Rainforest Preservation—Solutions to Rainforest Deforestation
The Future of Rainforests
The current rate of Amazon deforestation is difficult to assess though satellite technology should provide more reliable data. The underlying causes and solutions to rainforest deforestation are related to the economic development of third world countries. Affluence and technology have the potential to reverse the Amazon deforestation trend and find solutions to rainforest deforestation. As countries increase their wealth, they become concerned with the lack of rainforest preservation and natural resources including plant and animal wildlife. As technology use becomes more widespread the world over, high-yield agriculture and forestry will reduce Amazon deforestation and allow rainforest preservation by the use of less and less land to produce more and more food and forest products.
High-yield technologies have already tripled the world’s crop yields once, and they should be able to provide ample food and wood for an expected world population of 10 to 12 billion in the future. We should need less land for food and forestry in 2050 than we need today.
If most of the increased world population live in cities which will take up less than 4 percent of the land area, while high-yielding farms, ranches and tree plantations leave more undisturbed wildlife habitat than we have today, then the world can have both people and wildlife.
Amazon Rainforest Deforestation | U.S. Beef Consumption
Tropical Deforestation | Causes of Rainforest Deforestation
Beef Production | Rainforest Deforestation to Raise Beef Cattle
Amazon Deforestation | Rainforest Preservation | Solutions to Rainforest Deforestation
References
1. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Global Forest Resources Assessment, 2000.
2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics 2003.
3. FAO, Forest Products Yearbook 1988, Rome, Development and the Environment, World Development Report 1992, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
4. Roger Sedjo of Resources for the Future, “The Competition for Albertan Wood Fiber,” Conference on the International Competitiveness of Canadian Forest Products, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Oct. 23, 1991.
5. Yield Data from commodity tables, FAO Production Yearbook Series, Rome, FAO, 1954-1991.
6. Land Use tables, FAO Production Yearbook Series, Rome, FAO, 1954-1991.
7. Urban and Trueblood, World Population by Country and Region, and Projections to 2050, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 1993.
8. D.J. Mahar, “Government Policies and Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Region,” World Bank and Wildlife Fund, Conservation Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1989.
Other References
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, Brazil Forest Products Annual Reports, 1992, 1993, Basilia.
