45th Agenda 

45th Session Issues

Deforestation and Desertification

by
Cynthia Beamon & Christopher J. Cargill

How to prevent deforestation and desertification in less developed countries. How to preserve the tropical rain forest without denying those countries that have them the right to develop and expand their economies.

Background

When the northern industrialized nations developed their strong economies they did so without worrying about the destruction of our global environment or scarring of the land. As the underdeveloped south moves towards industrialization they are expected to do so without using the same environment destroying methods that the north practiced. The current disparity in wealth between the north and south is a major problem to be solved in the reduction of forest land in the tropics and grasslands in arid regions. 

The World Economic Commission believes that we cannot protect the global environment without establishing a more just international economic order; hence they developed the concept of sustainable development. In the early 1960's, scientists became aware that we were approaching limits to the burdens that we could load upon nature's capacity to absorb the effect of human activities. In the early 1970's the Club of Rome presented a model projecting the interaction of inadequate food supply, continued population growth, dwindling natural resources, industrial growth, and increased population over the next 60 years.

In 1972, these issues were addressed for the first time at an international level at the Stockholm Conference. Through the studies of the 1970's, we became aware that never before in human history had we the capacity to destroy the environment and/or reduce the option of future generations. With this knowledge, we became responsible for the safekeeping of the environment for the future generations.

To prevent the destruction of land and resources the idea of sustainable development was created. Sustainable development is a type of economic activity that can be continued indefinitely, like generating power from wind, because it does not use up or destroy natural resources, like fossil fuels, in the process. As a result the present generations needs would be met without compromising the ability of future generations to provide for their economic needs.

Deforestation

The common rhetoric from government and international agencies is that deforestation is the result of "poverty," "under-development," and "over-population." It is true that the impoverished farmers are the principal and direct agents of deforestation as they move into the forest for survival, however the cause that drives them into the forest is that they have been deprived of land or other means of subsistence which in many cases can be directly attributed to the government and international agencies. For example, government policies and international agencies promoted and even subsidized massive transfers of populations into tropical forests. These planned settlements have been promoted in Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Brazil has also promoted the colonizing of the Amazon region. A similar program was promoted by the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia which threatened to destroy that country's remaining forest which is down to only 3 percent of its total land area.

Estimates by the World Bank indicate that there are two unplanned settlements for every one. The Transmigration program in Indonesia has a "draw effect" for migrants. Recent studies show that the Ministry of Transmigration encouraged spontaneous transmigrants, and that transmigrants are the single greatest cause of deforestation. There has been an average loss of 200,000 hectares annually since 1974 in Indonesia.

One reason for the migration of the poor to the forested land is partly the fault of established business. When a company goes into the forest to log or to search for minerals; they build roads and the poor follow. Robert Goodland of the World Bank states "settlement along logging roads and present agriculture may be the causes of tropical moist deforestation." Overpopulation in the cities has exacerbated this problem but poverty is the main reason people colonize the forests. As people leave the cities in search of wealth or subsistence they find themselves on marginal lands. It would seem that the peasant farmer and rural landlessness are the agents and not the cause of deforestation.

The problem for the rural poor is lack of land or the right to secure the land. Market-oriented agricultural models promoted by the World Bank or the Food and Agriculture Organization exacerbated the problem. Cash crops not produced in forest zones can be linked to deforestation. One example is Guatemala's coffee and sugar plantations which have driven the Indian peasantry into the forest region to grow their corn. The World Resources Institute concludes that, "one of the primary forces pushing landless migrants into the forests is the inequitable distribution of agricultural land... land reform policies, therefore, are one of the most potent tools governments possess to stabilize forest use."

Desertification

Human suffering caused by the 1969-1973 drought in the sub-Saharan Sahel was the motivation for the 1977 United Nations Conference on Desertification. The commonly accepted definition of desertification is:

"…the impoverishment of terrestrial ecosystems under the impact of man. It is the process of deterioration in these ecosystems that can be measured by reduced productivity of desirable plants, undesirable alterations in the biomass and the diversity of the micro and macro fauna and flora, accelerated soil deterioration, and increased hazards for human occupancy."

This definition does not restrict desertification to exclusively arid regions. The main causes of soil degradation are overgrazing, over cultivation, water logging and salinization, and deforestation. As a result the carrying capacity for animals and people are lower, crop production is reduced, environmental deterioration is increased, flooding of lower lying lands is increased, and the capacity to support human life is reduced. Although droughts increase the rate of land degradation, they are not the cause, nor does desertification have a direct relation to a nearby desert. Soil degradation may begin in any cultivated field. Like deforestation, desertification is exacerbated by expanding population but again population is not the cause.

