Note: The following units are used in this document:   
1 hectare (ha) = 10,000 m²  =  2.47 acres
1 km² = 100 hectares (ha)
1 metric ton = 2000 kilograms
1 gigaton = 109 metric tons
1 petagram (pg) = 1015 grams (gm)

Unless otherwise stated, all units used in this document are metric.

One could choose almost any tropical country to illustrate this topic. The following few examples will illustrate the willful destructiveness with which we approach one of our most valuable natural resources.

1) In Puerto Rico, primary forest has been reduced by 99%, but secondary forests and coffee plantations have reforested approximately 10-15% of the land area. Seven native bird species are now extinct (>11% of native bird fauna) but there are now more species of birds on Puerto Rico than previously. Many of these species have been introduced; they are birds of disturbed forests and so they do well. The forest appears to be undergoing succession to a climax forest, as some species typical of undisturbed forests have begun to increase in number (Lugo, 1988). Forest cover has increased to approximately 35% (Zimmerman, 2001).

2) Brazil is an object lesson in forest destruction. One nearly extinct rainforest is the Atlantic forest of Brazil, which originally had an area of one million km², but by now, consists of only 35,000 km². Much of it has been cut for farms and ranches, and the government at one time offered tax breaks for raising Asian water buffalo (still a favored project in Amazonia). The Atlantic forest is the only home of the highly endangered golden tamarin, among many other threatened species. Although only 5% or so of this forest remains, the government still plans to develop this area further. The forest now consists largely of remnant patches in a sea of agricultural fields. There are some protected areas, but they are small (the largest are 2000 hectares in size), virtually unprotected, and subject to great hunting pressures. Many birds, such as guans, chachalacas, toucans and aracaris, which are dispersers of large seeds, are near extinction, and the Alagoas curassow is extinct in the wild because of hunting. Most large vertebrates have also disappeared due to habitat fragmentation and hunting. The loss of these seed-dispersing animals will lead to alterations in the composition of the remaining forest, because the tree species (those with large seeds; about one-third of tree species in the Atlantic forest) dependent upon seed-dispersers will not be able to reproduce.

The Brazilian Amazon consists of more than five million km², of which slightly more than four million km² are forested. Prior to 1970 only about 30,000 km² (0.6%) of the Brazilian Amazon had been cleared, mostly in the southeast, which had never been heavily forested. By 1980, 125,000 km² had been cleared, by 1988, 600,000 km², an area the size of France (Moran, 1996). Skole and Tucker (1993) give a figure of 230,324 km² of deforestation, or 5.6% of the Amazon forest. Deforestation continues at a rate of 15,000 to 20,000 km² annually. (These figures are only estimates, as mapping forest loss accurately is very difficult.)

Large-scale deforestation in the Amazon region of Brazil began in the late 1950's, when the government relocated the capital to Brasilia, in the interior, and embarked upon a program of highway construction to connect this area with the coast. During the first twenty years after road construction, twenty million people settled along the road. Large areas near the roads were cleared for cattle pasture, and the cattle population went from zero to five million (Moran, 1996; Dobson, 1995). The governor of one state announced plans to shoot, catch and sell all the wild animals in the forest, exploit the plants in the forest, and then convert it all to agricultural land (Jacobs, 1988)! In Rondonia state, where government policies and road construction activities have encouraged immigration, more than a quarter of the land was deforested between 1975 and 1988, and the process has only accelerated since. The average area deforested in Rondonia per year equals the total area deforested prior to 1980 (Moran, 1996).

