Cattle Grazing and Deforestation

Another of the more devastating forces behind deforestation is cattle grazing. With the international growth of fast food chains this seems to be an evident factor in the clearing of trees today. Large corporations looking to buy beef for hamburger and even pet food seek cheap prices and are finding them with the growth of cattle grazing. In the Amazon region of South America alone there are 100,000 beef ranchers. As the burger giants of industrialized society are making high demands for more beef, more forests are being torn down. Statistics from less than a decade ago, 1989, indicate that 15,000 km squared of forests are used expressly for the purpose of cattle grazing. Once the trees are gone the land is often overgrazed. In some places the government wants this to happen. Cattle grazing is big profit that can't be turned down.

Other Causes

Beyond the major causes of deforestation lie some supplementary ones that too stack the odds against forests around the globe. Acid rain and the building of dams have their share of harmful effects. The race to produce cash crops such as fruit, spices, sugar tobacco, soap, rubber, paper, and cloth has given cause to many to try to farm them by using soil and other products that can be retrieved by destroying the forests. Even those in industrialized countries may participate in the destruction of forests in the 3rd world. The need for products in industrialized countries drives production in other poorer, less developed countries. This production is at the cost of the trees and the services that they provide. The most significant source of forest around the world is disappearing in every country where they are located.

4. Переведите вопросы и ответьте на них:

1. What are the leading causes of deforestation?

2. Who are the principal agents of deforestation according to three theories of deforestation?

3. What are the historical causes of deforestation?

4. How does the logging impact on deforestation?

5. In what way does cattle grazing affect deforestation?

6. What are other causes of deforestation not mentioned before?

     5. Переведите на слух в быстром темпе (рекомендуется для письменно перевода на слух):

    Human – related causes of deforestation; рост городов; demand for farm land; почва, бедная питательными веществами; to drive game into more accessible areas; расчищать земли для посева зерновых культур; to remain competitive; разведение домашнего скота; to collect firewood, timber and fruits; в результате роста населения; building of wooden sailing ships; чрезмерная вырубка лесных участков; the massive use of charcoal; исчезающие леса; to be on the edge of a fuel and nutritional disaster; строительство дорог; demands for agricultural expansion; растущие темпы обезлесения; to be replaced by plantations; вырубать леса; to buy illegally logged wood; выпас домашнего скота; growth of fast food chains; искать более низкие цены; overgrazed land; кислотные дожди; to be retrieved by destroying the forest; вырубка леса в коммерческих целях.

 

    6.Переведите с подготовкой (рекомендуется для зрительно-устного и зрительно-письменного перевода):

Tropical Deforestation

The clearing of tropical forests across the Earth has been occurring on a large scale basis for many centuries. This process, known as deforestation, involves the cutting down, burning, and damaging of forests. The loss of tropical rain forest is more profound than merely destruction of beautiful areas. If the current rate of deforestation continues, the world's rain forests will vanish within 100 years-causing unknown effects on global climate and eliminating the majority of plant and animal species on the planet.

Why Deforestation Happens

Deforestation occurs in many ways. Most of the clearing is done for agricultural purposes-grazing cattle, planting crops. Poor farmers chop down a small area (typically a few acres) and burn the tree (trunks-a process called Slash and Burn agriculture. Intensive, or modern, agriculture occurs on a much larger scale, sometimes deforesting several square miles at a time. Large cattle pastures often replace rain forest to grow beef for the world market. Commercial logging is another common form of deforestation, cutting trees for sale as timber or pulp. Logging can occur selectively-where only the economically valuable species are cut-or by clearcutting, where all the trees are cut. Commercial logging uses heavy machinery, such as bulldozers, road graders, and log skidders, to remove cut trees and build roads, which is just as damaging to a forest overall as the chainsaws are to the individual trees. The causes of deforestation are very complex. A competitive global economy drives the need for money in economically challenged tropical countries. At the national level, governments sell logging concessions to raise money for projects, to pay international debt, or to develop industry. For example, Brazil had an international debt of $159 billion in 1995, on which it must make payments each year. The logging companies seek to harvest the forest and make profit from the sales of pulp and valuable hardwoods such as mahogany. Deforestation by a peasant farmer is often done to raise crops for self-subsistence, and is driven by the basic human need for food. Most tropical countries are very poor by U.S. standards, and farming is a basic way of life for a large part of the population. In Brazil, for example, the average annual earnings per person is U.S. $5400, compared to $26,980 per person in the United States (World Bank, 1998). In Bolivia, which holds part of the Amazon rain forest, the average earnings per person is $800. Farmers in these countries do not have the money to buy necessities and must raise crops for food and to sell. There are other reasons for deforestation, such as to construct towns or dams which flood large areas. Yet, these latter cases constitute only a very small part of the total deforestation.

The Rate of Deforestation

The actual rate of deforestation is difficult to determine. Scientists study the deforestation of tropical forests by analyzing satellite imagery of forested areas that have been cleared. Are isolated areas left by deforestation, where the plants and animals are cut off from the larger forest area. Regrowth-also called secondary forest-is abandoned farmland or timber cuts that are growing back to become forest. The majority of the picture is undisturbed, or "primary," forest, with a network of rivers draining it. The Food and Agriculture Organization (F AO) estimates that 53,000 square miles of tropical forests (rain forest and other) were destroyed each year during the 1980s. Of this, they estimate that 21,000 square miles were deforested annually in South America, most of this in the Amazon Basin. Based on these estimates, an area of tropical forest large enough to cover North Carolina is deforested each year! The rate of deforestation varies from region to region. Recent research results showed that in the Brazilian Amazon, the rate of deforestation was around 6200 square miles per year from 1978-1986, but fell to 4800 square miles per year from 1986-1993. By 1988, 6%of the Brazilian Amazon had been cut down (90,000 square miles, an area the size of New England). However, due to the isolation of fragments and the increase in forest/clearing boundaries, a total of 16.5% of the forest (230,000 square miles, an area nearly the size of Texas) was affected by deforestation. Scientists are currently analyzing rates of deforestation for the current decade, as well as studying how deforestation changes from year to year. The much smaller region of Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam) lost nearly as much forest per year as the Brazilian Amazon from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, with 4800 square miles per year converted to agriculture or cut for timber.

Deforestation and the Global Carbon Cycle

Deforestation increases the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases in the atmosphere. The plants and soil of tropical forests hold 460-575 billion metric tons of carbon worldwide with each acre of tropical forest storing about 180 metric tons of carbon. When a forest is cut and burned to establish cropland and pastures, the carbon that was stored in the tree trunks (wood is about 50% carbon) joins with oxygen and is released into the atmosphere as CO2. The loss of forests has a profound effect on the global carbon cycle. From 1850 to 1990, deforestation worldwide (including the United States) released 122 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, with the current rate being approximately 1.6 billion metric tons per year. In comparison, fossil fuel burning (coal, oil, and gas) releases about 6 billion metric tons per year, so it is clear that deforestation makes a significant contribution to the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Releasing CO2 into the atmosphere enhances the greenhouse effect, and could contribute to an increase in global temperatures (see Global Warming Fact Sheet, NF-222).