Tropical Forests Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Tropical forests (commonly referred to as tropical rain forests) are found in a narrow band around the equatorial belt. This belt experiences a huge amount of rainfall, which averages about 80 inches and varies from 50 to 260 inches (125 to 660 centimeters) a year. The vegetation is always lush and green, with dense growth and tall trees with giant buttresses. Vines and epiphytes such as orchids and bromeliads grow in the upper canopy on larger trees to reach sunlight. On average, temperatures within the rain forest range from 68 degrees F (20 degrees C) to 93 degrees F (34 degrees C) and humidity is between 77 and 88 percent. Although rain falls throughout the whole year, there is usually a brief season with less rain, and in some monsoonal regions a substantial dry season is often experienced.

It is estimated that rain forests cover less than seven percent of the earth’s surface, about the size of the United States. The forests are scattered in a few geographical regions of the world along the equatorial belt, including: The Amazon River basin in South America, by far the largest portion of the rain forest accounting for two-thirds of tropical forests; the Congo basin in Africa, with a small area in west Africa and also eastern Madagascar; in Indo-Malaysia-the west coast of India, Assam, and portions of southeast Asia; New Guinea; and Queensland in Australia.

Scientists believe that these areas contain half of the world’s plant and animal species (estimated at five to 10 million). To illustrate the richness of the tropical rain forest biome, in one tree in Brazil there may be as many as 40-50 species of ants. Scientists have counted anywhere from 100 to 300 species of trees in one hectare in South American rain forests. While on the (mainland) continent of Africa there is only one species of the majestic Baobab tree, in the tropical rain forest found on the island of Madagascar, there are seven different species of this tree. These forests also contain well over 95 percent of primates that are found nowhere else in the world. Scientists continue to discover new species of fauna and flora in the tropical rain forests of southeast Asia and Latin America. No one knows how many species of plants and animals are actually in the tropical rain forests. Some estimates indicate that there may be over 50 million species. Of the five to 10 million species that are suspected to be in the tropical rain forest, only six percent have been discovered, and of the six percent only a tiny proportion (about onesixth) have been intensively studied.

Tropical rain forests are fast disappearing, cut or burned for short-term profit. Tropical rain forests in South America, Africa, and southeast Asia are felled at ever-increasing rates, with thousands of hectares of pristine forests lost every year. This loss is largely blamed on conflicting economic interests for control over forests and land that has made it hard to use the forests on a sustainable basis. As a local issue, the wholesale destruction of the tropical rain forest implies the removal of an important protective cover for the soil that results in severe soil erosion, impeding forest regeneration. Soil erosion also implies the reduction in the life expectancy of the many dams that have been built throughout the tropical areas (for example, in India, the Philippines, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil) to generate electricity for industrialization. In places where there has been massive deforestation in upland areas, silting has reduced the life expectancy of dams downstream by half, from an estimated 50 years to only 25 years.

Another local consequence of deforestation of tropical forests is flash flooding downstream. The tropical rain forest canopy absorbs rainfall like a sponge, and without this sponge flooding of farms and built-up areas downstream becomes a common 17 inches of rainfall over the past 50 years, ushering in an era of ecological backlash.

Another important local consequence is the survival of indigenous peoples and their livelihoods. It is estimated that there were 230 ethnic groups in Amazonia in 1900 with a population of about one million people whose livelihoods depended on what the forests provided. It is estimated that this number has declined to about 140 ethnic groups with about 50,000 people. Many have lost their lives to newly introduced diseases such as flu and measles for which they had no immunity. Aggressive settlers that have moved into their habitats have wiped others out. The loss of the indigenous peoples is tragic for humanity, as their knowledge of the treasures the tropical forests hold, such as medicines, is also lost.

At the global level, tropical forest deforestation does not auger well for humanity. There will be loss of useful genetic materials, for example. About 25 percent of all medications are derived from rain forest plants. Curare comes from a tropical vine, and is used as an anesthetic and to relax muscles during surgery. Quinine, from the cinchona tree, is used to treat malaria. A person with lymphocytic leukemia has a 99 percent chance that the disease will go into remission because of vinblastine that is made from the rosy periwinkle from Madagascar. More than 1,400 varieties of tropical plants are thought to be potential cures for cancer. For example, a magic bullet for HIV might be hiding in the forests of Borneo or Central Africa. In 1991 University of Illinois at Chicago researchers brought a sample of a smooth barked gum tree (Calophyllum lanigerum) from Borneo. The National Cancer Institute determined the sample was effective against HIV, including strains resistant to AZT and Nevirapine. When the researchers went back to get more samples of the tree, the forest stand where the tree came from had disappeared due to logging.

