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Deforestation in Brazil


Worldwide deforestation has drastically changed our planet since the 1980s, with increased damage over the last ten years. Particularly in Brazil, mainly due to economic woes, deforestation has affected thousands of plant and animal species in the Amazon rainforest. Despite climate change efforts worldwide, deforestation in Brazil has worsened over the past two years after a consistent drop years prior. These are the five things you need to know about deforestation in Brazil.

5 Facts About Deforestation in Brazil

  1. Deforestation has grown over the past two years. A survey conducted annually by the Brazilian government showed that the rate of deforestation in the Amazon had increased for the 12-month period ending in August 2016 and again for the 12-month period before that.The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest, but for the second year in a row deforestation in Brazil has been allowed to continue. During 2015, the survey showed that deforestation growth was 24 percent. In 2016 the growth of deforestation was 30 percent.
  2. Food exports are the cause of the high demand for deforestation. From July 2015 to August 2016, 3,100 square miles of forest had reportedly disappeared. The occurred due to the increased exportation of meat and soy in the region. Brazil is the world’s top exporter of meat. Brazil needs to needs to remain the top exporter of meat to prevent its economy from falling into further disrepair, as the country has been struggling for the last few years.Along with the need for space to accommodate cattle, the amount of soy produced has increased, affecting deforestation in Brazil. In rural areas, farmers buy plots of land with permits from the government with the intent to sell products to larger companies, like U.S. company Cargill. As reported by the New York Times, “One of those farmers, Heinrich Janzen, was clearing woodland from a 37-acre plot he bought late last year, hustling to get soy in the ground in time for a May harvest. ‘Cargill wants to buy from us,’ said Mr. Janzen, 38, as bluish smoke drifted from heaps of smoldering vegetation.”

    His soy is in demand as Cargill is one of several agricultural traders vying to buy from soy farmers in the region, he explained.

  3. Many species are affected by deforestation. Deforestation in Brazil has put the Amazon in a vulnerable position with certain plants and species becoming susceptible to extinction. Home to more than 2.5 million species of insects, 2,000 species of birds and 10,000 species of plants, the Amazon rainforest is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. When fires are used as a tactic to eliminate trees in order to make space, the emissions from the smoke release hazardous toxins into the environment. This space clearing also wipes away a number of rare ecosystems and displaces different communities of animals. Currently, only 15 percent of the world’s forests are still intact.
  4. Big companies are partly responsible. Cargill and Bunge are two American food giants currently operating in Brazil. Both companies are known for pushing locals to buy soy in order to build ties with them. In 2014, Cargill was part of a worldwide deal in which the companies signed a pact to eliminate deforestation for the production of oil, soy and beef by 2020.Despite the deal, in the two years following the signing, deforestation in Brazil increased, partially due to companies like Cargill. In order for real change to occur, more companies have to agree to curb deforestation.
  5. Efforts by the Brazilian government have decreased. The Brazilian government had previously been known to acknowledge these pressing problem in the Amazon and had stepped up its efforts to combat deforestation. As of late, the government focus has shifted from the environment to its own interior issues.Cuts to the budget for the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable National Resources, also known as IBAMA, have become detrimental to efforts to combat deforestation in Brazil. IBAMA’s focus on the Amazon is to prevent deforestation through surveillance of the Amazon. The budget has been cut from $25 million to $7 million.

According to NPR, the Brazilian newspaper Estadão reported that “the rise in deforestation is raising concerns about Brazil’s ability to meet its commitments as part of the International Paris Agreement on combating climate change.” With budget cuts and old technology, it has become harder for officers of the IBAMA to do their job. Their radios only reach a 1.3-mile range, and pickup trucks have become too visible to illegal deforesters.

On the bright side, National Geographic noted that the government has implemented new tactics to tackle the heightening of illegal deforestation. Proof of permits must be provided to IBAMA officers when in certain areas of the Amazon. Only time will tell if these efforts will positively impact the severe deforestation in Brazil, despite the drastic cuts in aid and budget.

