Get Your Fix To: Tropical Deforestation
RAINFOREST WITH PALMS AND HELICONIA (Heliconia irrasa), AND FEMALE GREEN ANOLE (Norops biporcatus), COSTA RICA. Photo credit Flickr user MIRIAM GODET
Tropical Deforestation Solutions
Five Basic Steps to Saving Rainforests
“TREES” is a concept originally devised for an elementary school audience but serves well as set of principles for saving rainforests and, on a broader scale, ecosystems around the world.
- Teach others about the importance of the environment and how they can help save rainforests.
- Restore damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down.
- Encourage people to live in a way that doesn’t hurt the environment.
- Establish parks to protect rainforests and wildlife.
- Support companies that operate in ways that minimize damage to the environment.
Mongabay breaks down the approach to addressing deforestation and saving tropical rainforests:
• Address the different needs and interests of groups such as poor farmers who are simply trying to put food on the table for their families. Improving and intensifying existing agricultural projects and promoting alternative cultivation techniques—notably permaculture—provides one avenue.
• Restore and rehabilitate ecosystems to best utilize lands already cleared so they support productive activities, now and for future generations.
• Funding rainforest conservation efforts and sustainable development programs such as ecotourism, bio-prospecting fees from allowing scientists to develop products with potential pharmaceutical applications, carbon credits for setting aside forest for the purpose of atmospheric carbon mitigation, and corporate sponsorship.
On the other end of the equation, The Rainforest Relief organization is taking the problem of consumer demand for rainforest products such as tropical hardwoods.
Photo credit Flickr user AA-Photography