Other global consequences of the destruction of the tropical rain forest include the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmooccurrence. About 40 percent of farms are in river sphere due to widespread burning. CO2 is a major valleys in tropical environments. Tropical forests also act as an engine of rain locally through transpiration. Rain forest destruction in parts of Central America has led to a decline in amounts of rainfall. For example, Panama has experienced a decline of contributor of global warming. Photos from the U.S. Space Shuttle have indicated that at any one given time there are over 5,000 fires burning in Amazonia as forests are cleared for plantation crops and pasture for beef cattle. The debate rages on as to who is responsible for the massive destruction tropical forests are experiencing. The major agents of deforestation are commercial logging, plantation agriculture, cattle ranching, charcoal and fuel wood production, open pit mining of mineral ores, dams, and the growing of narcotics such as coca. Tropical hardwoods such as teak and mahogany are prized for furniture in highly developed countries.

Plantation agriculture has resulted in the clearing of thousands of acres of pristine tropical forests to give way to the growing of cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, oil palm, coconuts, coca, and rubber as well as to create pasture for the export beef industry. During the economic crisis of the early 1990s, land speculation in Brazil was seen as a way to hedge against runaway inflation. The government encouraged people to develop and improve the forestlands they had acquired by turning them into pasturelands, a phenomenon that has been termed the “cheeseburgarization” or “hamburgarization” of the rain forest in Central America and South America. To the ranchers, this is improved land, but in so doing the ecological balance is upset through the widespread use of herbicides and burning before pasture grass is sown.

Although it has been shown that shifting cultivation is a scientifically sound system of cultivation that makes sure that the forests are preserved, many governments in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia continue to place blame on rain forest farmers as the culprits to the destruction of the tropical forests. Government departments responsible for forest management ignore the knowledge of indigenous forest farmers about the forest’s ecology. In countries of southeast Asia, governments have actively encouraged resettlement of converted forestland for farming by landless settlers who then often cross the unmarked boundaries into permanent forested areas.

It is in this context that conflicting economic interests have resulted in large-scale deforestation of tropical forests. It has been suggested that the reserve solution would be an excellent way of preserving the tropical rain forests. Areas could be set aside for exploitation of forest products by indigenous peoples on a sustainable basis, such as rubber tapping, collection of Brazil and cashew nuts, and other forest products. These could then be processed and packaged for export to international markets. This approach was fervently campaigned for by Chico Mendes, a brave and persistent rubber tapper who challenged the people and institutions responsible for the devastation of the forest in Brazil. He galvanized local and international support for his vision of a self-sustained economy of the Amazon and was subsequently assassinated in December 1988 by those opposed to his vision. A New York Botanical Garden study found that money earned from collecting nuts on a hectare of forest land was more profitable, yielding $6,000 over a 50 year period, versus $3,000 if the trees were cut down for pasture, which would be productive for only three or four years given the infertile nature of tropical rain forest soils.

Bibliography:

F. Bruenig, Conservation and Management of Tropical Rainforests: An Integrated Approach to Sustainability (CAB International, 1996);
Eldredge Bermingham and W. Dick, Tropical Rainforests: Past, Present and Future (University of Chicago Press, 2005);
David Carr, Laurel Suter, and Alisson Barbieri, “Population Dynamics and Tropical Deforestation: State of the Debate and Conceptual Challenges,” Population and Environment (v.27/1, 2005);
Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohmann, The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forests (ZED Books, 1993);
Amy Ickowitz, “Shifting Cultivation and Deforestation in Tropical Africa: Critical Reflections,” Development and Change (v.37/3, 2006);
C. Park, Tropical Rainforests (Routledge, 1992);
E. Place, Tropical Rainforests: Latin American Nature and Society in Transition (Scholarly Resources, 1993);
Andrew Revkin, The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest (Island Press, 2004);
Thompson and D. Kennedy, “Ecological-Economics of Biodiversity and Tropical Rainforest Deforestation,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics (v.7/3, 1996);
Michael Williams, Planet Management (Oxford University Press, 1993).