– Maria Rodriguez

Photo: Flickr

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Five Ways to Help Stop Desertification of the World

5 Ways on How to Stop Desertification
Drought, deforestation and climate change. All of these contribute to the extreme global issue known as desertification. According to the environmental campaign Clean Up the World, desertification is the degradation of land in drylands, which affects all continents except Antarctica. Approximately half of the people worldwide who live below the poverty line live in affected areas.

The result of desertification is barren land that cannot be used for crop and food production or other agricultural purposes. Prevention methods have been introduced and tend to be more successful than attempts to restore already damaged regions, which can be costly and yield limited results.

  1. Land and water management: Sustainable land use can fix issues such as overgrazing, overexploitation of plants, trampling of soils and irrigation practices that cause and worsen desertification.
  2. Protection of vegetative cover: Protecting soil from wind and water erosion helps to prevent the loss of ecosystem services during droughts.
  3. Alternative Farming and Industrial Techniques: Alternative livelihoods that are less demanding on local land and natural resource use, such as dryland aquaculture for production of fish, crustaceans and industrial compounds, limit desertification.
  4. Establish economic opportunities outside drylands: Unpacking new possibilities for people to earn a living, such as urban growth and infrastructure, could relieve and shift pressures underlying the desertification processes.
  5. Great Green Wall: Eleven countries in Sahel-Sahara Africa — Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal — have focused efforts to fight against land degradation and revive native plant life to the landscape. The initiative, managed in part by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), plants a line of trees as a sustainable way of regenerating the parkland and serves as an example for other problematic locations.

Such large-scale environmental complications may seem troubling to deal with, but the outlined methods and many more make all the difference, giving individuals an idea of how to stop desertification.

– Mikaela Frigillana

Photo: Flickr

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Poverty Alleviation and Protecting the Forests

ForestsOn March 21 of every year, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations celebrates the International Day of Forests.

Forests play a key role in maintaining the water resources and overall equilibrium on Earth. The following are seven important facts about forests as stated by the FAO:

1. Wetlands and streams running through forests supply 75 percent of the human population’s fresh water.

2. About one-third of the world’s largest cities rely on forested areas for their drinking water.

3. Almost 80 percent of the global population is living in area that is threatened by water security.

4. Forests act as water filters, trapping pollutants and reducing sediment in rivers and wetlands.

5. Trees are very important in the climate change arena. Not only do they have a cooling effect on the environment but they also regulate water flow and influence the availability of water resources.

6. Unless conservation strategies are enacted, by 2030, the world will see a 40 percent deficit in water resources.

7. Forests have a vital role in reducing natural disasters such as landslides and avalanches, as well as in strengthening resistance to erosion.

People living in poverty often lack access to clean drinking water sources. They also tend to be the hardest hit by natural disasters such as severe storms and floods. While trees can help keep drinking water sources clean and mitigate the effects of natural disasters, illegal logging is a fact of life in many parts of the world.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), “illegal logging accounts for 50 to 90 percent of all forestry activities in key producer tropical forests, such as those of the Amazon Basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia, and 15 to 30 percent of all wood traded globally.”

In an article on the WWF website, the organization says that increased demand for forests products has brought some financial benefits for poor people living in or near forests. “But there is also evidence to show that usually, poor communities who are completely dependent on forests lose out to powerful interests, logging companies and migrant workers who reap most of the benefits.”

Often poor communities that are dependent upon forests for harvesting wood for fuel for cooking, heating and occasionally for selling lumber lose all control of the forest when powerful outsiders come in and strip the land for the lumber or for agricultural interests.

To combat illegal logging and drive improvements in the forest products sector, the WWF created the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) to help keep track of where wood products come from. It was created in 1999 and now works with TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

Governments that maintain control of large areas of forests can take advantage of this vital resource by managing forests sustainably, selling the lumber and taxing the products. If governments do not exact control over their forests, Marianne Fernagut writes in GRID-Arendal Publications that the “loss of revenues as a result of illegal logging can cost governments and economies millions of dollars each year.”

