[HN Gopher] Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s
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Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s
Author : _Microft
Score : 153 points
Date : 2021-08-17 13:32 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ourworldindata.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ourworldindata.org)
| eljimmy wrote:
| This makes you wonder - did the whole save the trees movement
| give rise to a far dangerous alternative, the mass usage of
| plastics?
| palijer wrote:
| I don't think that would explain the transition from reusable
| milk glass bottles to plastic milk jugs. A decrease in
| deforestation doesn't explain a systemic rise in using
| plastics.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| Moreover, plastic straws were in use before the 1980s, and
| only since the 80s has there been pressure to replace them
| with paper-based straws.
| contingencies wrote:
| Plastic is cheaper by weight, lighter, easier to form and far
| more adjustable in appearance. It has a broader range of
| temperature responses, chemical responses, physical
| properties and textures. It is in general harder to break. In
| short, plastic excels because it is apparently cheap and
| useful and its dire costs, in particular of single use
| plastics and in particular to the commons, are - much like
| other systemic issues burgeoning under capitalism - never
| adequately accounted for.
| asterix_pano wrote:
| Are we ready to stop eating meat?
| rexreed wrote:
| Are you ready to stop using palm oil?
|
| https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/topics/palm-oil
| asterix_pano wrote:
| Absolutely. However, palm oil is a much smaller cause than
| the animal agriculture (like 1/10).
| rexreed wrote:
| You might be surprised by the actual facts on this matter:
| https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/whats-causing-
| deforestatio...
|
| And in particular: "The study found that clearing forests
| for oil palm plantations like the one above in Sabah,
| Malaysia, was the leading cause of deforestation in
| Indonesia and Malaysia during 2001 and 2015."
|
| For North America, the major cause of deforestation was
| timber logging and forest fires.
|
| The only place where cattle ranching has a major role in
| deforestation is in Brazil, and even in that case is not
| 90% of the cause as you imply above.
| asterix_pano wrote:
| You need to have a look at the numbers globally. And
| include all the deforestation done to clear space for
| growing soy beans (later used to feed farmed animals).
|
| some sources below Margulis, Sergio. "Causes of
| Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon". World Bank
| Working Paper No. 22. 2003
|
| Tabuchi, Hiroko, Rigny, Claire & White, Jeremy. "Amazon
| Deforestation, Once Tamed, Comes Roaring Back". New York
| Times. February 2017(New)
|
| Bellantonio, Marisa, et al. "The Ultimate Mystery Meat:
| Exposing the Secrets Behind Burger King and Global Meat
| Production". Mighty Earth (New)
|
| Oppenlander, Richard A. Food Choice and Sustainability:
| Why Buying Local, Eating Less Meat, and Taking Baby Steps
| Won't Work. . Minneapolis, MN : Langdon Street, 2013.
| Print.
| r00fus wrote:
| If you can avoid Nutella, you can avoid palm oil (it was
| tough for our family but we just don't buy it).
|
| Palm oil (and it's derivatives like palm fruit oil, or palm
| solids) is infested throughout a lot of shelf-stable snacks.
| rexreed wrote:
| Nutella is the least of your issues.
|
| "Palm oil is the most consumed vegetable oil on the
| planet."
|
| "The food industry is responsible for 72% world wide usage
| of palm oil. Cosmetics and cleaning products are
| responsible for a further 18% usage whilst 10% globally is
| used for biofuels and animal feed.
|
| In food, it's the fat ingredient in things like biscuits
| and margarine. In soap and cosmetics, it's used as a fat to
| increase the thickness or viscosity of a product and it
| helps skin to retain moisture.
|
| Palm oil and its derivatives is often masked under 200
| different names in ingredients lists. More obviously it may
| be listed as palm kernel, palmitic acid or even simply as
| vegetable oil. As of 2014, in the EU, food ingredient lists
| must list which type of vegetable oil they contain."
|
| From: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/palm-oil-
| what-it-...
|
| There are alternatives to Nutella that don't use palm oil,
| so you don't have to be tough on your family. But note that
| even if Nutella disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't make a
| dent on palm oil consumption.
|
| Also, if you believe what Nutella has to say about their
| use of Palm Oil, you don't have to feel bad for consuming
| it: https://www.nutella.com/int/en/inside-
| nutella/sustainability...
