Fragile environments

1. Fragile environments The next 4 weeks

2. Key Idea – only the one • Environmental abuse has serious consequences. Its causes need to be tackled to ensure a more sustainable future. • But there are still 3 sections to study …..

3. Section 2 (already covered) • Causes of deforestation: commercial timber extraction; agriculture; mining; transport; settlement. • Consequences: loss of biodiversity; contribution to global warming; economic development. • Managing rainforests in a sustainable way (eg agro-forestry); the need for international co-operation. • A case study of a threatened tropical rainforest (eg the Amazon, West Africa, Indonesia)..

4. Where are we going? • What is deforestation? How do we cause it? In particular what are the issues in the Amazon rainforest area? • What are the consequences of the destruction? • How can forests’ be managed sustainably? • With reference to the Amazon

5. Deforestation • Is cutting down trees – not just in forests, but as we sae in the Savanna of the Sahel as well. • Most of the temperate deciduous forests of Europe and North America and China have long since gone – but only relatively recently have the tropical forests come under attack. • Why are they being cut down? Depends who you ask and how they do the measuring!! • The textbook – and a couple of other sources say about 1/3 is down to commercial farming and ¼ for logging – and the rest includes items like mining and oil drilling, road building, HP dams and the huge reservoirs behind them and urban sprawl to support all the above. • However when we come to look at the Amazon, the issues are a bit differently balanced.

6. This shows you the size of the problem!

7. But if you look at the % you get a slightly different story! What patterns and anomalies do you see?

8. This the best I can do Nothing more up-to-date seems to be available worldwide But so far as the small holding – this is not so much slash and burn, but where roads are added, poor people are encouraged to move in and try their hand!

9. The Amazon • The climate tends to indicate rain on a daily basis and a steady temperature throughout the year, that is hot but not excessively so – high 20’s rather than mid 30’s degrees C. • Manaus is the largest city in the Amazon .

10. The Amazon • Is a tropical rainforest. As can be seen, there are several layers of plants, many of which are rooted in the trees and are never rooted in the ground. In this rich environment live many thousands of insects and other animals that are unique to the area.

11. The Amazon rainforest, world's largest remaining natural resource, represents 54% of the total rainforests left on Earth. • It covers an area of 6.5 million square kilometres, embracing nine South America countries: Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Guianas - Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname, or two thirds of the South America continent. • The uses to which the Amazon is listed as being put included logging, ranching, roads and urban development, large HEP scheme and according to textbook palm oil! No mention of soya farming for cattle feed and biofuels! Palm oil really does not figure, although Malaysian multinationals would love to start as the potential is huge, but thus far it is still on the drawing board. Also according to the textbook, deforestation has been caused by extracting plants for medicinal use! Really? I thought collecting medical supplies was seen as sustainable?

12. Another cause of deforestation • Not in the textbooks, yet but serious nonetheless. • Droughts in 2005 and again in 2010 have led to the thought that deforestation could become a natural force, in part driven by climate change, that could lead to the Amazon loosing its ability in some years to be a carbon sink. • In drought years, when the forest dried out, this could also leave it liable to forest fires. See a couple of posts on http://lindym.wordpress.com/category/amazon/

13. Issues that arise with deforestationin the Amazon – the consequences • Includes flooding, increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, bare soil looses nutrients (leaching), biodiversity loss and displacement of native Americans

14. What could Brazil use an excuse for doing this? Hot off the press* • The Belo Monte Dam is a proposed hydroelectric dam complex on the Xingu River in the state of Pará, Brazil. • The planned installed capacity of the dam complex would be 11,233 Megawatts (MW), which would make it the second-largest hydroelectric dam complex in Brazil, and the world's third-largest in installed capacity. • On January 26, 2011, the environmental license for the construction of the dam was officially permitted, authorizing Norte Energia to start building it. • The subsequent dams would directly and indirectly affect 25,000 indigenous peoples in the entire Xingú basin, flooding more forest with an added 6,140 square kilometres of reservoir. • [Approx 1/3 size of Wales – a universal measure that is gaining in popularity, along with football pitches!] * This should appear somewhere in the homework

15. In addition • Mining pollutes rives and gold mining uses mercury which is highly toxic • Roads, to the soya farms for example, create great scars through rainforest and give easier access and lead to unplanned settlements. • Loggers only want the valuable trees – this leads to needless destruction of large areas for only few trees. • Cattle ranching leads to destruction of the rain forest and soil erosion of bare soils.