Among the ancillary consequences of deforestation is a loss of the immense biodiversity of the Brazilian Amazon. Mammals are declining everywhere from the impact of hunting (for food, skins, and medicines) and habitat loss. Jaguars are collected for zoos and illegally hunted for their skins. They are also declining because of habitat loss, as each jaguar requires large areas for hunting. The giant anteater, the armadillo and others have been depleted by habitat loss, demands from zoos, and hunting. Birds are being lost for similar reasons. Reptiles, especially tortoises, alligators, and freshwater turtles, are hunted for food (and hides, in the case of the alligator). Populations of the arrau, a turtle found in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, are in great decline because of the consumption of eggs and adults by humans, and the terecay turtle is in similar dire straits. Fish, the main protein source for humans in the Amazon, are intensely sought as the human population increases and fishing becomes more efficient and mechanized. And the bushmeat trade is growing. Many species of mammals and reptiles can be found in markets and on restaurant menus.

Animals and plants are also sought for pets and gardens. Fish are extracted from tropical forest rivers and streams for the aquarium trade, although most of them die en route to their foreign destinations. Many animals are found for sale as pets in tropical town markets. Monkeys, for instance, are common in South American markets.

Why is Brazil a leader in deforestation?

a. Land policies and speculation: The government also gives low-interest loans and other incentives to clear forest land, considering it "land improvement." Because of this policy, the person clearing it has the right to sell the "improvements." Thus, since Brazil’s population continues to rise and the number of impoverished people does also, land is at a premium. This has led to a frenzy of deforestation, as people hasten to "improve" land for sale at inflated prices. Ranchers do not utilize the timber on land as they deforest it, they burn it. Much land in the Amazon is also "unclaimed" and so logging companies can operate in these areas virtually without cost. Since uncleared land cannot be claimed in Brazil, deforestation proceeds indiscriminately in efforts to take land title. In fact, one can receive six additional hectares of land for each hectare cleared, although the land is frequently used for a few years and subsequently abandoned.

b. Road construction: Road construction into the Amazon basin began in the 1960's and 1970's, when the government embarked upon its development and colonization plans for this region. The Belem-Brasilia, Cuiaba-Santarem and Trans-Amazon highways are huge arteries opening access to previously inaccessible parts of the country.

b. Small-scale agriculture: As roads are built, impoverished urban dwellers or landless farmers from other areas move in along them, deforesting small areas for agriculture. After they clear 50 hectares of land, they receive title to the land, which they cultivate or use to raise cattle. After a few years, the soil is exhausted and they move on. The result is the loss of forest and fertile land, and no solution to poverty.

c. Ranching: The majority of projects for the development of the Amazon have involved cattle ranches, some very large (up to 560,000 hectares). Five hundred ranch owners have caused 85% of the deforestation in Brazilian Amazon (Sponsel, Bailey and Headland, 1996). Huge areas of land are deforested and burned for these ranches. Moreover, they employ few people and are profitable only when they receive tax benefits and subsidized credit, and when the land is overgrazed. Although overgrazing soon results in the destruction of forage grasses and soil, and within three to five years, the ability of converted forest land to support cattle declines from one head per hectare to 0.3 head, there are so many incentives to convert forest to pastureland that it is cheaper to deforest additional land than to maintain pasture in good condition (Amelung, Torsten and Diehl, 1992). This occurs even where the soil is conducive to grazing, which it very often is not. Only about 15% of Amazonian soils are suitable for sustained agriculture or ranching (Terborgh, 1989). Forested land is regarded as inferior to "developed" land, indeed as an impediment to development, and so tax rates are lower for agricultural or ranch land than for forested land. A government policy, begun in the 1970's, allows people to use tax payments to establish ranches, and to keep any capital gains, without tax liability (Moran, 1996). Thus forests become a "ranching subsidy" (Uhl, 1994). (Incidentally, much of the capital for these ranches has come from overseas.) Sales of meat from the ranches generate only about $100 per hectare over the lifetime of the property (Terborgh, 1989) - a measly profit and a catastrophe for the rainforest, which has been converted into a wasteland.

d. Dam construction: Dam construction has been the second-largest cause of deforestation in Brazil. Development banks such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Funds have, in the past, been particularly inclined to provide funds for development projects such as dams, as well as for highway construction and colonization schemes. These dams have provided remarkably little energy (see Part III, Section C14).