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| The HN crowd does get their panties in a bunch when anyone
| mentions vegetarianism, population control, or anything related
| to Socialism.
|
| You can't have it all. Well the very wealthy can, but you
| can't.
|
| Not eating meat would probally overnight stop the deforestation
| of the Amazon. Plus you desk jockeys might live past 60 in
| decent health.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Not eating meat would probally overnight stop the
| deforestation of the Amazon.
|
| Unfortunately not. The Amazon would still get converted into
| farm land, but it would be even more palm oil instead of
| cattle.
| _Microft wrote:
| We don't have to stop eating meat. Reducing consumption goes a
| long way already.
|
| Here's my story. I noticed that I was eating far more meat than
| I actually wanted to. It happened out of habit and because it
| was just there. That means I had been "mindlessly" buying meat
| while shopping instead of having a plan what to do with it.
| Once I stopped shopping like that, I found that I craved meat
| less often than I had expected. When I now do, I actually have
| meat and that without feeling bad at all. I consume far less
| meat than I used to, without actually missing anything. I
| consider that a success and one that is sustainable for me on
| top of that.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I find it hard to fathom what are said to be average American
| meat consumption habits. They say it's 4 pounds per week per
| person, but that's just insane. Sometimes I buy half a pound
| of bacon and end up throwing half away a month later. I use
| half a pound of ground pork in a sauce that serves ten for
| dinner. I feel like I'd have to make a comedic effort to eat
| four pounds of meat in a week.
| boringg wrote:
| Technically i think that bacon you throw away is considered
| part of your consumption. I would be curious how much meat
| is wasted vs eaten. It is still a large amount of meat but
| fascinated by the nuances.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I 100% admit to consuming food that I waste. That's on
| me! Half a pound is the least they sell.
|
| What's beyond me is just the top line, gross figure. I'd
| need to bring home 10-20 pounds of meat every week to
| conform to the average, which is unimaginable.
| latchkey wrote:
| Buy exact weight from the butcher counter.
| lkbm wrote:
| I've been a vegetarian for a while now, but I remember
| visiting England at age 17 and at nearly every restaurant
| we visited, I would order a burger. Every place had a
| "quarter pound beefburger" or something like it on the
| menu, and I was there for it.
|
| The greatest and most memorable was this one restaurant
| where one of the menu items was, as I recall, "two half-
| pound beefburgers". When it showed up at the table my
| brother was astounded and my dad said something like "He
| might share with the rest of us."
|
| I did not. They had their own meals, and I had my pound of
| beef for lunch.
|
| I've had to slow down a bit as I reach middle age, and I've
| been a vegetarian since 2003, but I probably eat around
| 4LBs of fake meat most weeks, not counting all the tofu.
|
| (I'm not saying this isn't absurd. Just a fun anecdote.)
| ectopod wrote:
| You can freeze bacon for a few months. Any longer and it
| will start to taste rancid.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| thanks for conflating two enormous, guranteed-NO items.. not
|
| Please understand that cultures worldwide have profoundly
| different relationships to wooded areas, first
|
| Secondly, markets and population economics vary drastically
| across geography
|
| Thirdly, a discussion is a communications endeavor, no matter
| what the facts are.. the actual participants have to engage in
| some sensible fashion
|
| reset, please
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I'm not ready to become fully vegetarian. But I'd be curious
| what steps people have taken to reduce or change their meat
| consumption?
|
| I'm thinking of only eating meat when going out to a nice
| restaurant, or for certain special meals (ie American
| Thanksgiving). But avoiding the commodity meat and being
| vegetarian as much as possible at home.
| cipher_system wrote:
| Try just adding some good side vegetables or salads to your
| ordinary dishes and you should be able to reduce the amount
| of meat and carbs in each meal.