In countries where a fair tax system has been put in place, the resources can be used for schools, or other infrastructure. For example, in Bolivia 25 percent of monies made from forest resources is kept by the government.

In another article in GRID-Arendal by David Huberman and Leo Peskett, the authors posit a mostly theoretical framework called ‘Reduce Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation’ (REDD), in which developing countries can be paid to keep their land forested. “Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime, substantial amounts of money could be transferred to developing countries: some estimates suggest more than USD 15 billion per year would be available, a figure which dwarfs existing aid flows to the world’s forest regions.”

– Rhonda Marrone

Sources: FAO, Panda 1, Panda 2, Grida 1, Grida 2
Photo: Flickr

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Six Surprising Causes of Hunger

hungerOne in eight people go hungry each day, but the world produces enough food to feed the entire population and more. Why haven’t countries eradicated hunger? Can’t governments simply reorganize food distribution to feed everybody? The answer is much more complicated.

Here are six causes of hunger that are not often considered:

  1. Poor infrastructure and vehicles – Many developing countries lack the resources to build sufficient roads, which impedes food transportation. In some countries, motor vehicles are also in short supply, so the majority of transportation is on foot, bicycle or on the backs of livestock. With these methods of transportation, fresh food would spoil quickly. Rural areas must rely on the natural resources around them, and if those resources aren’t enough, the inhabitants may go hungry.
  1. Deforestation – Forests act as a safety net during times of food shortage: communities can rely on nuts, edible plants and forest animals until crops are ready for harvest, or food is imported. Deforestation robs people of these resources. In fact, one out of six people rely directly on forests for food. Furthermore, deforestation can lead to overworked soil, which in turn leads to soil erosion. If soil becomes unfit for crops, farmers and surrounding settlements become at risk for famine.
  1. War – In times of national and international strife, one popular tactic towards achieving victory is destroying the enemy’s food supply. Soldiers will steal animals, demolish food markets and set fields on fire to force the other side into submission. While an effective ploy, it leaves citizens with a major food crisis that may take decades to resolve. Refugees of war often face hunger complications as they struggle to scrape together a living or find a home. The world is seeing this problem right now, as hungry Syrians scatter across the globe in search of shelter and nourishment.
  1. Foreign trade – When a food crisis occurs at a local level, it can also have far-reaching effects. Countries that rely on the export of goods from that area suddenly can’t receive necessary supplies. “Overall, in the last two decades there has been an increase in the number of trade-dependent countries that reach sufficiency through their reliance on trade,” Paolo D’Odorico—who conducted a study on climate change and crop production—told Natural World News.
  1. Discrimination – In every country, groups of people are poorer than their neighbors due to religious, racial or gender-based discrimination. If groups are not well-received by their community, it becomes very difficult for them to ward off hunger. They may be banned from restaurants and food markets, unable to find employment, unlawfully incarcerated and overlooked by government welfare programs.
  1. Cheap food – Sometimes, the hunger problem is a matter of quality, not quantity. If people purchase and consume cheap, unhealthy food, they will reach their proper calorie intake, but still suffer severe nutrient deficiencies. This situation is known as “hidden hunger.” Unborn babies and toddlers are especially vulnerable because they need specific nutrients to develop and become resilient to disease.

– Sarah Prellwitz

Sources: Bread.org, Global Issues, Nature World News, WFP
Photo: Lifted Hands Foundation

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Trees for the Future: Fighting Global Poverty

Fighting Global Poverty and Deforestation: Trees for the FutureTrees for the Future is an organization that is focused on restoring the environment as well as fighting global poverty. It recognizes the large effect trees have in economic, environmental and social improvement. The slogan of the organization is, “Planting Trees, Changing Lives.”

Dave and Grace Deppner founded the organization in 1989 after an eye-opening experience in the Philippines. It was there that they discovered they could restore communities while saving degraded land.

