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If you're riding the "L" in Chicago or taking a stroll down the boardwalks of Greenport, Long Island, or Santa Monica, Calif., you are connected to an international movement away from the most destructive use of the world's remaining rainforests -- industrial timber extraction. Almost two decades of environmental advocacy has shown significant gains: the park benches in Los Angeles are made from locally sourced wood, the subway ties under Chicago's "L" train and the boardwalks at the Saw Mill River Audubon wetlands preserves are made from recycled plastic lumber. Millions of acres of pristine rain forests are no longer being felled so Americans can park our asses or wipe our feet on the world's trees.
But for New Yorkers, many pleasant experiences the city has to offer bring us unwittingly closer to the obliteration of the most ecologically dynamic part of the world -- the Amazonian rain forest.
Where do those miles and miles of wooden boardwalks, benches and handrails on Coney Island and Hudson River Park come from? What about the bench you lounge on, sipping coffee in a quiet corner of Central Park? According to environmental scientist Tim Keating, New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation is the biggest destroyer of rain forests in America and has been for years. So much for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's new "green" persona.
Biologists and climate scientists describe tropical rainforests as the lungs of the earth, a cooling band along the equator that converts carbon dioxide into oxygen, thereby preserving the world's delicate climate balance. These miracles of millions of years of evolution contain the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world.
More than 100,000 different species can be found on just one acre of Western Amazonian rainforest. An estimated 50 percent of the world's 14 million species inhabit these forests along with dozens of indigenous cultures, and all are at risk of succumbing to what Harvard etymologist and conservation biologist E.O. Wilson has described as "the sixth great extinction."
This time, instead of cosmic or geological events, human avarice and short-sighted consumption are causing the despoliation of habitat that is leading to the destruction of life on earth.
According to former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Report on the economics of climate change, halting deforestation is the world's "single largest opportunity for cost-effective and immediate reductions of carbon emissions." Commissioned by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2005 to determine the relative costs and benefits of shifting to a low-carbon economy, this report was a startling warning against further deforestation, declaring that the carbon locked up in the biomass of the world's forests is double that already in the atmosphere. Stern's research team concluded that the need to preserve the world's remaining natural forests was "urgent" and that "inaction now risks great damage to the prospects of future generations."
If deforestation continues at its present rate, within four years it will be the single-greatest contributor to climate change, pumping a staggering amount of CO2 into the atmosphere -- more than all the flights in the history of aviation. The Forests Now Declaration, launched last month and signed by leading climate scientists, is more to the point and equally sobering: "If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change."
Last week, primatologist and U.N. Messenger of Peace Dr. Jane Goodall signed the declaration during New York City's "Climate Week." But ironically, the wood of choice for Bloomberg's Parks Department is a Brazilian hardwood called "Ipé," the logging of which is a nightmare of illegality, violent conflict and Amazonian rain forest destruction.
Despite dire warnings, the Amazonian rain forest continues to be industrially logged to meet growing worldwide demand for its hardwoods. Such logging operations open up new roads into pristine jungle to reach the select trees. Selective logging for export of high-value species leads to total deforestation: Once these roads are opened, the remaining trees are burned by cattle ranchers, mining operations, and large-scale plantations (for the creation of "eco-friendly" biofuels), releasing huge amounts of carbon. These secondary forms of exploitation would not be affordable without the roads built by industrial logging operations.
According to Simon Counsell, director of the Rainforest Foundation, "what we see happening in the Amazon right now (logging, forest fragmentation, increased susceptibility to fire, deforestation) causes both local [and global] changes in weather patterns." Counsell and others have warned of a massive "dieback" -- damaged or razed forest can no longer trap the moisture necessary to create the rain, which sustains the entire ecosystem. As a result, rainfall tends to decrease, leading to droughts, forest desiccation and greater susceptibility to fire. This in turn leads to greater warming, with the potential (some say within as little as the next decade) to turn large swathes of the rainforest into deserts, unleashing climate disasters.
See more stories tagged with: amazon, ipe, logging, deforestion, rain forest, nyc, new york city, bloomberg
Robert Jereski is an activist and writer based in New York City, who was the National Environment Coordinator for Kucinich's 2004 Presidential Campaign. As a Democrat, he challenged Congresswoman Maloney for her seat in Congress in response to her support of Bush's invasion of Iraq and other undemocratic practices. He directed the International Forum for Aceh, a human rights organization focused on Aceh, Indonesia.
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