|
| You could also try to find one good vegetarian dish and cook
| that once in a while. Daal is my goto vegetarian dish that
| tastes good and is easy to make in large batches.
| latchkey wrote:
| I moved to Vietnam and became vegetarian when I realized that
| despite what Bourdain (rip) likes you to believe, cheap
| street food isn't that good for you after all.
|
| They don't go through much effort to hide the source of meat.
| In fact, some places hang the meat out in the sun (and flies
| and dirt) for you to see it as you drive by.
|
| Never mind that there is no quality control, animal welfare,
| USDA, sanitization, etc... Heck, the meat they serve you
| might not even be what they advertise. Plenty of dogs and
| cats roaming around. Don't forget, right before covid, there
| was a mass swine flu going around where they slaughtered
| literally every single pig in the northern part of the
| country.
|
| Anyway, I always cringe now when people try to tell me how
| good street food is... if you've seen some of the things I've
| seen... the decision is pretty easy.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Oversimplification. Eating meat does not cause deforestation,
| cutting down trees does. There are other, more sustainable ways
| to feed cattle.
|
| Don't blame the average consumer for an issue much bigger than
| their own individual contributions.
| asterix_pano wrote:
| It's like saying pressing the trigger doesn't kill someone,
| only the bullet does.
|
| We are feeding over 70 billions of land animals for our
| appetite, nothing about that is sustainable.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Consumer behavior drives industry to do the things it does.
| People demand more meat, industry cuts down large swaths of
| forest to make land on which to graze cattle.
|
| I don't get how people think this is supposed to work. It's
| like they just want to not take any responsibility whatsoever
| for how their behavior affects the world. Where do you think
| the change is going to come from if no one is willing to
| alter their lifestyle?
| goatlover wrote:
| And yet, deforestation rates have declined significantly
| over the past several decades globally despite added
| several billion people, while Europe and the US have been
| reforesting.
|
| From the article:
|
| "As we explore in more detail in our related article,
| countries tend to follow a predictable development in
| forest cover, a U-shaped curve.5 They lose forests as
| populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel
| increases, but eventually they reach the so-called 'forest
| transition point' where they begin to regrow more forests
| than they lose."
| diggernet wrote:
| Meanwhile, there are plans for environmental restoration of parts
| of Siberia through... deforestation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park
| sputknick wrote:
| Based on the map, this looks like a problem that will be solved
| with money. The tropical regions are less wealthy than the
| temperate regions, and probably as they become more wealthy, they
| will urbanize and improve farming techniques, both of which
| require less land, which nature is then able to re-capture.
| sam_0123 wrote:
| I'd worry that the improved farming techniques will not
| facilitate a release of land back to wild, but would simply
| intensify whatever acreage is already farmed + whatever new
| ground anyone can justify (like anywhere else I'm aware of).
| kavalg wrote:
| and will produce lower quality food
| relax88 wrote:
| The total land area used for agriculture has actually
| decreased in the last few decades in some of the richer and
| more developed areas.
|
| Europe in general has seen some reforestation and is greener
| now than 100 years ago (though still much less green than
| several hundred years ago).
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Is that due to more effective farming methods or just due
| to importing more foods? I have the suspicion that this is
| a case of patting ourselves on the back similar to our
| reduction in CO2-emissions that are merely being exported
| to China.
| rexreed wrote:
| The article says that deforestation _peaked_ 30-40 years ago.
|
| "Global forest loss peaked in the 1980s - losing an area half
| the size of India. Since then, deforestation has slowed. In
| fact, many countries have now reversed the long-term trend and
| transitioned to a net gain of forests, reforestation."
|
| So clearly something is working. A lot of the responses are
| assuming that deforestation rate of growth is continuing or
| even accelerating, especially the random remarks attributing
| deforestation to all sorts of things. The world is on a re-
| forestation trend, according to the article.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >The world is on a re-forestation trend, according to the
| article.
|
| Am I misreading something here (either your comment or the
| article)? My impression here is that total forested land is
| still decreasing, but the rate of decrease is not increasing.
