Chinese Demand Drives Global Deforestation Crisis

[RestoreGore]

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42513/story.htm

CAMEROON: June 12, 2007

NGAMBE-TIKAR, Cameroon - From outside, Cameroon's Ngambe-Tikar forest looks like a compact, tangled mass of healthy emerald green foliage.

But tracks between the towering tropical hardwood trees open up into car park-sized clearings littered with logs as long as buses. Forestry officers say the reserve is under attack from unscrupulous commercial loggers who work outside authorised zones and do not respect size limits in their quest for maximum financial returns.

"I lack words to describe what is going on here," says Richard Greine, head of the local forestry post, 350 km (220 miles) north of Cameroon's capital Yaounde.

"Both illegal and authorised exploiters have staged a hold-up on the forest."

snip

As usual, it is the poorest who pay.

In nearby Democratic Republic of Congo, the lure of timber wealth has seen loggers accused of cheating villagers with deals activists say are a "shameful relic of colonial times".

A two-year investigation by Greenpeace accused companies, mostly from Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Singapore and the United States, of illegally acquiring titles to about 15 million hectares (37 million acres) of Congolese rainforest after a 2002 moratorium.

Story by Tansa Musa
end of excerpt.
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Deforestation is the greatest cause of CO2 emissions rise globally. So how do we get a handle on the insatiable greed of human beings to see the moral balance that returns the balance to our planet? The more I read the more I believe it is is just not possible, especislly when citizens do not see the urgency of the repercusions of this, and whe China can get away with their behavior because they own us.

[kurth]

1. From central Africa to the Amazon basin and Indonesia's islands, the world's great forests

are disappearing forever - to satisfy the insatiable appetite in China.

[RestoreGore]

2. And our hands are tied to stop them...

because economically we are too much in debt to them. It's time to cut the cord and hold them accountable, but could we even afford to risk doing that?

[theoldman]

3. If the Americans were not buying so much from China

they would not be consuming so much wood. The Japanese also buy a lot of lumber and ship it to the US in the form of plywood.

[RestoreGore]

5. Well gee, gotta have that nice big wood deck to barbecue on

:sarcasm: Who cares if other ecosystems die because of it?

[sandnsea]

6. They sell it as eco-friendly, sustainable

Bamboo, cork, various other hardwoods. They lump it all together, nobody knows where it comes from. A lot of people try very hard to do the right thing when putting in floors. We need a President who will insist on higher standards around the globe.

[RestoreGore]

7. No president can assure that unless people are educated

And aware of the moral implications of their actions. And that can only happen with a mass grassroots effort.

[sandnsea]

8. That's not true at all

Our local flooring company pushes sustainable woods that are supposed to be eco-friendly. If our government is allowing products in, knowing that other countries aren't respecting the intent of environmentally safe products, then that's directly on the head of the President. That's what fast track should give us, the ability to put this shit on ONE person's head. That's what we need to do. No individual can keep track of the business practices of a bunch of companies across the ocean, no way. We have to get people to wake up and understand the need for government.

[RestoreGore]

9. Wake people up to understand government?

Good luck with that. And yes, anyone responsible for that would be held accountable... Not likely here. Doesn't seem to be a whole lot of outrage about this. And what I meant was a grassroots effort to educate people about what other countries are doing, like China, and educating them as to the facts regarding the impacts of deforestation and the need for them as consumers to ask questions and eliminate wasteful practices. Don't tell me people educated in what is really going on out here wouldn't make a difference in the buying habits of consumers to hit them where it hurts as well. But of course, that would mean having a media that actually gave information to people to empower them to ask questions about where products come from.

[RestoreGore]

4. Deforestation-HiddenCause Of Global Warming

http://www.mangroveactionproject.org/news/current_headlines/deforestation-the-hidden-cause-of-global-warming

[Rex]

10. They are taking a cue from their mentors in the BFEE/PNAC crowd.

Actually, exploitation is nothing new to that region of the world. That it is happening to all of the great forests around the world is bad, that the rivers are drying up is even worse. We shall see if humans can survive on a desolate planet.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. What would be much more effective would be a reduction in population growth.

What we have is an earth that can't sustain an ever increasing population that demands that it be fed, clothed, given shelter, land, transportation, and all that makes life for humans. Which inevitably leads to environmental ruin, wars, poverty, and all the social injustice that besieges us.

The Chinese are less "concerned" because they have 1 billion people to feed, clothe, educate, and employ in a developing economy. The poor in Congo, Brazil, Burma, Indonesia, have more immediate concerns than the environment. They have to feed themselves and their families.

IMO the root cause that goes ignored, is the sheer number of people that need to be fed, clothed, etc. It's all very nice to demand that we don't buy teak coffee tables, but what of the people who are cutting down the teak to eat? Or, the workers manufacturing the tables so they can eat? Or, all the people transporting the teak, tables, etc, to the markets, who also have to eat? Do they get to starve because we're "concerned" about the forests?

While we fret about "sustainable" energy, water, food, etc, the world continues to churn out an "unsustainable" number of people.

[The2ndWheel]

12. "all that makes life for humans"

But all of that takes more people. If we don't have more people constantly consuming more, giving more energy into the system, then it stops at some point. It would go on for a bit since it has its own momentum right now, but there would come a time when there weren't enough people consuming. We wouldn't have the taxes need for education, roads, public transport, etc. We wouldn't have enough people buying cheap mass produced products for there to be an economy. If there is no economy, there isn't enough tax money. That cycle just keeps going.

If any aspect of the reality we're creating begins to contract, the whole thing starts to fall apart. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, since what we have going now is sort of crazy.