e. Mining: Mining of various kinds (for gold, tin, petroleum, natural gas) has led to deforestation and severe environmental degradation because mines are cut into forest land and roads are driven through the forest to them. In mining processes, toxic chemicals are released into waterways, degrading forest around and near the mines. In addition, the miners are forced to subsist from the forest, so that the areas near mines are depleted of animals. Some of the mines were established because the Brazilian government began a project to produce pig iron. The pig iron plants were designed to run on charcoal; thus, large areas were and are being deforested to provide wood for charcoal (more than a million tons in 1985; perhaps double that by now) (Moran, 1996). Nearly 500,000 gold miners have also invaded the Amazon, using mercury to extract gold and releasing the mercury into waterways. Centuries will be required before the mercury is eliminated from the forest ecosystems in these areas.

f. Timber extraction: Timber extraction began in a large-scale way in the 1980's, and several Brazilian states depend heavily on timber and wood products for a great part of their economic base. Economic incentives are given to logging companies in the form of tax breaks. The government continues to license more and more sawmills, and the production per mill has doubled since 1965. Much of the logging activity benefits ranchers, who take over the logged land for ranches. As wood production declines in Asia due to the exhaustion of timber supplies there, the demand for Amazonian wood products is increasing.

g. Fires: Much has already been said in this document about the destruction wreaked by fires in tropical rainforests. Human activities have set fire to forests both intentionally and unintentionally. Forests in the Brazilian Amazon are being burned to provide agricultural land and pastures. Even those which are not burned intentionally are being lost in conflagrations because of the destructive cycle of logging - increased inflammatory conditions - burning. According to Cochrane (2001), many areas of Brazil, only a decade ago pristine forest, are now expected to burn in cycles of every between five and fourteen years because of human activities near new roads. In Para, half of the forest within 12 kilometers of the main road has already burned once during the past 10 years. With this type of fire regime, no rainforest can regenerate or maintain itself. Cochrane estimates that at least 259,000 km² of forest in southern and eastern Brazil will be deforested by fire within the next few decades.

g. Grandiose schemes and dreams: One of the more grandiose schemes for the Brazilian Amazon was begun in 1967 by American billionaire Daniel Ludwig, who bought a piece of the Amazon rainforest larger than the state of Connecticut. There he intended to build an agricultural, mining and industrial empire - Jari Cellulose. Today Jari Cellulose is for sale, after an investment of US$1 billion (and complete with debt of US$354 million), the victim of "one of the most hostile natural and business environments on the planet" (Norris, 1999). Pace the eternal Amazonian dream of untold wealth. Ludwig built 3000 miles of road, a paper mill and power plant, a port, and a company town, meanwhile offending Brazilian sensibilities with his grandiose ideas and the thought that foreigners might get rich from Brazilian resources. Abandoned were plans to raise cattle, pigs, rice, and some exotic imported trees such as Burmese melina and Caribbean pine (Jacobs, 1988). Knowing little about rainforest ecology or soils, Ludwig had the land bulldozed, removing the topsoil along the way. Soil conditions were unsuited to the melina tree, and they failed to grow. Jari Cellulose is now marginally profitable but needs US$400 million in investment, which it seems unlikely to obtain. Many years ago Henry Ford established Fordlandia, a grand rubber scheme, which failed completely and had to be abandoned in 1946 after an investment of US$10 million, (or $30 million, according to Prance, 1986), a huge sum in the early twentieth century (Sponsel, Bailey and Headland, 1996). Ford’s attempt to establish rubber plantations was a disaster because the leaf rust fungus happily attacked the closely-spaced domestic rubber trees. (Also see Prance, 1986, for information on Jari Cellulose and Fordlandia.) And so go most "dreams that never seem to die" in the Amazon (Norris, 1999)

h. Social inequities: Social inequalities exacerbate the environmental problems in Brazil. More than half of the agricultural land is held by a tiny percentage of landowners; while the vast majority of rural households are virtually landless. Land distribution and equalization has been quite unsuccessful due to the efforts of the wealthy landowners and ranchers, who usually have political muscle as well as money. When necessary, they resort to violence to prevent land redistribution to the landless. This forces the latter to invade virgin forest land. The government here, as in other tropical countries, exports its underclass to the forest frontier rather than tackle the powerful landed interests.