| philwelch wrote:
| The first derivative is still negative but the second
| derivative is positive.
| titzer wrote:
| Good news! That flesh-eating bacteria which has been ravaging
| your body has reached peak de-skinification! With any luck it
| will stop eating your skin any year now! In fact, on your
| elbows, back of the thighs, and clavicle area, there's
| actually a net gain of skin! By 2200, your body will mostly
| be covered with pink scar tissue!
| scrollaway wrote:
| What's the point of such a hostile, sarcastic and off base
| comment, man?
| charbonneau wrote:
| The point is to stop and think about what you're reading.
| Same goes for postwar economic booms.
| rexreed wrote:
| Ok,let's stop and think. The article is saying that the
| rate of deforestation stopped increasing in the 1980s,
| and since then we've made gains on reforestation as well
| as stopping the increase in deforestation rate. What
| exactly would you like the alternative to be? A re-
| increase in deforestation rates? A halt to reforestation?
|
| Yes, wishful thinking would be that it would be nice if
| we didn't have all that deforestation to begin with, but
| here we are, reversing that trend, and somehow there's an
| alternative that would be better than that? What
| alternative to reducing the rate of deforestation and
| increasing reforestation is there?
| charbonneau wrote:
| Neither titzer nor me suggested there was an alternative.
| mc32 wrote:
| Possibly. Certainly in the US we have regained forest as
| marginal farmland was allowed to revert to forest or in some
| cases converted to forest so that now many places that are
| conservation land wildernesses are forested as opposed to
| grazing land and farmland.
|
| On the other hand, a growing population means more demand for
| wood products (for building, for furniture, etc) and the
| alternative, plastics, are quite problematic.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Sounds like there will be a sustained demand for wood
| products in the future. Maybe we can cut down some trees, and
| plant new ones in their stead, then repeat as necessary as
| the market demands.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_farm
| Sharlin wrote:
| Unfortunately tree farms are absolutely disastrous when it
| comes to biodiversity, and biodiversity loss and climate
| change are not separate problems but deeply intertwined.
| You cannot solve one and ignore the other. Regular managed
| forest is better but not good either.
| jankeymeulen wrote:
| How's that? I could see climate change decreasing
| biodiversity for sure, but how would decreasing
| biodiversity lead to climate change?
| otikik wrote:
| Nature is the only one capturing CO2 at the moment.
|
| Biodiversity is what nature does. It starts with soil,
| then small plants, and gradually you get trees. It's very
| energy efficient, but it's a very slow process.
|
| Industrial monocultives are nothing like that. It's much
| faster, but it works out of the paths nature has. Usually
| by emitting CO2 directly, which impacts climate change.
|
| For example, the natural process of building the soil of
| a forest takes decades of tiny plants and animals living
| and pooping and dying, while artificial lumber forest
| soil is brought in trucks, and set in a single season,
| with fertilizer extracted from a mine (more CO2). The
| pooping and dying part releases some CO2 as well, but it
| cannot compare.
|
| On top of that, cultivation tends to take land from wild
| forests and jungles. So that doubles the effect.
|
| Permaculture is a way to produce food and wood products
| using methods that mimic what nature does. Give it a look
| if you are interested in these things.
| echelon wrote:
| > On the other hand, a growing population means more demand
| for wood products
|
| In the US, increased demand can be met with renewable sources
| of lumber. This has the side benefit of modest carbon
| sequestration.
|
| Population growth is also slowing, which may actually pose a
| more serious problem for labor and innovation. Immigration
| helps, but it won't be enough.
|
| In other areas of the world, the problem is one of economics,
| as the parent mentioned.
| soperj wrote:
| >This has the side benefit of modest carbon sequestration
|
| There is no way that pulling timber out of the forest and
| converting into a product actually sequesters anything.
| Hauling the wood out of the forest to the mill likely
| releases more carbon than is sequestered by the tree in its
| lifetime.