Roughly 80% of the developing world has health and nutritional needs met by non-wood forest products and there are approximately 100,000 acres of forest lost each day in the world. The Deppners were determined to help reverse to statistics.

One country Trees for the Future works in is Senegal. Senegal’s increased deforestation has led to the loss of more than half of the forests. They have helped farmers plant more than half a million trees and develop forest gardens.

Trees for the Future has also partnered with the Peace Corps and the Senegalese Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry throughout their time there.

Brazil is another country where Trees for the Future’s impact can be seen. The organization has helped rebuild communities through the development of education programs on effective agroforestry. The main purposes of reforesting in Brazil are to bring back the nutrition in soil as well as to provide a source of food for the livestock.

One tree in particular, has proved invaluable to the Brazilian communities that the organization works with. The moringa oleifera tree produces edible pods, leaves and flowers. These are high in calcium and Vitamin A. The powder that comes from ground seeds has also helped improve the quality of water due to its purifying qualities.

The trees planted in these countries are unifying communities as well as creating sustainable agriculture. Trees for the Future has planted more than 50 million trees in various parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Their influence has reached 58 different countries and 12,000 villages.

– Iona Brannon

Sources: Food and Agriculture Organization, Trees for the Future, Trees for the Future: Senegal, Trees for the Future: Brazil,
Photo: Google Images

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Illegal Logging in Guinea-Bissau

illegal_logging
A new illegal market has begun to flourish in the impoverished nation of Guinea-Bissau. This tiny West African nation boasts a population of around 1.6 million people, and almost 50 percent of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. Some data puts the number at almost 70 percent.

It is not surprising to see a potentially profitable–albeit illegal–market emerge in a society with such high levels of poverty. This new market is the logging of the native Bissau-Guinean rosewood trees. Data shows that “timber exports to China from Guinea-Bissau jumped from 80 cubic meters in 2008 to more than 15,000 cubic meters last year.”

There are a few key reasons this illegal logging has emerged. First, there is the demand for the resource from China. In China, redwood is used to make “hongmu furniture, red luxury Chinese pieces replicating the styles of the Qing period.”

Logging also began because of a decrease in the price of cashews, Guinea-Bissau’s main export. With around 80 percent of the population relying on cashew production for financial stability, this decrease caused a large amount of the population to suffer a huge loss in income.

With few options for steady work outside of cashew production, many people have turned to rosewood logging to survive. A local can be paid between $2 and $6 to cut down a tree, as opposed to between 2¢ and 50¢ for a kilogram of cashews. This causes the locals to ignore the long term effects of deforestation.

The local populations use wood from the forests as their primary source of energy. They also use the animals as a source of protein in their diets, but “at this pace, deforestation is going to destroy the animals’ natural habitats and cause their disappearance.” This continued logging of the rosewood tree will lead to destabilization of the local habitat and essential aspects of the local population’s livelihood.

This issue is exacerbated by the political turmoil in the country. Local populations are turning to logging for survival, but the government has responded by either ignoring the situation or profiting from it.

In April 2012, Guinea-Bissau experienced a military coup. This has led to increased corruption, with the collapse of the rule of law. Fodé Mané, the president of Human Rights Network in Guinea-Bissau, has said that prior to the coup there had “always been illegal cutting of trees,” but now the practice is far more rampant.

Military and police officers as well as government officials accept bribes to allow the flow of rosewood to China. In fact, a “Guinean forestry official said his department could not prevent illegal logging because of the involvement of senior government officials and high-ranking military officers.”

Aside from the poverty and ineffective government, many Chinese import companies have increased the price they will pay for rosewood to keep the market intact. And it’s hard to say no to higher prices.

It would seem that the factors working to expand the illegal market of logging African rosewood are stacked against the activists trying to save the environment. There are many locals, government officials and environmentalists who want to see this practice stopped.

