Can't see the wood for the trees

Reducing deforestation is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to slow climate change. Emissions from deforestation and forest degradation account for around a tenth of global emissions. Globally the U.N. estimates some 13 million hectares of forest are cleared each year. Scientific studies show that large, commercial agriculture and timber enterprises are the principal agents of tropical deforestation, which is responsible for about 15 percent of global warming pollution worldwide.

A report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, notes that export-driven industries are driving a bigger share of deforestation than ever before, highlighting the increasing role commodity production and trade play in driving tropical deforestation and marking a shift from previous decades, when most tropical deforestation was the product of poor farmers trying to put food on the table for their families.

Forest lands are being converted for commodity production: palm oil, timber, beef and leather, pulp and paper, and soy.

The causes of deforestation are naturally to be sought in the profit motive which inspires those responsible. Yet there are those who seek solutions in the very corporations that exploit the forest for investment returns. Rhett A, Butler of a tropical forest web site, and William F. Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama suggest that the "industrialization" of deforestation provides environmental lobby groups with identifiable targets that may be more responsive to pressure on environmental concerns than tens of millions of impoverished rural farmers. Laurance said. "... it's also much easier to target a handful of globalized corporations than many millions of poor farmers living on the frontier."

However, capitalism’s priority is to protect business opportunities not the environment. Business is everything and everything is business.

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