| poopypoopington wrote:
| As the economy electrifies and the grid decarbonizes this
| will improves. Electric trucks, electric chainsaws etc.
| Mills are already electric I assume.
| putnambr wrote:
| Your comment doesn't make sense. A tree growing in a tree
| farm, and being turned into lumber will sequester that
| carbon until that lumber is burned. I suppose it matters
| if you're talking about cutting down old growth for
| lumber, or using old farm land to put a tree farm on.
| soperj wrote:
| Have you watched the trucks hauling logged trees down the
| road? They aren't exactly fuel efficient, then you haul
| that finished product from the mill to the lumber yard,
| then to the job site. The average tree sequesters 400kg
| of carbon in 25 years. The average commuter car will
| produce that in 2 weeks.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Their comment is supposing that the energy costs of
| hauling the tree out of the forest and slicing it into
| boards / mulch / whatever (given our current logging
| technology) emits more carbon (from fuel usage and
| electricity generation) than the tree sequestered during
| it's lifetime.
|
| This probably not true, considering that for many decades
| steam powered logging equipment burned wood before coal
| became the dominant fuel source (and thus able to cut
| down and process a tree with less energy than we got from
| a single tree), although many mills were powered by
| flowing water.
|
| It's the same notion that "PV panels emit an equivalent
| of 50g of CO2 per kW/h (assuming a 25 year service
| life)". Even though the panel doesn't emit anything
| during operation, mining and manufacturing are still
| heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
|
| The tree itself sequesters carbon, but the carbon output
| from using the tree is what is produced burning it +
| getting it ready to burn.
| blobbers wrote:
| While I wish this line of logic were true, generally as
| corporations improve their techniques, they try to scale up
| their business and are rarely content with what they have. Sad,
| but I think true.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Cultural issues are huge here. Back in the 1980s high end
| construction made great use of tropical hardwoods which were
| considered premium materials that any proper wealthy person would
| prefer in their home. By the mid to late 1990s there was a huge
| shift and wealthy people building custom homes started to request
| LEED certification instead which completely changed everything.
| Out with the tropical hardwoods and in with reused barn beams.
| And all through this time the argument focused on legalities when
| evidence was mounting that the tastes and preferences of the
| wealthy were what really made the difference.
| samstave wrote:
| When I was tech implementation manager for a bunch of
| salesforce building in the US... 50 Fremont street sanfrancisco
| - they built waterfall reception desks from Koa Wood, where the
| wood had to be purchased from other, previously built pieces.
| IIRC the average price for each of these reception desk pieces
| was $65,000
|
| Koa trees cannot be harvested and so to get Koa wood - you have
| to buy something that was already built and then make your
| thing out of it..
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| The use of tropical woods can basically be ignored in the
| discussion of deforestation.
|
| 1. When you harvest wood, the forest will generally recover and
| new trees will grow.
|
| 2. Lumber only accounts for about 2% of the total area
| deforested.
|
| 3. Agriculture accounts for 90+% of deforested area, most of
| this being for cattle or soy, and once land is converted to
| agriculture the change is generally permanent.
| m0llusk wrote:
| These are good ideas, but the numbers are flatly
| unbelievable. Until quite recently most tropical hardwood was
| harvested illegally and distributed through black markets.
| This often involved either clear cutting or selective removal
| of rare trees or both. There is very little if any hard
| information about exactly how much tropical deforestation in
| the 1980s involved lumber, though there has been significant
| progress in enforcement since then.
| jnmandal wrote:
| This is somewhat of a misleading headline. Yes, the _rate_ of
| deforestation may have peaked in 1980s. There is also not very
| good data on this before 1990s. The estimate of forested areas in
| the context of our land use distribution are still in decline.
|
| Now this is adjacent but whats more important in my mind is not
| reflected in any of these data; that is to say that most of the
| planet's savanna have been completely lost. Savanna are arguably
| more important than forest due to the sequestration of carbon in-
| ground systems (as opposed to woody biomass) and the amount of
| caloric availability they offer to wild animals. They thus
| support a huge amount of biomass (though not necessarily biofuel,
| like a forest).
