Forests - Environmental Transformations - page 83

seek to exploit the lucrative global timber market
(Dauvergne and Lister, 2011: 3). In tropical areas,
rainforests are being felled at alarming rates in
order to feed the global timber industry, but
also to make way for more lucrative agricultural
practices (such as ranching) to occupy the land
where forests once stood. Estimates from the FAO
indicate that it is countries in the global south, and,
in particular, states that contain belts of tropical
rainforests that are now being deforested at the
fastest rates (FAO, 2007). In South America, for
example, deforestation rates are running at 4.3
million hectares a year (FAO, 2007). On the
African continent some 4 million hectares of
forests are being lost annually, while the state of
Indonesia is, on its own, losing an estimated 1.9
million hectares of forestland a year (FAO, 2007).
Forest clearances not only affect the local
communities of people and species that depend
upon them; they also have significant implications
for the global environment. In his theory of the
'early' or 'long Anthropocene', William Ruddiman
has argued that it was actually the early clearances
of forests some 6000 years ago that marked the

beginning of the Anthropocene and humankind's
ability to affect global environmental systems
(Ruddiman, 2005). More worrying, however, is the
impact that the current clearance of tropical
rainforests is having on the global climate. While
estimates of the contribution of forests to the
global carbon balance vary greatly, it is believed
that tropical rainforests absorb over 1 billion
tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere on an
annual basis (Dauvergne and Lister, 2011: 2).
Furthermore, the act of deforestation itself is
now believed to contribute to the release of around
one fifth of humanly produced carbon dioxide
(Dauvergne and Lister, 2011). What these
estimates reveal is that it is unlikely that attempts
at reforestation in more temperate forest areas are
going to offset the huge climatic impacts of
deforestation in tropical zones.
Recognizing the significant problems that are
associated with deforestation in less economically
developed countries is not to suggest that the
problems of deforestation in such places are only
the responsibility of developing nations. Figures
5.1 an d 5.2 reveal changing patterns in the trade

Figure 5.1 Total MDF production in China (1995-2010)
Source: FAOSTAT