Yet for them, there is some hope. This April, after two years of military rule, Guinea-Bissau held elections. The elections were accepted by the local populace as well as international observers. There was worry that the military wouldn’t give up power, but they peacefully stepped down to the newly elected José Mário Vaz, who beat the military-supported candidate.

This peaceful election is a good sign that the country will move toward stability and lawful proceedings. Those trying to stem the influx of rosewood logging believe the law will work in their favor and the enforcement of the laws deeming logging illegal will become commonplace. For example, just this month, the government “suspended exports of wood in order to give priority to exports of cashew nuts.”

The recent return to the rule of law in Guinea-Bissau is a step in the right direction. However, the market can be difficult to alter. If Chinese importers are willing to pay, there will always be someone willing to sell. This issue needs some serious enforcement from the government. For the sake of the local population and its dependence on the forest, hopefully the government will continue to take action.

– Eleni Marino 

Sources: UNICEF, The Guardian, IRIN, Macauhub, Reuters
Photo: Tree Service Finder

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Six Successes of Plant With Purpose Around the World

plant with a purpose
Plant With Purpose is a San Diego-based Christian development organization. It assists the impoverished living in rural areas “where poverty and environmental degradation intersect” globally.

Through agricultural training, restoring the land and providing financial education, Plant With Purpose helps poor farming families become self-sufficient. To date, they have helped plant 11.9 million trees since their founding in 1984.

Plant With Purpose is currently present in more than 325 communities, providing aid and support to over 17,132 individuals within Burundi, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Tanzania and Thailand.

Location: Davi, Haiti

The Need: In Haiti, only 2 percent of its original forestry remains. Eighty-four percent of the population lives in poverty, and the country imports 60 percent of its food needs. Half of Haitian children under 5 are undernourished. With the help of Plant With Purpose, smallholder farming families are planting trees, implementing soil conservation methods and preventing soil erosion. Locals are educated on sustainable agriculture methods that restore the land and increase their food production and incomes. Village Savings and Loan Associations are also implemented.

Instead of providing food aid, Plant With Purpose is educating for self-sufficiency.

The communities in Davi are facing particular hardships. Floods and landslides cause destruction every rainy season, washing away the fertile topsoil and preventing farmers from growing crops. Families are forced to migrate to cities to find work. Plant With Purpose is working to reverse deforestation through its various methodologies.

Progress: Assisted families showed a 46 percent decrease in cholera and a 50 percent decrease in typhoid, compared with others. They also now actively save cash four times more frequently. They cultivate about 20 percent more land, own 30 percent more land and protect 20 percent more land through reforestation or erosion control.

These families also plant about three times as many trees as non-assisted local families.

Location: Panasawan & Pang Dang Nok, Thailand

The Need: The government of Thailand refuses to recognize many hill tribe members as citizens. Thus, they have few legal rights. They also have limited access to healthy fields, leaving them to grow crops on devastated hillsides. Plant With Purpose has been working with these communities to help them learn sustainable farming techniques and advocate for legal status in Thailand.

The village of Panasawan suffers from extreme poverty and a destroyed environment. Soil erosion, poor water quality and sanitation, difficult access to land rights and lacking availability of credit has ensnared the community in the cycle of poverty and environmental degradation. Plant With Purpose is providing farmers with environmental and financial training and economic opportunities necessary to break the cycle.

Progress: Hill tribe farming families are gaining access to land and basic rights. Village Savings and Loan Associations are providing a means to save and gain credit. Plant With Purpose is also helping congregations better meet the needs of their communities by training leaders.

Families aided now have twice as many children enrolled in high school, are 31 percent more likely to actively save cash, are 41 percent more likely to own land that is protected, have planted 2.5 times more trees, have shown a 19 percent decrease in admitted gambling and are 20 percent more likely to eat meat, eggs or fish on a daily or weekly basis.

Location: Lyasongoro, Tanzania

The Need: In Tanzania, Plant With Purpose mainly works with women, many of whom are widows or single mothers, because women and children there represent the poorest segment of the communities. Roughly 98 percent of these women who work earn through agriculture, but because they don’t have access to the same training their male counterparts receive, their yields suffer.

