coca cultivation survey - United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime 2004

7.      http://news.discovery.com/earth/cocaine-deforestation-colombia-110128.htm

8.      http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25960481
 

Image Sources

1.     http://www.trbimg.com/img-5245d2aa/turbine/la-fg-wn-peru-colombia-coca-cocaine-20130927-001/600

2.    http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/image/press_room/press_releases/2010/deforestation_300.jpg

Cloud Forests

By William Dieu

A cloud forest, also known as a fog forest, is basically a forest covered with a low-level cloud. Rain forests are almost exactly the same because they both receive high levels of rain. The difference is that the rain for the cloud forests comes directly from the clouds. Cloud forests often have a surplus amount of mosses growing on the ground which then they are called mossy forests. These forests are generally on edge or back of a mountain because of the settling moisture from the clouds.

There are loads of cloud forests all over the world. Many people think of them as uniquely tropical. Some are in Australia, Japan, United States and that’s just to name a few. People say that if you walk under one of them, you’d think you were in a rain storm.

Cloud forests are important due to functions they have. The water shed function is that rainfall can be doubled in dry seasons and increase in the wet season by around 10%. This occurs because of the cloud-stripping strategy which is simply clouds coming in contact with the tree, water is collected on the leaves and stems.

Another function cloud forests contain is their mass vegetation. They don’t have as many animal species compared to lowland forests, however, they provide habitats for rare animals, which are only found in cloud forests, such as the... bare-neck umbrellabird, violet sabrewing or the giant/cane toad
 The natural place for animals is very high. In Peru, more than one third of local birds, mammals, and frogs are found in cloud forests. The mountain gorilla is one of the best known cloud forest mammals because of them almost becoming extinct. A large amount of the animals have specific functions in the ecosystem such as seed dispersal and forest dynamics.

In 2001, lowland deforestation occurred and impacted the nearby cloud forests in Costa Rica. The damage was so terrible that the life of the flora might have been threatened. If the forest had been lost, it would take unique plants and animals with it.

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_forest

2. http://www.cloudforestconservation.org/cloud_forest/

3. http://www.nature.com/news/2001/011019/full/news011025-2.html

4. http://www.anywherecostarica.com/attractions/reserve/monteverde-cloud-forest

5. http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/top_5_environmental_questions/top_5_questions_about_forests/
 

Image Sources:

      1. http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay-images/12/cows.lasgralarisas.568.jpg

      2. http://www.varmaphoto.com/data/photos/36_1img_1095.jpg

Slash and Burn

By Cameron Tai

Slash and burn is a way people use to quickly flatten the land of its trees and expose the nutrient and water rich soil that is commonly found under large numbers of trees, like in rainforests. Then, they use this cleared land for purposes such as farming, making areas for cattle to graze, mining, making roads and for housing.

By burning the plants, it releases all the gasses, such as carbon dioxide. This can rapidly increase the rate of global warming as it releases many elements that were used by the plant, such as carbon dioxide. And global warming keeps speeding up, because as you burn up more plants, you are also losing leaves which turn Carbon Dioxide into oxygen. 

The most notable case of slash and burn is the amazon rainforest. It was five times the size of Peru but now, it has lost almost 20% of its trees to farming, mining, wood logging and infrastructure projects. Today, the Amazon Rainforest is only four times the size of Peru. It is home to 40,000 plant species and approximately 10 million species of animals. But most importantly, it accounts for around 20% of the world’s photosynthesis. If we keep slashing and burning the amazon rainforest, within 100 years, it could be only half the size of the original rainforest before human civilisation started in South America.

When slash and burn occurs, the humidity can be massively impacted, and the air moisture reduced. This is because water is one of the ingredients in photosynthesis, and plants use it to their advantage, in order to make oxygen and glucose. Without the trees in a rainforest, the sun would evaporate all the water and leave the former rainforest extremely dry.

