CONTENTS
- The Earth and Its People
- Pollution and Health Risks
- Feeding a Future World
- Freshwater: Lifeblood of the Planet
- Oceans in Decline
- Forests: The Earth's Lungs
- Endangered Biodiversity
- Toward a Livable Future
HIGHLIGHTS
- Can development be sustained?
- Scientists point to environmental distress syndrome
- Cities grow ever larger
- Global temperatures rising
- Are we setting the stage for our own extinction?
- World population must stabilize
Population Reports is published by the Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202-4012, USA
Fall 2000
Series M, Number 15
Special Topics
The world's forest cover is shrinking. Over the past 50 years nearly half of the world's original forest cover has been lost—some 3 billion hectares. Each year another 16 million hectares of virgin forest are cut, bulldozed, or burned (25, 76).
Between 1980 and 1995 the world lost some 180 million hectares of forest—an area the size of Indonesia. While developed countries had a net increase of 20 million hectares due to reforestation, this gain was more than offset by a net decrease of 200 million hectares in the developing world (76).
Forests have many functions of value both to humanity and to nature itself. Take away the trees, and the intricately linked ecosystem unravels (83, 162). Forests absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, anchor soils, regulate the water cycle, protect against erosion, and provide a habitat for millions of species (59).
Forest products are essential to the world economy, worth about US$400 billion annually in timber, pulp, paper, and fuelwood. Forest products other than wood, such as medicines, vegetables, and fruits, provide another US$20 billion and are growing in importance (83, 162).
Healthy forests boost food production. Trees soak up and store water from season to season, slowly releasing moisture during dry periods. Without tree cover, water runs off faster during the tropical rainy season, carrying away valuable topsoil. A World Bank study found that the rate of soil loss was 10 times higher on forest lands where slash-and-burn shifting cultivation was practiced than in undisturbed forests (34). One reason that agricultural yields have fallen in sub-Saharan Africa is that vast amounts of forest cover have disappeared, hastening soil erosion and loss of soil nutrients.
Forest cover regulates climate, while destruction of forests contributes to global warming. Whereas living trees soak up and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, trees that are cut down and burned release carbon into the atmosphere. In the last decade tropical deforestation has released large amounts of stored carbon—accounting for roughly one-quarter of the carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere due to human activity (83) (see sidebar, Global Warming: Worrisome Signs).
Pressures on Forests
Current demand for forest products may exceed the limits of sustainable consumption by 25% (83, 249). The developed world accounts for most of the demand for forest products. With just 16% of the world's population, North America, Europe, and Japan consume two-thirds of the world's paper and paperboard and half its industrial wood (2, 25). Demand for industrial wood products also has risen in developing countries, however, along with demand for fuelwood, the main energy source for many rural communities (76).
Throughout the 1990s many developing countries with rapid population growth had high rates of deforestation (58). Forest land was converted to agricultural use, and trees cut to provide housing and wood for fuel. Moreover, developing countries stepped up exports of forest products to meet the rising demand from developed countries.
The amount of forest area per capita fell by half between 1960 and 1995--reflecting both population growth and the disappearance of forest cover (83). In 1995 close to 1.7 billion people lived in countries with less than one-tenth of a hectare of forest cover per capita (83). By 2025, an estimated 4.6 billion people will live in such countries.
 Heraldo Castro/Conservation International |
| In Brazil and many other developing countries, logging is an important source of revenue. Forests are essential to the world economy, but current demand for forest products may exceed the limit of sustainable consumption by 25%. |
What Can Be Done?
As population grows and per capita consumption of forest products increases, countries must do more to manage forest resources on a sustainable basis. The following developments offer encouragement:
Technological improvements. Technological improvements, including use of recycled paper and paperboard, have substantially reduced the amount of pulp needed to produce paper. In 1970 paper and paperboard consisted of 80% wood pulp. By 1997 more efficient production processes had reduced that figure to 56%. As a direct result, the production of pulp for paper is expected to grow by just over 1% a year over the next decade, about half the growth rate in the 1980s (76).
Forest products certification. Adopting a system that identifies forest products that come from sustainably managed forests could support efforts toward sustainability. As of 1998, about 10 million hectares of forest lands have been certified (276). Over 90% of the certified area is in northern, temperate forests, mostly in Europe and North America. Close to 60% of the entire certified area is in just two countries--Sweden and Poland--reflecting education and awareness campaigns in those countries (76). In tropical forests, where most of the destruction is taking place today, only tiny areas have been certified as providing sustainable yield.
Intergovernmental responses. In 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) was established in response to the 1992 Earth Summit. The IPF evolved into the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests in 1997, after the UN's five-year review of the Earth Summit goals. The mission of the forum is to examine the underlying causes of deforestation and to help countries develop strategies that address them (76).
Efforts to advance an international legal convention on forests, which began in 1990, have been shelved, however. Some observers believe that advancing such a convention would only codify the standards of a weak consensus and thus would be worse than no convention at all (15, 101). Widespread opposition to a convention makes it unlikely that the issue will reach the negotiating table (6).
Instead, many organizations urge governments of countries with large forest resources to enforce existing legislation and to introduce more effective forest conservation initiatives (6, 235). Close to 130 countries have developed or updated their National Forest Programs over the past decade (76).
While such initiatives are promising, they cannot be expected to halt forest destruction completely. Millions of people rely on forest products for their livelihoods. Sustainable forest management will require not just enforcement of laws that protect forests but also alternative sources of livelihood for many rural people.