Plant With Purpose  provides agricultural training, which doubles crop output, and plants over a million trees each year around Mt. Kilimanjaro. They are also establishing Village Savings and Loan Associations.

Progress: Assisted families showed a 65 percent decrease in diarrheal disease and a 70 percent decrease in typhoid incidence. It’s also true that 99 percent of these families actively save cash, compared with 48 percent previously, and 50 percent have enough savings to cover household expenses for six months, compared with 6 percent previously.

Of participant families, 80 percent own cattle, which is 42 percent higher than those not assisted, and 66 percent of participants earn some household income through microenterprise endeavors, a significant 43 percent higher than those who were not trained.

Location: El Café, Dominican Republic

The Need: While the Dominican Republic is gaining wealth, there is a growing gap between the rich and poor. The most impoverished, deforested regions exist near the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The Dominican government relies on Plant With Purpose to help with their reforestation programs.

El Café mainly profits off of its oregano crop, but recent deforestation threatens this trade. Plant With Purpose is helping to replenish the soil and diversify their economy. The organization has started a nursery, growing seedlings, fruit trees and other plants to replenish the forests and provide an additional source of income. Plant With Purpose has also provided a solar drier to villagers to convert their oregano into a marketable good. They are also offering workshops teaching sustainable farming and land conservation methods.

Progress: Families who work with the organization own twice as much land and protect 75 percent more land than non-participant families. These households are 60 percent more likely to own cattle as well.

Cacao, a valuable cash crop, is harvested 30 percent more often by Plant With Purpose farmers than other locals. Assisted families have planted almost three times as many trees than before.

Location: Kiremba, Burundi

The Need: In the world’s hungriest country, 80 percent of Burundi’s 8.5 million people live below the poverty line. At least 90 percent of Burundians depend on agriculture, but their farmland has been devastated by deforestation, drought, war and over-farming. Plant With Purpose is helping these farmers access land and maximize their productivity. They are also working with agriculture research institutions to provide disease-resistant crops. Through the introduced Village Savings and Loan Associations, villagers are saving their money and providing loans to others.

Progress: Plant With Purpose reports that 95 percent of farmers in associations have shared their knowledge with other farmers; each farmer shares with an average of 23.5 people. Participants are 24 percent more likely to save cash than non-participants, have planted three times as many trees as non-participants and have harvested 31 different crops, compared with 20 crops harvested by non-participant farmers.

Location: Tamazola, Mexico

The Need: In Oaxaca and Chiapas, two of the poorest states in Mexico, more than 75 percent of indigenous people live in extreme poverty. As men migrate to find work elsewhere, women are frequently left to care for their children and households.

Plant With Purpose is teaching families in rural communities to plant vegetable gardens that will increase their food production and incomes. Village Savings and Loan Associations have also been established to provide financial security and opportunity.

Progress: Plant With Purpose reports that participant households actively save cash 68 percent of the time, while non-participants save cash only 45 percent of the time, with participants being 43 percent more likely to have enough savings to cover six months of needs. Seventy-seven percent of participants own cattle, compared with 51 percent of non-participants, with the number of cattle owned by participants being twice that of the number owned by non-participants. Only seven percent of participant households have dirt floors in their homes compared with 29 percent of non-participant households. Participant farmers harvested 22 different crops, compared with eight by non-participants.

Plant With Purpose has seen measurable success from its efforts, objectively putting donations to good use. If seeking an effective, Christian-based charity that assists the poor on the ground, look no further. Personal contributions can be guaranteed to yield maximal benefit in the hands of this organization.

– Elias Goodman

Sources: Charity Navigator, Plan with Purpose, Scribd
Photo: New Identity Magazine

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Deforestation and Economic Injustice in Haiti

haiti_deforestation
Spring is upon us but in many places April showers don’t necessarily bring the hope of May flowers, instead they promise environmental disaster and damage to surrounding communities.