Currently desertification claims 6 million hectares worldwide. An additional 20 million hectares become degraded annually. The United Nations Environment Program judges 35 percent of the land surface at risk of desertification, included in this figure is 66 percent of Australia's agricultural land. This equates to 24 billion tons of topsoil worldwide being washed away annually.

At the core of this problem are excessive population densities and the displacement of poor people on the fragile lands. For example, in Africa in 1950 the population was 278 million people who kept 272 million livestock animals. In 1987 the African population was 604 million people who had 543 million livestock animals. The doubling of the African population in less than 40 years, and the increased number of livestock they raise are major factors to the current desertification of the African continent today. The drought of 1969-1973 was an untimely aggravation to the growing problem.

Research has been done to develop techniques for grazing management, and water and soil conservation to halt and/or reverse desertification. The understanding of the basic principles of soil conservation are good, although the implementation of these principles have been very slow in much of the world resulting in continuing desertification. For example, goats are known for their destruction of woody plant, plants whose roots could help stabilize the soil, but goats become the preferred animal when grazing land becomes too poor for cattle of sheep. Goats can provide milk and meat which are important for the sustenance of the poor farmer in a hostile environment. Collective grazing of goats and cattle is ideal because their food habits complement each others, but it is only possible when good land management is practiced.

The unfortunate irony is that much of the deforestation and desertification is in the developing countries which are likely to be affected sooner and more severely by environmental changes than the developed nations. Not only do the developing nations not have the financial, material, or intellectual resources of the developed nations; they also tend to have more fragile social and political institutions. hence the developing nations will be less able to respond to the environmental protection needs important to all mankind.

Conclusion

Following the Earth Summit in Rio, the United Nations endorsed Agenda 21 (47/190) and other important environmental proposals. Resolution (47/188) established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to "elaborate a new international convention to combat desertification in countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa." The Commission is to interact with other United Nations bodies including the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (a fund established by the United Nations Environmental Program in 1990).

The Commission's function include: "monitoring progress toward the UN target of providing 0.7 percent of gross national product of industrialized countries for official development assistance; considering, where appropriate, information and the implementation of environmental conventions, including treaties on biodiversity and climate change, opened for signature in Rio..."

The United Nations Development Program implemented a capacity-building program (47/194), and initiative "to help developing countries institute their own sustainable development programs." CAPACITY 21 "focuses on human resources training, strengthening key regional and national institutions, such as universities, research centers and government and non-governmental offices, and facilitating the use of environmentally-sound technologies."

On 2 November 1993, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said, "The challenge after Rio is to maintain the momentum of commitment to sustainable development, to transfer it into politics and practice, and to give it effective and coordinated organizational support." The United Nations, according to the Secretary-General, "must put its development objectives on a par with its political and security commitments."

On 22 December 1993. the United Nations (48/175) approved the formation of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The UnitedNations Conference on Environment and Development promotes, "fundamental principles for the achievement of sustainable development, based on a new and equitable global partnership" (48/190).

Questions

1. How can deforestation and desertification be controlled?
2. Should the world wealth distribution be changed to help poorer nations prevent deforestation and desertification?
3. Will the colonization of forest and desert land promote development and economic independence for poor countries?
4. To what extent do environmental issues such as these affect global security?
5. Should existing agencies be coordinated and restructured to achieve reversal of desertification and deforestation?

Sources

Brundtland, Gro Harlem. "The Environment, Security and Development" Sipri Yearbook 1993 - World Armaments and Disarmament. (Sipri - Stockhol International Peace Research Institute.) New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Colchester, Marcus. "Colonizing the Rain Forests: The Agents and Causes of Deforestation" The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forests. Penang, Malaysia: Zed Books Ltd., 1993.
Dregne, H.E. Desertification of Arid Lands. London: Harwood Academia Publishers, 1983.
Ekins, Paul and Hillman, M. and Hutchinson, R. The Gaia Atlas of Green Economics. New York: Anchor Books By Doubleday, 1992.
Gooland, R., and Asibey, E., and Post, J. and Dyson, M. Tropical Moist Forest Management: the urgent transition to sustainability. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1990.
Shafrits, Jay M. and Williams, Phil and Calinger, Ronald S. The Dictionary of 20th Century World Politics. New York: Henry Hold and Company, 1993.