All of this activity has not succeeded in making agriculture and ranching very profitable. In the 1970's, the average profits from ranching in Para state were $10 to $20 per hectare. Since the land degrades rapidly, profits vanish within five years. Often the projects are unprofitable from the beginning and are viable only because of government subsidies (in various forms; see below). In the mid-1980's, the average price of accessible land (pasture and arable) in the Amazon was about $140 per hectare, for forested land, $40 per hectare. Thus a person would gain about $100 per hectare (at most) by deforesting and setting up a plantation or ranch (Katzman and Cale, 1990).

The consequence of all of this is that Brazil is removing its rainforest at an annual rate higher than the global average of 1%. In the mid-1990's, it averaged losses of 2.2% of its forest per year (Dobson, 1995). There are now three seasons in Brazil: the wet season, the dry season, and "the burnings." In 1987, 50,000 km² were deforested and burned in only four Amazonian states. The same thing occurred in 1988, and continued to the present day. Smoke hangs over millions of square kilometers of Brazil.

i. The future: The government long ago established policies to colonize the interior and built roads to provide access to it. The major projects, however, were failures and much of the former forest land has become unproductive. Despite the dismal picture and the obvious conclusion that forest clearing is economically unsound, Brazil has proposed a $US 45 billion infrastructure development programs, Avança Brasil, for the Amazon region. The stated goal of this program is to provide infrastructures in the Amazon for the development of industrial agriculture, timbering and mining. This includes plans to pave 6245 km of roads, to improve river ports, to build railroads and hydroelectric plants, and to channel rivers. Two of the proposed highways (Santarem-Cuiaba and Humata-Manaus) will cut through the yet-undeveloped core of the Brazilian Amazon. The ostensible reason for these two highways is to reduce transportation costs for soybean farmers in north-central Brazil, but will inevitably lead to another round of colonist infiltration, logging, and land conversion in these pristine areas. It is estimated that 120,000 to 270,000 km² of additional forest will be cut if this plan is accomplished, not to mention ancillary damage to much additional forest land in the vicinity (Carvalho, et al., 2001). Another typical project is a plan to deforest 18 million hectares of land to plant soybeans. These policies could lead to an increase in area of deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon from the current 14% to about one-third within twenty or thirty years, and would release between six and eleven billion tons of carbon just from forest clearing. Interestingly, the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment and other environmental agencies are not included in these planning efforts. To counter this, Brazil has earmarked a few hundred thousand dollars for conservation.

There are variety of nongovernmental organizations working in the Amazon, and international sources (through the Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest) plan to provide about $340 million for conservation over the next 10 years. This is less than a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed and what the government plans to spend on Avança Brasil (and ironic, considering the incompatibility of conservation efforts with government policies). More necessary is an alteration in government thinking about the Amazon as an expendable and infinite resource. Under even the most optimistic scenario, the southern and eastern portions of the Amazon will be heavily denuded within 20 years, with a great deal of degradation and fragmentation elsewhere. Under a less optimistic projection, very little pristine forest will be left except in the westernmost regions of the Brazilian Amazon (Laurance, et al., 2001). Avança Brasil is representative of the type of planning occurring in the Amazon and elsewhere in the tropics. Vast projects which purport to be economically hugely beneficial are envisioned, but they are conceived without considering any of the environmental or social implications. This is "top-down" planning, programs for the enrichment of the powerful and influential, with almost nothing for anyone else. It results in more land and profits for the wealthy, and almost nothing for anyone else.