16. So the major consequences for the world as a whole are … • Biodiversity loss • The contribution made to CO2 emissions by the loss of the trees – be prepared to explain how this works! Plants make food by photosynthesis. • As part of this process, CO2 is taken into the plant and combined with water, with the help of sunlight, to make sugar and plants give out oxygen. Thus living plants reduce the impact of the extra CO2 being produced by industrialised societies. • The rain forest is so rich in plants, that if these are removed, there is marked increase in the levels of CO2 found in the atmosphere, which induces further climate change

17. So the major consequences for the world as a whole are … • In addition, if the trees are burnt or left to rot, then the stored carbon within them is also added to the atmosphere. • In addition, if they are allowed to rot, for example, during the building of an HEP scheme, methane which is variously quoted as have between X21 and X30 the impact, kg for kg that CO2 has in the GHGs (GreenHouse Gases). • Taking into account the CO2 the deforested tree will not be taking out of the atmosphere + the above a figure of 20% contribution to CO2 emissions is widely used to show the impact. Just how they get there, is frankly a bit of a mystery!

18. But if you are an impoverished LIC • With huge amounts of interest to repay, then you looking longingly at the vast potential for financial gain locked up in the rainforests. As Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines are doing right now. • In the Ivory Coast, a poor small west African country, already 39/40th of their rainforest has already been lost. • It is the HICs that object to deforestation, • But then the LICs ask how they are to pay their debts and develop without exploiting these valuable resources?

19. The answer has to be sustainable development • Recall sustainability is the ability of one generation to hand over at least as much as they started with to the next generation • Sustainable management must: • Respect the environment and the cultures of the local people • Take note of traditional skills and knowledge and use appropriate technology that uses few resources, does not damage the environment and can be fixed rather depending on perennial replacement • Give people control over their land and generate income for them, not the TNCs.

20. Some thoughts on Sustainable Management • Protect some areas as National parks where no development takes place to ensure the biodiversity is maintained – possibly encourage ecotourism within these areas to pay for mountainous • Practice sustainable logging – only cut the trees you need and do vicariously damage others that you do not (e.g. Heli-logging in Sarawak) – limit the cull of trees to sustainable numbers in any given timeframe, so that any you cut down can have time to replaced. • Reduce the need for fuelwood e.g solar power, windpower etc • Set up businesses that harvest and process forest products so giving work to ore people

21. But you need case studies … • Basically, the problem can be tackled in a number of ways. • Remember our impoverished LICs? They saw that allowing – or at best not stopping – logging was one great way to make money for their country and give jobs to their people? • Now this only works if there is a market. In this case, until recently, the market was Europe and the USA. So if somehow the market can be removed then …….

22. Enter the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) • Now these guys have a scheme! • (Blackadder? No? – forget it) • If they can • Devise a way to harvest wood sustainably • Demonstrate that this wood comes without damage to the forests • Persuade the retailers that they can charge extra by selling it • Get the customers onside • Then they can begin to remove the market for unsustainably logged wood. • So this was their starting point.

23. So what did they do? • First they worked with wood and wood products only • They worked with different groups and looked at each sector to see what could be cut down, how, how much and how often without it having lasting impact. • They then promised a market with a premium (similar to FairTrade with guaranteed minimum and social premium) if teach group kept to the agreed rules.

24. So what did they do? • It soon became obvious that traceability and believability needed to become part of the system – anyone could say their wood was certified unless you have a tight system of checking.

25. So who is following FCS? Precious Woods do • Precious Woods is a world leader in the sustainable management and use of tropical forests. Based in Switzerland with some 2 300 employees, our company has subsidiaries in Brazil, Costa Rica, Gabon, Nicaragua, Holland and Switzerland. Our products find applications in the construction, industrial, furniture, and do-it-yourself sectors, with customers in Europe, Asia and the USA • Sustainable management of existing forests: In Brazil we manage tropical forest in a sustainable and low-impact manner, thereby ensuring its long-term preservation. Precious Woods Brazil is certified in accordance with the criteria of FSC. • PW Amazon began practising sustainable forest management on its own land near Itacoatiara, 250 km east of Manaus, in 1996. Since then, the amount of land owned by the company in this area has risen to 4 500 km2. In each 25- year cycle only 3 to 6 trees per hectare are harvested, i.e. fewer than simultaneously grow back.