Slashing and burning land for clearance for farm usage is almost useless anyway, because the ash and tree embers that go into the ground bury the nutritional, water laden soil. Even after the ash and embers are cleared, the soil will not be as nutritious as it was when a rainforest was over it because there would be a lack of compost (fallen leaves from the trees above) for the soil to decompose.

In conclusion, we know slash and burn is destroying our forests and causes pollution when the burnt leaves release all the gasses that they used in the photosynthesis process.

 Sources:

1.      http://environment.nationalgeographic.com.au/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/

2.      http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_forests/deforestation/

Image Sources:

1.      http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/31/jaguars-battling-in-the-darkness-sense-of-place-in-the-peruvian-amazon/peruvian-amazon-cut-2/

What is Deforestation?

By Shoryu Zaman-Das

Demand Media Video -- powered by ehow.com

 

Put simply, deforestation is the constant cutting down of forests and large amount of trees in order to clear land for farming, and to find new sources of wood and paper. Deforestation has been the single major cause of tree loss, and since mankind learnt how to use an axe, more than half of the world's forests had disappeared, with a quarter of all the world's forests being cut down since 1950. There have been many attempts to stop deforestation by major international organisations, like the UN, but still, every year, a forest the size of Panama gets cut down. The Wageningen University have carried out their research, and have found that almost 80% of all trees are cut down for commercial plant growth, but what remains uncovered is deforestation for illegal causes, like land clearing for growth of Cocaine.

Deforestation is also one of the leading causes when it comes to global warming. Trees and plants, unlike all other life forms have a reversal process, where they breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen (not literally). Cutting down 16 million hectares of trees each year is not only destroying all the trees that are providing oxygen for us and our atmosphere, but almost all the plants which grew underneath the trees will die out too. This means that there is a rapid loss of global oxygen supply, which could be an extremely precious resource in the future if our carbon dioxide emissions continue.

Americans* use approximately 85 million tonnes of paper each year, which calculates to over 85 million trees just for America to use each year. Paper use is the most common cause of deforestation, with the world using over 300 million trees yearly to ensure a steady supply of paper for our schools, offices and businesses. Paper needs to be sourced from trees, which experts believe that worldwide, half the trees that were on this earth 8 000 years ago are now gone.

Farming is an important part of the worldwide economy, not only to grow food and crops, but to manufacture clothing. The demand for food, crops and clothing has rapidly increased, so has the need for farming. Land deemed fertile has been the home of forests, which is what many farmers want to get to. Even Brazil’s government is allowing local towns to go ahead with their plans to cut down parts of the Amazon rainforest in order to clear land.

One of the most popular ways of cutting down trees is the infamous "Slash and Burn" method. This involves burning trees to remove them from the area, before they are easily cut down. Obviously, this is harmful for the environment as lots of smoke would enter the atmosphere. Not only this, but additional carbon dioxide stored in leaves escape as a result of the burning. 

At least there is hope. The trees in the USA have been increasing in number since the 1920’s, and doesn’t look like stopping.  This is through many community growing schemes, where an estimated 1.5 million trees are planted every year. There are trees growing more in our environment, and our greater knowledge of different trees can help us plan for the future. Also, the rise of technology has taken away our need for large expenses for paper. By digitalisation, we have deserted the need for many forms of print. Deserting the need for print is distorting the need to cut down multiple trees daily.

You should now have a good awareness of deforestation, and the major problems that it causes. Following this article, you will read a few more posts, detailing what problems our earth is going to face if we continue deforesting at the current rate. Hopefully, after more worldwide recognition, we can make deforestation a problem of the past.

*The source of most statistics

 

Sources:
National Geographic: Deforestation
WWF: Deforestation
Agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation
Paper University: Paper Questions

Image Sources:
Video: http://www.ehow.com/video_4766663_why-deforestation-global-problem.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Holzstaemme.JPG
http://www.argentinaindependent.com/images/edition044/deforestation/deforestation04.jpg