Deforestation - a complex issue

Deforestation is a problem that goes far beyond damage to the soil. It is easy to be righteous about matters that occur remote from you. It is easy for the lovers of nature to decry the loss of plants, animals, and soils in the tropical regions of the world, especially as it will lead to loss of some species for ever. But if you were living in a region where it is extremely difficult to make a living and poverty prevails, then the basis for your judgement and decisions changes. There is no easy solution to deforestation and the damage it causes. There needs to be a much closer link between International Bodies seeking to protect important things in the world, such as our environment, and the governing bodies within a country with which most of the power to allow or not to allow exists. Protocols need to be agreed and there needs to be a much better system involving a partnership between governments and the people. This should help the implantation of established protocols. Again it is very easy to express the need for this approach, it is much more difficult to carry it out, particularly where economics and market forces vie with nature.

There are a number of possible ways of reducing the impact of deforestation. The first must be to limit the extent of deforestation itself by creating limits to the areas that can be deforested. It is possible to allow some occupation of the forests but these should be small enough to allow the overall consistency of the forest to continue to exist. Extensive systems of plantations tend to remove the integrity of the rainforest. An important approach is to designate large areas of the forest as National Parks and Nature Reserves and to preserve large areas of the forest. Reforestation is also a possibility but the scale on which it would be required given the damage already done is not feasible in the current economic state of the countries involved. The main route forward must be to limit the scale of further deforestation and ensure that any further deforestation is under proper guidance. Meanwhile the soils of large areas of deforested land are being damaged beyond repair.