Logging Fortunes (a lot of money) can be made in the rainforest. Hardwood trees, like mahogany and teak are very valuable, and can be sold for a great profit. The money that can be made is only available in the shortterm (right now). Once an area of forest is cleared, it will probably never recover. When a 35 meter tree is felled (knocked down), it can crush up to 17 smaller trees as it crashes to the ground. There may be only two or three trees of the right height in an area of forest the size of two football fields. Trees are also cut down for wood pulp, which until recently came only from softwoods like Canadian conifers. The pulp is used to make paper. In West Africa, almost 90% of the rainforest has been destroyed and now the logging is spreading to Central Africa. An estimated 70 80% of logging in Brazil and Indonesia is illegal. About 1/10 of wood used in the timber trade worldwide is illegal. 1 1 <http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4edf7250ecad04967f000030/deforestationindex.jpg >
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Logging Fortunes (a lot of money) can be made in the rainforest. Hardwood trees, like mahogany and teak
are very valuable, and can be sold for a great profit. The money that can be made is only available in the shortterm (right now). Once an area of forest is cleared, it will probably never recover. When a 35 meter tree is felled (knocked down), it can crush up to 17 smaller trees as it crashes to the ground. There may be only two or three trees of the right height in an area of forest the size of two football fields. Trees are also cut down for wood pulp, which until recently came only from
softwoods like Canadian conifers. The pulp is used to make paper. In West Africa, almost 90% of the rainforest has been destroyed and now the logging is spreading to Central Africa. An estimated 70 80% of logging in Brazil and Indonesia is illegal. About 1/10 of wood used in the timber trade worldwide is illegal.
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1 <http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4edf7250ecad04967f000030/deforestationindex.jpg>
Mining Beneath rainforests there often lies a wealth (a lot) of natural resources in the form of mineral and gold deposits. These are a great source of income for many countries, such as in Indonesia where mineral deposits form 19% of their exports. Often people involved in small scale gold mining use mercury to extract the gold. Mercury is banned in Indonesia but is readily available for purchase by individuals. As well as damaging people's health, the mercury used goes on to pollute river systems and is the secondworse source of mercury pollution in the world, after the burning of fossil fuels. Large areas of forest in Indonesia are protected by law against any prospecting or open cast mining, although new rules do allow underground mining in protected areas. Once roads are built to reach the mines, it becomes easier for illegal logging and poaching to take place. Brazil has the world's largest iron ore mine and has rich reserves of other metals such as zinc, nickel, tin and aluminium. It is possible that some of its forests may be opened up for mineral exploration.
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Mining runoff pollutes rivers
2 <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Rio_tinto_river_CarolStoker_NASA_Ames_Research_Center.jpg> 3 <https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/images/thumb/a/a2/AMD.jpg/300pxAMD.jpg> 4 <http://geologycafe.com/images/minerals.jpg>
Climate The destruction of the rainforest could affect the world's climate. During the day, the rainforests absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the air to make food in a process called photosynthesis. A byproduct of photosynthesis is oxygen. Tropical rainforests absorb about 20% of the world’s manmade carbon dioxide emissions. Burning the rainforest is like creating a huge bonfire, throwing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide or CO2 is a “greenhouse gas”, which helps to retain (keep) the heat of the sun within the Earth's atmosphere. Tropical deforestation contributes 17% of the world’s annual (yearly) greenhouse gas emissions. By burning the rainforest, we are not only adding huge amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, but we are also reducing nature's ability to absorb CO2 and to produce oxygen. The more the rainforests are cut down and burned, the more the 'lungs' of the earth will be damaged. Deforestation (removal of trees) is responsibly for more global carbon emissions than all the planes, trains, buses and cars in the world put together! Indonesia is already the world’s third highest emitter of carbon dioxide after the USA and China because of the burning of its rainforests and peat lands to clear areas for growing palm oil.
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5 <http://www.iflscience.com/sites/www.iflscience.com/files/styles/ifls_large/public/blog/%5Bnid%5D/rainforest%20burning.jpg?itok=RqrUJkYS> 6 <http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01490/congoburning_1490822i.jpg> 7 <https://www.rainforesttrust.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/sumarticle.png>
Warming Waters Although there are many problems facing coral reefs today, rising seawater temperature as a result of climate change is one of the most serious causes of stress to corals throughout the world. When temperatures are too high, the relationship between corals and their symbiotic (beneficial partner) algae breaks down. The algae are what give corals some of their bright colors, so when this happens, corals appear white or "bleached."
Just one degree above the typical summer maximum temperature is enough to bleach many corals. If the temperature is too high for too long, corals and their algae are unable to recover.
Over the past 30 years, bleaching has become more frequent, more intense, and more widespread. This has led to massive die offs of corals throughout the world.
Warmer ocean temperatures cause even more problems when it comes to disease – high temperatures allow corals to become sick more easily, and allow diseasecausing organisms to grow faster. There is a huge array of different diseases in corals. Most of them are named after how they change a sick coral’s appearance, like black band, white band, white spot and purple blotch diseases.
