Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Anthropocene there is a tendency to depict nature
as a helpless victim when confronted with the
all-powerful desires and technologies of humans.
In a related sense, Alan Weisman's recent book
The World Without Us reminds us that should
humans disappear from the planet today, it
would probably only take around 400 years for
nature and forests to reoccupy vast areas of the
planet (Weisman, 2007). Notwithstanding these
observations, within this chapter we charted a
distinctive shift in the ability of human beings to
transform the global forest balance.
In this chapter we described the processes in
and through which human activity has led to the
gradual, but now accelerating, loss of forest cover
throughout the world. This process began some
6000 years ago with the birth of agriculture and
has reached its climax with the modern global
timber industry. A central aspect of this chapter has
been to try to reveal the contemporary economic
processes that are leading to increasing levels of
forest clearance in environmentally sensitive
areas. Through an exploration of globalization and
the multinational corporation we have seen how
a desire to both reduce costs and increase the
consumption of timber products has generated
the economic pressures that are now leading to the
large-scale illegal logging of protected forests
in many less economically developed countries.
These are the forces that Chut Wutty, who we
heard about at the start of this chapter, was bravely
fighting against in Cambodia. The key message of
this chapter is that while the illegal deforestation
of protected and ecologically significant woodland
may seem like the acts of isolated criminals, they
are actually the product of a global system of
timber sourcing and manufacture that pursues low
costs and exploits global economic competition.
At the end of this chapter, we briefly discussed
the attempts that were being made to reform the
global trade in timber through new corporate
environmental strategies and wood certification
procedures. These practices are being supple-
Find out more about the UN-REDD
programme at:
http://www.un-redd.org/
mented by international policies designed to
reduce emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation (generally referred to as REDD
initiatives). These initiatives attempt to create
market values and payments that incentivize the
protection of forest resources in order to help
tackle climate change and to protect the indigenous
groups who depend on woodlands. This chapter
has illustrated that these initiatives are unlikely to
be successful in the long run if they are not
paralleled by broader reforms in the global timber
industry. Ultimately, this will mean that people will
have to accept rising prices for timber products and
a consumer culture that is less devoted to the
mass consumption of wood.
NOTE
1
Pasture woodlands are open-canopied forests -
akin to landscapes that you can find today in the
New Forest in England (Coelho, 2009).
KEY READINGS
Chapman, P. (2007) Jungle Capitalists: A Story of
Globalization, Greed and Revolution, Canon-
gate Books, Edinburgh. This volume provides a
highly engaging account of the history of the
United Fruit Corporation and its impacts on the
rainforests of Central America.
Dauvergne, P. and Lister, J. (2011) Timber, Polity
Press, Cambridge. This highly accessible
volume provides an excellent introduction to all
aspects of the global timber industry.
Ruddiman, W.F. (2005) Plows, Plagues, and
Petroleum, Princeton University Press, Prince-
ton, NJ. This topic provides a detailed analysis
of the impacts of agriculture on the global
environmental system.
 
 
 
 
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search