A more optimistic assessment of the future of Brazil comes from José Silveira, the Secretary of Planning for Avança Brasil, in a letter to Science (2001). His claim is that Brazilian policies have now changed, and that major projects are subject to open discussion, public hearings, and monitoring of rainforest development. According to him, Avança Brasil has been carefully planned and has involved many international consultants and nongovernmental experts, and that the projects approved for this program had to undergo environmental licensing, and have been designed for sustainable use of the areas involved. No new highways are to be added, but some existing ones will be paved. Laurance, et al. (2001), in response, counter that half of the Avança Brasil moneys would not be used to alleviate poverty, but are to be used for highway construction and other projects which would have serious detrimental effects on the environment. Among these is the development of logging, soybean, and cattle-ranching industries. The paving of highways inevitably leads to increased access to forests and promotes the development of secondary roads. Moreover, they point out that, although surely Brazilian environmental legislation attempts to protect rainforests, deforestation is still occurring at an extremely high rate, and that illegal forest destruction through logging and burns continue unabated. Public input is minimal, and experts consulted for these projects are often taken from industry. Moreover, the Ministry of Environment has had minimal input into the process and environmental impact studies will be considered only during the final stages of the planning, when the projects have attained a life of their own and will be almost impossible to stop. Moreover, the indirect consequences of large projects have not been considered, and land-use planning in Brazil is often fragmented and highly subject to political pressures. It is feared that the Avança projects would open large areas of the Amazon for development. As they state, "...the megaprojects of Avança Brasil present precisely the wrong vision for the Amazon."

The Brazilian government now plans to add 50 million hectares (the size of Spain) to the national forest system. These forests will not be totally protected, but will be "sustainable-use conservation units" which will produce timber and non-timber goods while preserving environmental values. Similar managed forests have increased dramatically in the past decade to almost one million hectares. Controlled forests, combined with fully-protected areas, provide the possibility of maintaining a great deal of Amazonian biodiversity, but only if they can be carefully planned and monitored. This will require enlisting the cooperation of the population and taking socio-economic issues into account (Verissimo, Cochrane and Souza, 2002).

On October 12, 2001, The New York Times reported the murder of Ademir Federicci, a popular and effective labor, peasant and environmental leader in the city of Altamira (and one among seven such persons killed within a few months). Mr. Federicci had been opposed to a large dam project, had denounced corruption in an agency concerned with construction projects in the Amazon (Superintendency for the Development of the Amazon) which apparently funneled money to ranching, logging and mining interests, and most of all into the pockets of Jader Barbalho, the governor of the state of Para. This gentleman was recently forced to resign after it was determined that he had acquired US$10 million in dealings with this agency. No serious attempt has been made to find Federicci’s killers, since the local authorities are allied with Mr. Barbalho and other important interests. Threats are openly made to all who oppose the logging and ranching interests in the region. Also, according to this article, destruction in the Amazon, after a respite of a few years due to economic problems, is returning to the stupendous levels of the mid-1990's. It is especially dangerous since the dry seasons have been almost rainless, and this has made it easy for ranchers and loggers to burn and cut forest. Marcio Aruajo of the Human Rights Commission of the Brazilian Congress said (as quoted in this article), "It’s the Wild West around here."

3) The west coast forest of Ecuador formerly had 8,000 to 10,000 plant species (40-60% of which were endemic). Assuming roughly ten to thirty animal species per plant species (because of the insects!) then there must have been approximately 200,000 animal species or more in this area at one time. But since 1960, more than 95% of the region has been deforested for banana plantations, oil exploration and settlements. Perhaps half of the species have been lost in only 25 years. South America: Not long ago the west coast of Ecuador had 8000 to 10,000 known plant species, of which 40-60% were endemic. It is estimated that there were perhaps 10 to 30 times as many animal species (mainly insects) as plants, so there were approximately 200,000 species in this area. But 95% of this forest has been destroyed for banana plantations, oil exploration and human habitation in the past 25 years, with the concomitant loss of innumerable species (Myers, 1988b).

