Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
been talk of deforestation. The Amazon Basin has become emblematic of
tree loss worldwide, along with associated problems of soil erosion, loss of
habitat for wildlife, heightened flood risks and reduction in biodiversity. In
addition, the huge increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations
since the early nineteenth century means that forests are seen as key to the
mitigation of global climate change because they 'lock in' carbon dioxide.
Subsequent to the first United Nations Earth Summit, in 1992, heightened
efforts have been made worldwide to halt the loss of old growth forest,
to encourage natural regeneration of deforested areas and to increase the
number of forest plantations. Even so, tree loss is ongoing in many regions
according to every major international environmental organisation and not
a few environmental education organisations. Consult the FAO's (Food
and Agriculture Organisation) biannual
State of the World's Forests
reports,
UNEP's
Vital Forest Graphics
(2009), World Wildlife Fund's
Earth Book
and
Living Planet Report
(both 2012), Conservation International's
Climate for Life
(Mittermeier
et al.
, 2008) book and its 'Deforestation, logging and GHG
emissions' fact sheet (2009), or the 'eye in the sky' images on the
National
Geographic
website and there's a consistent message: a combination of ille-
gal logging, weak regulation, inappropriate regulation, corruption, increased
demand for food, increasing population, heightened wood-fuel and charcoal
demand, and irresponsible or ignorant farming practices are eating into an
even worse than many believe. Critics claim that FAO statistics, which are
usually considered to be the most authoritative, utilise a very weak criterion
for what counts as 'forest'. This means that they are probably misclassifying
scrub and wooded savannah as much denser vegetation cover.
Though deforestation is occurring globally, and reforestation is seen as a
climate change mitigation 'good' wherever it occurs, public perceptions of
where the tree-loss problem is most acute are highly selective. Typically, we
focus less on temperate locations like British Columbia (discussed early in
Chapter 4
) and have, instead, learnt to focus on the tropics - not just the
Amazon Basin (and Brazil in particular) but also countries like Madagascar
and Indonesia. Trees in such countries have become virtual icons of biodi-
versity loss and climate change. This is not unreasonable: after all, there
is
ample evidence of huge forest ecosystem destruction in many equatorial and
sub-equatorial countries. But how accurate is this evidence? How sensitive
to variable de- and reforestation dynamics are official reports, news broad-
casts, newspaper stories, television documentaries or radio reports? And how
are representations of tropical deforestation consumed by publics far distant
from the countries where chronic tree loss is said to be occurring?
I will focus on the vital epistemic role of the mass media in
Chap-
ter 7
, but want to examine the deforestation discourse it draws upon - a
discourse advanced by the FAO, among many other governmental and non-
state organisations. This is very much an expert discourse, one produced
by scientists employed by universities, government agencies, conservation
