Biofuels Boom Spurring Deforestation (20,000 to 40,000 hectares daily, plantation forests exacerbat

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37035

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay.

{snip}

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

{snip]

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

:banghead:

[MikeNearMcChord]

1. 2nd that!

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[NNadir]

2. We don't need forests.

You can't run a Mercedes diesel on a forest.

[phantom power]

3. I have been assured that this isn't happening.

[The2ndWheel]

4. Consequences to our actions?

But, it's not black gold. I thought, we could, you know, have our cake, eat it, throw it up, repackage it, and sell it at 23x the value. You mean no matter what we do, it's going to alter the environment? You mean the bigger the scale of whatever we do, the bigger the impact? You mean the more control we attempt, the more rules will be broken?

Awwwwwww crap.

[jpak]

5. The first paragraph from the OP should be included here...

BROOKLIN, Canada, Mar 21 (IPS/IFEJ) - Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by the world's growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, new biofuels and carbon credits designed to protect the environment.

also this one...

<snip>

Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests.

"Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

<snip>

and these too...

<snip>

Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated.

<snip>

Sugar coating deforestation for biofuels or "carbon credits" is wrong - but it is also wrong to misrepresent biofuels the sole factor driving deforestation in Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia.

These countries have done little halt deforestation for "traditional" forest products (or agriculture) in the past - and, if biofuels didn't exist, these countries would still be laying waste to their forests.

Facts the biofuel haters would like you to ingore...