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Ocean Acidification As more carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere, it also has adverse (bad) effects on the oceans.
Recently, ocean acidification has emerged as another potentially serious threat to coral reefs. Seawater absorbs some of the excess (extra) CO2 from the atmosphere, causing the oceans to become more acidic. As a result, the oceans’ acidity has increased by 25 percent over the past 200 years.
These acidic conditions dissolve coral skeletons, which make up the structure of the reef, and make it more difficult for corals to grow. If left unchecked, scientists estimate that the oceans could become 150 percent more acidic by the end of this century, making it very hard for corals to grow at all.
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Illegal Fishing Coral reefs and their wildlife across the world are also affected by destructive fishing and exploitation (selling) to supply the coral reef wildlife trade. Fish, corals, and various invertebrates are all taken from reef habitats to serve as aquarium pets or decorative items.
Although this trade can be conducted sustainably (within reason), wildlife populations are often overexploited (over sold) to feed the demand for these animals.
Sometimes poisons like cyanide are dumped into the water to stun fish and make them easier to capture. Sadly, fishing with cyanide often kills fish, corals, and other forms of wildlife, while degrading the reef habitat itself.
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14 <https://smediacacheak0.pinimg.com/236x/b1/aa/0f/b1aa0f3290a52ffdeadaf271392c0c87.jpg> 15 <http://www.alfrescoemporium.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/d/e/decorative_coral___shell_cylinder_1.jpg> 16 <http://www.fyqyfz.com/data/uploads/25/367071tropicalfish.jpg>
Climate Change The Arctic tundra is warming faster than the rest of the globe and is experiencing some of the most severe climate impacts on Earth. One of the most notable is the rapid decline (disappearance) in the thickness, age and extent of sea ice. Thinner and younger ice melts much faster, and scientists are predicting that by 2030, the Arctic Ocean will be entirely icefree in the summer.
Why is that a problem? Sea ice balances the entire Arctic marine ecosystem, and as it shrinks and thins, there are major repercussions (consequences) for the Arctic peoples and wildlife. Many polar species depend on the ice to survive polar bears are the most famous example, but ringed seals also spend most of their time on ice, travelling North to find thicker, more stable one. The Arctic is still underexplored and many more species could be touched by the melting ice cap than we even know of.
The Arctic is also one of the regions where the feedback effects from Global Warming are the most important. As the white ice cap is replaced with dark seas, sunlight is less and less reflected by in space, allowing for more warming to happen on the planet.
The quantities of methane contained in the permanently frozen ground (permafrost) in the tundra is also a major problem: as the ground melts, more methane (one of the most potent greenhouse gases) is released in the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.
In particular, the ice laying on top of the land mass, like in Greenland, will contribute to sea level rising. The ice sheet has been melting faster than ever in recent years, as the summer 2009 Greenpeace expedition demonstrated.
These are factors humans cannot control, and if we are to solve the climate crisis, we have to do it before these feedback effects get beyond recovery.
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Oil drilling As the seaice recedes (disappears), oil companies are seeing an opportunity to move into the Arctic and try to exploit the oil reserves both onshore and offshore. Cairn Energy has already started exploratory drilling, and while it failed to strike oil in 2010, the company is hoping to start again in 2011. Drilling for oil in the Arctic is however extremely dangerous. The seaice, as well as extreme weather conditions make cleanup of possible oil spills very difficult.
In addition, the particularities of the Arctic make oil drilling more dangerous than usual. For instance, collisions of icebergs with oil platforms are a very real possibility. The oil industry's way of dealing with icebergs seems careless in comparison with the threat: fireships are used to hose down and melt icebergs that come too close to the platform.
The irony is tragic: if we weren't burning so much fossil fuels like oil, those oil companies wouldn't have to opportunity to move in the Arctic. It is in their interest to keep the tragedy going for as long as possible and keep the world addicted to oil. Drilling in the Arctic, instead of improving our transport system and forcing car companies to achieve better fuel efficiency, is keeping us addicted to oil, and only makes the problem worse.
As oil companies move into the Arctic, fragile habitats are threatened. The map below highlights where they are going, and their history in the region as well as the threats they are posing.
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Longrange pollution A lot of pollution in the Arctic doesn't originate there. Air and marine currents bring the toxic chemicals that are emitting in Eurasia and North America. These are then ingested (taken in) by plants and animals.
The amount of mercury found in plants hunted by the native population currently exceeds (goes beyond) the commonly agreed foodsafety levels. These levels also contribute to further endangering species already facing a number of threats.
Persistent (hard to get rid of) organic pollutants like DDT, DDE and other pesticides also find their way to the Arctic, where they are almost never used, since there is no agriculture there.
The greatest tragedy of the Arctic, is that the damage of global warming and transboundary pollution is caused thousands of kilometers away, and the native inhabitants are largely powerless to stop the destruction of their environment.
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