Rainforest Deforestation

Rainforest deforestation is a massive problem. Every year more and more of the rainforests are being cut down to make room for humans. We take the extra space to live, as farmland for our food, or for producs such as timber and paper. This isn't a new problem. It is a very old problem that is reaching a critical point in our time.

Deforestation is as old as civilization. There used to be great cedar forests in the Middle East around Lebanon Syria and Turkey. 

But civilizations such as the Phonecians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Assyrians and Babylonians decimated these old forests.

The same thing happened to what is now the Sahara desert. It used to be a forest but it was decimated by hungry empires looking for expansion. 

Forests are a crucial part of the water cycle. They prevent land becoming desert by promoting rainfall and they act as a water filter, preventing the groundwater from becoming too salty. The increased salination from deforestation causes water to become undrinkable and the salts can make the remaining trees vulnerable to parasitic infections. Such infections wouldn't happen in a healthy forest.

Reseeded saplings that are planted in the place of destroyed forests cannot perform the functions that rainforests can. A rainforest tree has up to 40 times more leaf surface area than other trees, making them especially critical in recycling carbon dioxide. Reseeded saplings are also much more vulnerable to pests because they lack the diversity of a rainforest.

Now that civilization has grown to to its largets size in history it is putting more pressure on the environment than ever before. The few remaining old forests are being plundered at an alarming extent. 

The Amazon rainforest is the most famous example but there are also rainforests being destroyed in South East Asia and Africa. The total amount of rainforest left on the planet is approximately the size of the U.S.A. Every year an area the size of Florida is destroyed forever.

Rainforest deforestation is a problem for humans and it is a problem for life on Earth as a whole.

Mother culture and shallow ecology would tell us that we need to find a way to exploit the forests in a sustainable way so we can carry on our great civilization. They fear that rainforest deforestation will put an end to our way of life. The only reason we need to save them is because ther are useful to us.

Mainstream debate misses the point - the forests are not ours to take.

Deep Ecology doesn't care so much for the survival of this civilization. But it cares for the survival of the rainforests. 

Forests are valuable in their own right. The trees and all the living things that exist there have as much right to live as we do. It is not our place to take ownership of their habitat and exploit it. 

The rainforests are also crucial for the health of the planet, which supports us all. A rainforest ecosystem is home to an abundance of non-human and human life alike. They are critical to biodiversity. And they are also the lungs of the Earth. Humans have a reciprocal relationship with trees. We breathe what they exhale and they breathe what we exhale.

The Rainforests Belong to All Creation

The mainstream debate around rainforest deforestation misses this crucial point - that they are not ours to take. Human beings do not own the rainforests. We should be grateful for all the things that they provide for us. But instead we are claiming ownership and logging them to destruction for short term gain.

This satisfies the thirst of our destructive culture to be continually expanding but in the long run it is contributing to its downfall. People know this, but it doesn't stop the destruction of the rainforests. We are locked into this system that must keep expanding and destroying. A society living within the law of limited competition would have no need to destroy the rainforests.

The rainforests will not survive if this culture of maximum harm continues, despite the best effort of some governments and NGOs. Like other environmental crises we are facing, rainforest deforestation is not the problem but a symptom of the problem. It is our culture which is causing harm and it is our culture that needs to be changed.

Related Articles From Deep Ecology Hub:

• Soil Degradation
• The Law Of Limited Competition
• Takers And Leavers
• The Story Of Civilization
• Shallow Ecology vs Deep Ecology

---

Return from Rainforest Deforestation to Environmental Degradation