26. So who is following FCS? Precious Woods do • The timber harvested is processed into sawnwood, planed goods, pilings and finished products at the company’s own sawmills and manufacturing facilities, and exported to Europe, the United States and Asia. • Low-impact logging techniques are practised in Brazil. In this way, the timber quality of the fallen trees is preserved, the surrounding flora is undamaged, the canopy remains mostly undisturbed and nature is able to close any gaps in a very short time. • After the felling operations the logs are winched by cable to the nearest skid trail at 100 meter intervals. The logs are then taken to collection points by tractors and skidders which remain on the trails at all times. They are then picked up by trucks. As a consequence, the impact on the forest soil is very low. • Renewable energy and carbon rights: The use of waste wood to produce energy and the sale of CO2 emission rights are integral parts of our approach to the sustainable management of forests and the timber industry.

27. There are now moves to make unsustainable logging illegal in the EU was agreed in Nov 2010 • The new EU legislation, which will come into force in 2012, is similar to the US Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to handle fish or wildlife produced illegally outside the US. • An amendment to the Lacey Act to extend it to timber products was agreed by the US Congress in June 2008.

28. So one solution • To investigate sound ecological practices • Get people to agree to meet these practices in exchange for a better income • Sell these ideas to customers in HICs and get them to act as pressure groups on the retailers. • This persuades the retailers it is in their interest to sell these certified goods, set up the start-to-finish certification, and then lobby governments to help enforce higher standards.

29. REDD + • Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – the ‘ + ‘ was added later and we will talk more about that in detail after half term. • But for the moment, REDD, is part of the set of agreements that has come out Kyoto and the annual meetings COP (Conference Of the Parties) that have gone in since then, in which agreements between HICs and the forested areas have agreed to monitor and reduce deforestation together, with the HICs making financial contributions to enable LICs to avoid cutting down the rainforest. REDD+ not only finances and monitors but part of the scheme is supporting sustainable development – health, education, job creation etc.

30. The FAS (Sustainable Amazonas Foundation) programme that is running Juma. Initially funded by the Marriott chain of hotals who charged a $1 surcharge on each nights stay, it has now become one of the best known schemes to had got full REDD+ certification. So funding goes to paying the families and allowance to recompense them for lost income from logging, also schools are being set up, electricity installed, help with marketing natural products etc. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8399871.stm One such scheme is

31. So in practice how does this work? • Natura is another company that has seen the commercial sense in supporting Amazonian communities with work and development with its range of Ekos product line • Situation near Itacoatiara • Collect Brazil nuts and other forest products for cosmetics. Currently 16 different forest products are registered for harvesting in sustainable ways. • A primary processing plant adds value to their product and also diversifies their opportunities. • Education, health and other community services have been bought with additional income – freetrade type worker protection is part of the scheme.

32. So in practice how does this work? • Natura products is another company that has seen the commercial sense in supporting Amazonian communities with work and development. • Situation near Itacoatiara • Collect Brazil nuts and other forest products for cosmetics • A primary processing plant adds value to their product. • Education, health and other community services have been bought with additional income – freetrade type worker protection is part of the scheme

33. Agroforestry • In Peru, where many farmers produced just one crop e.g. cocoa, they now grow 20+ different timber and fruit products which give them more security as the failure of one crop one year is not nearly as disastrous as it was – an example of permaculture that we mentioned before. • So in this case, it is not so much preventing deforestation as encouraging reforestation, where native plants are grown in a mixture for gain from harvesting rather than removal.

34. Do trawl the wiki textbook • Loads of ideas on • http://ih-igcse-geography.wikispaces.com/7.8+Manage+rainforests++sustainably • Esp. in PP on that page • Go for the FSC + 3 others that are as diverse from this one as possible • Maybe the Juma project?

35. One hint • There are 2 versions of case study questions on this topic: • Along the lines of: • The rainforests cannot be saved without international cooperation. Explain why this is and with reference to named examples, how they can be managed with international cooperation • Or • There are many ways in which small groups and local communities can manage the rainforests sustainably. With reference to named examples, describe how this can be achieved. • So you need 4 ideas – 2 international and 2 local!!