Every year, floods ravage Haiti’s countryside, injuring, displacing, and economically crippling many of its rural villages and townships. Rainfall, though necessary for agriculture in the hot Caribbean nation is more feared than it is welcomed these days. Due to widespread deforestation, the soil around riverbanks has eroded, the land has become arid, and there is nothing to anchor the foothills and prevent devastating mudslides.

Between 1954 and 1984 alone, nearly 90% of Haiti’s once abundant rainforests were depleted. An estimated 2% of what was once there remains today, and even that is at risk. Without tree cover or a natural means to replenish the soil with nutrients, the mountain region is now agriculturally useless, only perpetuating a cycle of poverty and harmful environmental practices.

Deforestation has been made significantly more prevalent by corrupt business practices and irresponsible regulations. Under the abusive dictatorships of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier, many Haitians was forced to rely on the production of charcoal for subsistence, turning to the harvesting and burning of trees to supplement widespread unemployment. Charcoal is now, unfortunately, one of Haiti’s most thriving markets.

Additionally, like other developing nations, economic instability and unaffordable trade options have forced millions of Haiti’s inhabitants to rely on this “woody biomass” for fuel.  More viable options of electricity, petroleum, and even kerosene, though also not earth friendly, are less encroaching on the communities themselves. However they are nearly unattainable in many areas.

In more recent years, illegal logging, price negotiations, structural trade agreements, and the seizure of property rights from outside actors has also contributed to an economic environment that leaves many Haitians without much choice but to contribute to cutting down the forests.

For example, Swine Flu paranoia in the 80’s essentially wiped out Haiti’s once successful pork market. This forced pork farmers to annihilate their own acclimatized pigs and replace them with the more delicate North American variety which was too expensive to keep. This paved the way for Reagan’s “American Plan” for the country, which implemented a weak export economy of cheaply and inhumanely manufactured goods. With such bleak options, charcoal and deforestation are increasingly chosen out of necessity.

Journalist and political analyst Amy Wilentz states, “You can read about deforestation and its affects in the books and pamphlets written by these experts, and then you can read about it in the faces and bodies of Haitian peasants…. The summation of a story of dry earth, of the need for sustenance and comfort, of crops that are impossible to raise, even with the hardest and most grueling work, of rain that never falls, of food that just isn’t there.”

People continue to fight back, such as Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, who is a renowned in the world of environmental activism for his work in Haiti. After receiving a formal education in agronomy, he went on to found the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) in 1973 with the expressed goal of establishing principles of sustainable agriculture. The Movement has been effective in the fight against deforestation and other contributions to soil erosion.

His life of activism has not been without contention though. Before winning the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005, he suffered multiple assassination attempts, death threats, and periods of forced exile. His outspokenness regarding forest protection and his role in sparking political dissent made him highly targeted. Still, he leaves an unwavering legacy of land protection in a previously colonized nation, and the MPP continues to be a strong political force.

Deforestation’s effect has been horrible, for the people, the infrastructure, and the very landscape of Haiti, which has seen its fair share of economic and political storms over the past half century. However, scientific awareness, increased environmental consciousness, and a climate of political activism provide hope that Haiti’s rainy season will come to an end.

— Stefanie Doucette

Sources: The Energy Journal 1, The Energy Journal 2, The Ecological Society of America, The World Today, The Journal of Developing Areas, Nathan C. McClintock, The Rainy Season
Photo: 

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Communities Reverse Deforestation in Ethiopia

deforestation_ethiopia
Less than 5% of Ethiopia’s original forest remains today. Ethiopia experiences 0.8% deforestation per year, and is down to 4.6% forest cover. The rapidly growing population of 85 million and the 70 million livestock put pressure on land forests.

With 80% of the population living in rural areas, deforestation in Ethiopia affects their livelihood. Before 2007, the forest in Ethiopia was government-owned. Michelle Winthrop, Country Director of Farm Africa Ethiopia, helped pioneer an initiative in 2007 to place responsibility for the forest on the local communities.

