“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” – Rabindranath Tagore
On Monday, the world celebrated International Day of Forests, not as fully as it should have given the vital importance of trees, but enough to offer a modicum of hope in the face of the wars, global pandemic, politics, economics, and other considerations that currently occupy everyone’s minds. To be honest, if ever there was a day worth celebrating it’s the day set aside for forests. The green cover so many of us take for granted has for millennia been providing oxygen, storing carbon, stabilising soil and housing much of the world’s wildlife. Long before humans fully understood their worth, trees and forests have also been supplying them with comfort in the form of food, medicines, shelter and shade.
Despite the plethora of information now available and being widely dispersed, it is partially ignorance, but mostly greed, fuelling the wanton deforestation that continues to threaten the world’s biodiversity and unbalance ecological systems. Trees are being harvested every day at an alarming rate. The main human drivers of forest degradation are commercial agricultural expansion, the construction industry, the production of paper for everyday use – writing, printing, toilet tissue, napkins and towels – and the mining, firewood and charcoal industries; this is by no means an exhaustive list. Add to this forest fires, droughts, floods and tree diseases and it is clear why we should all be very concerned, because if there were no trees left, the earth would be uninhabitable.
In its “The State of the World’s Forests 2020” report, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations noted that forests cover just 31 percent of the earth, but only about half of that cover is “relatively intact”. Just over a third is primary forest, which means it is naturally regenerated with native tree species, the FAO said, adding that “there are no clearly visible indications of human activity and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed”. As positive as that sounds, however, the FAO also stated that between 1990 and 2015 some 129 million hectares of forest had been depleted. While replanting, which occurs deliberately or when there is sustainable forest exploitation, has slowed the annual rate of deforestation since 2010, this does not mean the danger has passed.
For example, in 1998, the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) estimated the world’s tree flora at around 100,000 species. Based on assessments and evaluations done up to then it documented over 7,300 tree species as globally threatened, meaning they were classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. Today, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that there are some 60,000 tree species and has 20,000 on its threatened list with more than 1,400 assessed as critically endangered and in urgent need of conservation action. Among the trees on the WCMC globally threatened list was one of the prides of Guyana, Chlorocardium rodiei or greenheart. A dense hardwood well-known for its use in the construction, ship and wharf building industries in this country and further afield, it was harvested and exported in spades. By 2006, there was insufficient data from Guyana for the IUCN to update its conservation status. This was likely the reason why in 2015, the European Union, the largest importer of our greenheart, imposed a ban on imports, which remained in place at least up to 2019. From all indications, the harvesting of this tree continued for in-country use.
There are a few things worth noting here. One is that while a tree can be felled in 15 minutes or less, it can take anywhere between 30 years to several hundred years for one to reach full maturity, depending on the species and region where it grows. Two, when trees are being harvested, especially on a large scale, the machinery used in the process crushes, damages and sometimes destroys surrounding smaller trees, bushes, fungi and other forest flora of ecological significance. Three, replanting is not always successful and logging conglomerates do not stick around to ensure that the trees they plant actually live. In fact, they may not even plant the correct species of trees. In truth, their business is taking trees down, not growing them. Furthermore, if, as is the case in Guyana, the region where they are operating does not have the necessary personnel to monitor their activities, there is nothing to prevent them from just giving lip service to replanting.
Lest we forget, every tree that is cut down releases carbon back into the atmosphere, particularly if the wood is burned. None of this is meant to be interpreted as a sermon on the end of forestry exploitation, though that would be the ideal for the sake of the planet. One can hardly pretend that millions of people would not suffer if the industry suddenly ceased to exist, but there needs to be balance. Forest management, including sustainable exploitation, should not only be talked about, but fully practised. Where necessary, legislation should be put in place that would allow for punitive measures to be taken against those who seem bent on simply seeing dollar signs in our forests.
In Guyana, we are understandably proud of the Iwokrama International Centre and the forest is constantly held up as the ideal. However, because it lacks sufficient funding, sustainable forest exploitation is one of the means of financing the work it does. There have been instances in the recent past of poachers found logging and mining in Iwokrama. Imagine what could happen if there were no checks and balances in place? If they are to be self-sustaining, all forests should be similarly protected. Furthermore, we must move beyond the empty symbolism of sticking a plant in a hole for a photo op on Earth Day, to really trying to understand why it is an exercise that should be undertaken at every opportunity.
