Deforestation: good or bad

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Deforestation good or bad?
Satellite observation of deforestation in the Rio
Branco area in Brazil http//veimages.gsfc.nasa.go
v/2180/PIA03427.jpg
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http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_
and_disadvantages_of_deforestation

• Causes of deforestation
• Deforestation happens naturally from time to
  time via wildfires. Trees, plants, and animals
  all recover from such events naturally indeed,
  some benefit from a fire. Bird such as the
  black-backed woodpecker thrive ONLY in freshly
  burned areas, where they eat insects that bore
  into the burned trees. Some trees such as the
  lodgepole pine produce serrotonous cones, cones
  that are fused shut and only open when a wildfire
  cooks the cone, thereby spreading the seeds into
  a freshly burned area with little other
  competition. Over time, burned areas regrow into
  forests. For an example, a visit to Yellowstone
  National Park today reveals a forest that is 20
  years old (major fires burned much of the park in
  1988) and filled with medium-height lodgepole
  pines.

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http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_
and_disadvantages_of_deforestation

• People cause deforestation for a number of
  reasons. The action is not always permanent some
  countries are better at replanting forests than
  others.

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http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_
and_disadvantages_of_deforestation

• Trees can be converted into paper or wood, two
  products that human civilization uses daily. In
  some parts of the world, wood is still a major
  source of fuel for cooking and heating. Chances
  are wood is a major component of your home's
  structure, the main use for timber in the U.S.
  Wood may be used to build furniture, cabinetry,
  or other products. Paper is used in many ways.

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http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_
and_disadvantages_of_deforestation

• Trees may be cut down for forest management
  reasons, also. One reason is to limit a
  wildfire's ability to spread. This may be done in
  an emergency to combat an active fire, or in a
  methodically planned long-term harvest.
  Typically, the forest is allowed to recover, and
  it does in a period of decades.

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http//www.mongabay.com/rates_asia.htm

• Many Asian-countries have entered a period of
  sustained spectacular economic growth in the past
  few years, resulting in the increased consumption
  of forest resources.

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http//www.mongabay.com/rates_asia.htm
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http//www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID07
-P13-00017segmentID2

• Biofuels are boomingthings like ethanol from
  corn and sugar cane, and diesel derived from palm
  oil, are attracting interest and investment
  worldwide. The European Union has set an
  ambitious target to replace nearly six percent
  of petroleum with biofuels in just the next three
  years.
• That will take a lot of plants, and a lot of
  cropland that Europe simply does not have. So the
  E.U. is looking to the developing world,
  particularly Southeast Asia.

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http//www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID07
-P13-00017segmentID2

• Approx. three million acres of biodiesel to
  replace one percent of the needs of the European
  Union. Probably that crop would come from
  Southeast Asia and mainly at the moment would be
  from Malaysia and Indonesia, oil palm, which is
  the main favorite crop for exchanging biodiesel.

(Courtesy of U.S. DOE Genome Programs)
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Arguments provided from http//wiki.answers.com/Q/
What_are_the_advantages_and_disadvantages_of_defor
estation

• All plants consume carbon dioxide, some consume
  more than others. Young, rapidly-growing plants
  consume much more carbon dioxide, on a per acre
  basis, than mature trees. Moreover, in an
  unmanaged forest, net carbon dioxide consumption
  is actually zero. This is because when trees die,
  they rot, and in doing so release all of the
  carbon stored over their lives, to combine with
  oxygen in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide.
  In a mature, unmanaged forest, the carbon dioxide
  released by dying trees balances that being
  consumed by living trees, and the net is zero. To
  some extent, trees can store carbon in the soil
  beneath them, slightly lowering the amount that
  is released into the atmosphere when they die.
  However, in rain forests in particular, the soils
  are very thin and cannot contain much carbon at
  all. Also, the Amazon Rain Forest is home to
  about half of all insects in the world, and
  insects produce more carbon dioxide, just by
  breathing, than all human activities, including
  fossil fuel burning.

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http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_
and_disadvantages_of_deforestation

• If the Amazon Rain Forest were harvested (not
  burned, just cut) and replanted with a
  fast-growing species of tree (pine), and that new
  forest was managed carefully (including regular
  harvesting) to maximize carbon dioxide
  consumption and sequestration, we would be much
  better off in terms of carbon dioxide
  consumption. When the trees (both the initial
  rain forest trees and the replacement pine trees)
  are cut, they would be converted to lumber, or
  simply treated to prevent rotting, making them
  very efficient long-term carbon storage devices,
  and keeping billions of tons of carbon dioxide
  out of the atmosphere. I've done the
  calculations, and with the combination of higher
  carbon dioxide consumption by plants and lower
  carbon dioxide production by insects (they would
  die when they lose their habitat), we would need
  to cut only about 1/6 of the Amazon Rain Forest
  to completely offset all human-industrial carbon
  dioxide emissions.
• One more note. Burning the forest is not a good
  idea. Burning immediately releases carbon into
  the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide, as opposed
  to the gradual process that occurs when the trees
  die and rot.

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http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_
and_disadvantages_of_deforestation

• The downside to deforestation
• Areas that are cleared of trees, especially in
  tropical rainforests, can be very sensitive to
  deforestation. Tropical rainforests have only a
  thin layer of topsoil that is easily eroded away
  if there is no vegetation holding it in place.
  Animals that are adapted to live in the forest
  usually cannot survive out in the open. Forests
  act as a heat sink the process of photosynthesis
  actually makes the atmosphere cooler as the tree
  "breathes." Forests also trap moisture and
  increase humidity the trees aspire, or give off,
  water as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Without
  the forests creating a reserve of moisture and
  water, this water evaporates and becomes useless
  to any animals.

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http//blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/category
/deforestation/

• Maybe Money Can Grow On Trees
• Posted by Keith Johnson
• Tom Wright reports from Indonesia
• Policy-makers around the world are realizing
  that saving the trees is crucial to cutting
  greenhouse-gas emissions. Now, the financiers are
  jumping in.
• Shedding some light on forest conservation
  (Wikipedia)
• Natsource Asset Management today announced a
  deal to buy 60,000 tons of carbon credits from a
  privately-owned California redwood forest managed
  by the Pacific Forest Trust. Thats the first
  deal done under the Forest Protocols, a new set
  of standards drafted last year by the California
  Air Resources Board.
• Forests are huge carbon sinks when they are left
  intact, and deforestation accounts for about 20
  of the carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere
  each year. The United Nations agreed in December
  at its climate-change conference in Bali to make
  intact forests at least as valuable as felled
  ones. The preferred recipe is to allow
  forest-conservation projects to generate carbon
  credits.
• But unlike other emissions-cutting activities,
  such as replacing coal-fired power plants with
  cleaner technology, policy-makers have struggled
  to make forest conservation part of the
  climate-change arsenal. Thats partly because of
  fears that if one forest were protected, the
  chainsaws would just move to another place.
• Until now, forest sequestration has been an
  untapped asset in the effort to address climate
  change, said Jack Cogen, chief executive of
  Natsource, in a press release. This deal
  illustrates that when rigorous, clear rules are
  adopted, these investments can reduce costs for
  our compliance customers and provide what we
  believe are attractive investment opportunities.
  
• Natsource bought the credits on behalf of hedge
  funds and private equity, which can trade the
  credits like any other commodity. Other customers
  of Pacific Forest Trust include California
  Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who burnished his
  public-image, if not his bottom line, by buying
  offsets for his air travel from the same forest.

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• Should Malaysia and Indonesia conserve their
  million of acres and benefit from carbon credits?
  Or use their crops for exchanging biodiesel?