“You can stick up a big fence around the forest,” Winthrop says, “but people climb fences. If you embed the ownership for the protection of the forest in the hands of communities, it is much more powerful.”

The majority of the rural population are members of the cooperatives that protect the forest; therefore, forest dwellers no longer cut down trees for fuel or livestock grazing. The forest condition has improved a great amount, allowing an opportunity for impoverished forest dwellers to find more sustainable ways of earning income.

In the Bale region, Farm Africa is implementing a participatory forest management scheme. Of the 23,000 households covered by the project in the Bale region, about 3,500 have taken up growing coffee and bamboo, as well as learning how to become bee-keepers.

Farm Africa provided agricultural expertise and equipment to start harvesting coffee and honey, rich natural resources of the Bale region of southern Ethiopia. Along with the transfer of power to local communities, those people are now also able to produce high-value crops and have connections to lucrative market opportunities.

“We built people’s relationship with that coffee and helped them understand that a small amount of it, carefully harvested, is important both for their own pockets and also the condition of the forest,” says Winthrop.

An unexpected outcome of the participatory forest management project has been a sense of civic responsibility, leading to more stable communities and building democracy at the grassroots level.

– Haley Sklut

Sources: Dowser, Herald Tribune, The Guardian
Photo: First Climate

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Human Rights Abuses in West Papua

west_papua_human_rights
The region of West Papua does not make the news often; in fact, it rarely merits a news blurb in most Western headlines. However, West Papua is arguably one of the most under-reported cases of exploitation an indigenous groups in the 21st century.

Since 1969, the people of West Papua have been in conflict with the government of Indonesia in one way or another. The University of Sydney’s Center for Peace and Conflict Studies put out a report stating that for the better part of 40 years, the people of West Papua have been under the boot heel of the Indonesian Security forces.

The report goes on to state that due to wide scale incursions by Indonesia’s armed forces, West Papua has seen over 100,000 of its citizens die and much of its national resources depleted.

A report by The Guardian also notes the devastating effect that Indonesian resource extraction is having on the people of West Papua. It notes the case of the Mooi people, who are one of the 250 indigenous tribes that are having their way of life destroyed due to the deforestation of their lands by timber and palm oil companies.

The oceans off the coasts of West Papua are also being devastated due to nickel mining in the area, which is flooding the bountiful coral reefs with polluted sediment.

It is not only the eco-system of West Papua that is being destroyed. Even though it has been close to 45 years, the Indonesian military is still cracking down severely on people who are part of the Free Western Papua Movement.

Last year, the Free Western Papua Movement’s Facebook published the photo of a dead Papuan named Edward Apaseray, who was reportedly tortured and killed by the Indonesian Special Police Forces for being a “separatist.” The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine for the Asian-Pacific region, published a report in which a recent study noted that in West Papua, an incident of torture occurred every six weeks for the past half-century.

The human rights organization Tapol that monitors human rights abuses in West Papua published the story of Yawan Wayeni. He was a tribal leader and formal political prisoner who was tortured and killed by Indonesian security forces in brutal fashion.

The media have long overlooked the plight of the people of West Papua. It has only recently begun to receive real traction in Western media. The International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) is a group of politicians around the world who support the right self-determination for the people of West Papua.

One of its members, Benny Wenda, an exile from West Papua, recently had an article published in which he decried the recent statement of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, who stated that things in West Papua are “better and not worse.”

West Papua is one of the forgotten atrocities of the 21st century; the responsibility making sure that it does not continue to be rests with us and our elected officials. The Arab Spring occurred with the help of Facebook and a determined populace. The plight of West Papua needs the same type of support from those who have the ability to stand up to the Indonesian government.

– Arthur Fuller

Sources: Amnesty International, The Guardian, Tapol,  The Diplomat, The University Of Sydney, Tapol,  CNN, The Guardian, Tempo, Australia News Network
Photo: London Mining Network