Deforestation in the 21st century

ENTRY TESTREADING TESTREADING PASSAGE 1Deforestation in the 21st centuryWhen it comes to cutting down trees, satellite data reveals a shift from the patterns ofthe pastA Globally, roughly 13 million hectares of forest are destroyed each year. Suchdeforestation has long been driven by farmers desperate to earn a living or by loggersbuilding new roads into pristine forest. But now new data appears to show that big,block clearings that reflect industrial deforestation have come to dominate, rather thanthese smaller-scale efforts that leave behind long, narrow swaths of cleared land.Geographer Ruth DeFries of Columbia University and her colleagues used satelliteimages to analyse tree-clearing in countries ringing the tropics, representing 98 percent of all remaining tropical forest. Instead of the usual ‘fish bone' signature ofdeforestation from small-scale operations, large, chunky blocks of cleared land reveala new motive for cutting down woods.B In fact, a statistical analysis of 41 countries showed that forest loss rates were mostclosely linked with urban population growth and agricultural exports in the early partof the 21st century - even overall population growth was not as strong an influence.‘In previous decades, deforestation was associated with planned colonisation,resettlement schemes in local areas and farmers clearing land to grow food forsubsistence,' DeFries says. ‘What we’re seeing now is a shift from small-scalefarmers driving deforestation to distant demands from urban growth, agricultural tradeand exports being more important drivers.’C In other words, the increasing urbanisation of the developing world, as populationsleave rural areas to concentrate in booming cities, is driving deforestation, rather thancontaining it. Coupled with this there is an ongoing increase in consumption in thedeveloped world of products that have an impact on forests, whether furniture, shoeleather or chicken feed. ‘One of the really striking characteristics of this century isurbanisation and rapid urban growth in the developing world,’ DeFries says, ‘Peoplein cities need to eat.’ ‘There’s no surprise there,’ observes Scott Poynton, executive
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ENTRY TESTdirector of the Tropical Forest Trust, a Switzerland-based organisation that helpsbusinesses implement and manage sustainable forestry in countries such as Brazil,Congo and Indonesia. ‘It’s not about people chopping down trees. It's all the peoplein New York, Europe and elsewhere who want cheap products, primarily food.’D Dearies argues that in order to help sustain this increasing urban and global demand,agricultural productivity will need to be increased on lands that have already beencleared. This means that better crop varieties or better management techniques willneed to be used on the many degraded and abandoned lands in the tropics. And theTropical Forest Trust is building management systems to keep illegally harvestedwood from ending up in, for example, deck chairs, as well as expanding its efforts tolook at how to reduce the ‘forest footprint’ of agricultural products such as palm oil.Poynton says, ‘The point is to give forests value as forests, to keep them as forestsand give them a use as forests. They’re not going to be locked away as nationalparks. That’s not going to happen.’E But it is not all bad news. Halts in tropical deforestation have resulted in forestregrowth in some areas where tropical lands were previously cleared. And forestclearing in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest, dropped from roughly 1.9million hectares a year in the 1990s to 1.6 million hectares a year over the lastdecade, according to the Brazilian government. 'We know that deforestation hasslowed down in at least the Brazilian Amazon,’ DeFries says. ‘Every place is different.Every country has its own particular situation, circumstances and driving forces.’F Regardless of this, deforestation continues, and cutting down forests is one of thelargest sources of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity - a double blowthat both eliminates a biological system to suck up C02 and creates a new source ofgreenhouse gases in the form of decaying plants. The United Nations EnvironmentProgramme estimates that slowing such deforestation could reduce some 50 billionmetric tons of C02, or more than a year of global emissions. Indeed, internationalclimate negotiations continue to attempt to set up a system to encourage this, knownas the UN Development Programme’s fund for reducing emissions from deforestationand forest degradation in developing countries (REDD). If policies [like REDD] are tobe effective, we need to understand what the driving forces are behind deforestation,
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ENTRY TESTDeFries argues. This is particularly important in the light of new pressures that are onthe horizon: the need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and find alternativepower sources, particularly for private cars, is forcing governments to make productssuch as biofuels more readily accessible. This will only exacerbate the pressures ontropical forests.G But millions of hectares of pristine forest remain to protect, according to this newanalysis from Columbia University. Approximately 60 percent of the remaining tropicalforests are in countries or areas that currently have little agricultural trade or urbangrowth. The amount of forest area in places like central Africa, Guyana and Suriname,DeFries notes, is huge. ‘There’s a lot of forest that has not yet faced these pressures.’ Questions 1-6Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G.Which paragraph contains the following information?NB You may use any letter more than once.1 two ways that farming activity might be improved in the future2 reference to a fall in the rate of deforestation in one area3 the amount of forest cut down annually4 how future transport requirements may increase deforestation levels5 a reference to the typical shape of early deforested areas6 key reasons why forests in some areas have not been cut down Questions 7-8Choose TWO letters, A-E.Which TWO of these reasons do experts give for current patterns of deforestation?A to provide jobsB to create transport routesC to feed city dwellersD to manufacture low-budget consumer itemsE to meet government targets
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