|
| Some of the areas that are being afforested originally would have
| been savannas but due to biodiversity loss, they succeed directly
| to forests (no animals to control the spread of trees). By some
| estimates less than 1% of North American oak savanna still exists
| today.
| tsjq wrote:
| can't believe. what about the Amazon forest decimation threads
| we've had here?
| goatlover wrote:
| It was much worse in the 1980s. There was serious concern back
| then that the Amazon would mostly be gone by now. But the
| deforestation rate has declined since then. It's still far from
| ideal, and there was a recent surge. But it's not apocalyptic.
| _Microft wrote:
| From what I know the damage to the Amazon rainforest is
| greater than ever. Some models seem to suggest that a
| savannah could be another stable state that the region could
| exist in. Fears are now that the area could undergo a rapid
| transition between these states because the decreasing
| rainforest coverage can no longer give rise to the weather
| patterns that help to sustain it.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, it's not greater than ever. It's among the largest
| (not the largest) numbers on the current time series, that
| started at the late 90's. It's known that the entire series
| is much lower than the historic amounts, but the previous
| data is not precise enough to tell by how much.
|
| The rest of your comment is spot on, but those fears have
| been there since the 70's. Of course, as deforestation
| continues, we move closer and closer to that scenario, but
| nobody can tell if it's actually any close. Anyway,
| systematic forest loss due to increased temperatures (and
| the weather changes they bring) is much more worrisome,
| since this one is already happening all around the world.
| _Microft wrote:
| Temperate forests, like we have them in North America, Europe
| and northern Asia (i.e. Russia) are growing back.
|
| The Amazon is a rainforest and these are still being cut down
| faster than they regrow.
| zpeti wrote:
| Your brain is wired to upvote and share apocalyptic news more
| than positive news.
| fzzzy wrote:
| No, it's just that there is not as much forest that is as
| easily exploitable as there was in the 80s, so of course the
| rate has to go down. We already cut most of it down.
|
| [edit] forest cover is still going down. we are not
| increasing the amount of forest. the first derivative of
| forest has gone down. that's meaningless. forest is still
| going to approach zero at the current rate.
| goatlover wrote:
| "In total, the increase in leaf area over the past two
| decades corresponds to an area as large as the Amazon
| rainforest. There are now over two million square
| kilometers more green leaf area compared to the beginning
| of the 2000s. That is an increase of five percent."
|
| https://www.warpnews.org/human-progress/nasa-the-earth-is-
| gr...
|
| As the article notes, it's not all good news and
| deforestation needs to decrease in certain regions. But
| it's also not true that we already cut most of it down.
| There are more trees today than 20 and 100 years ago.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Global forest proliferation and Amazon deforestation can
| happen at the same time.
| fzzzy wrote:
| You understand that old growth forest and new growth
| forest have completely different ecological profiles,
| right? False equivalence. Regreening of new growth forest
| does not make up for the same amount of area as old
| growth.
| goatlover wrote:
| Shifting the goal posts. The article and the comments
| were not talking about ecological profiles, but rather
| deforestation.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Sorry, but you are just straight up wrong. Even if
| reforestation percentage has increased in recent years,
| the derivative of forest is still negative, and the
| reforestation is new growth, which as I mentioned is not
| as ecologically useful.
|
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS
| piercebot wrote:
| I wonder how much of this changed due to public sentiment driven
| by pop culture? Movies like Fern Gully[0] and TV shows like
| Captain Planet[1] definitely had a hand in shaping my generation
| growing up.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FernGully:_The_Last_Rainforest
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Planet_and_the_Planete...
| mrjangles wrote:
| Forest cover in just about every first world country has been
| increasing since the the late 1970s, which predates these
| shows. All deforestation since then has been occurring almost
| exclusively in poor countries, not to mention most other
| environmental problems such as the dumping of plastics and
| toxic chemicals into the ocean.
|
| It seems to me that a clean environment is a kind of pleasure
| project that people are willing to spend money on only once
| they can afford it.
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