4) In 1983, approximately one-third of Costa Rica was forested, although some of this forest was disturbed and only 17% of the forest was primary. The dry zone had been totally deforested by 1961; then moist forest became the preferred target for clearing for cattle ranching. Since much of this land is totally unsuitable for grazing, it became eroded and was abandoned. Later, wet and montane (mountain) forests were logged as they became more accessible due to the expansion of roads and railroads. The rates of deforestation continued to increase through the 1970's and 1980's (Sader and Joyce, 1988). The consequences have been landslides on deforested hillsides, flooding, silting of reservoirs, and escape of eroded soil into the sea, where it has destroyed coral reefs and fisheries. The government has now set aside some areas as parks and forest reserves, with some success, and ecotourism is big business in Costa Rica.

5) Although a great deal of Peru consists of forest (72.8 million hectares), very little (<1%) of the country’s GNP comes from it. Large-scale ranching and agricultural projects began in the early twentieth century, but have never reached the amplitude of such activities in Brazil. However, the Peruvian government, as early as the 1940's, encouraged settlement in the Amazon to garner wealth from the forest and to relieve social and demographic pressures on the cities. President Belaunde in the 1960's proposed settlement in the Amazon as an alternative to land redistribution and agrarian reform, all attempts at which were blocked by an alliance of landowners and politicians. The government began by building highways to connect the towns of the Amazon for the purpose of improving access for colonizers. It encouraged the transformation of the rainforest into agricultural land and ranches in what it hoped would be Peru’s "breadbasket," but the program was ill-conceived. Roads were built into many areas which were unsuited for agriculture. The movement of poor Andean farmers into the Amazon led to uncontrolled deforestation, and it is estimated that 20 million hectares of forest land had been lost by 1999 because of these policies. In the 1970's some agrarian reform was carried out, to the advantage of cattle ranching, based on an assessment of the suitability of forest lands for various purposes. At this time 38% of land was termed usable for ranching and 51% for agriculture, while zero per cent of the land was considered to "require" protective forest cover, although 11% was deemed "suitable," a remarkable judgment, since much if not all of this land was forested (Bedoya & Klein, 1996). The government formed agricultural cooperatives which used heavy machinery to cut forest for pasture and to raise rice and corn, but as the soil was compacted by the machinery, yields were very low and the cooperatives failed. Similarly, the Le Tonneau firm, a cattle-ranching operation, caused disastrous deforestation and ecological problems by practicing large-scale mechanized cutting. The use of heavy machinery on the Amazon soils was devastating. Another organization, the Summer Linguistic Institute, was responsible for an increase in extraction and commercial hunting. At present, approximately one-third of Peruvian agricultural land lies in the Amazon.

Oil exploration and pipeline construction has been extensive, and continues even within such protected reserves as the Pacayu-Samaria reserve. Timber extraction has been occurring for a long time, mahogany being a particularly desired wood. Now many other species, formerly in low demand, have become more important in Peruvian wood production as the harder woods become depleted. Even land legally logged has been mismanaged, as government policies do not encourage timber companies to reforest or to log sustainably.

Because of the demand for illegal drugs in many countries, particularly Europe and the United States, much forest has been cut - and continues to be cut - for coca cultivation. In 1964, only 16,000 hectares had been planted, but by 1988, 150,000-200,000 hectares were under cultivation, some of it on steep inclines on denuded soils (Salati, 1993; similar data in Bedoya & Klein, 1996). This activity is next to impossible to eradicate, given its clandestine nature, its control by violent guerilla organizations (mainly the "Shining Path"), and the tremendous amounts of money involved.

Although the Peruvian government has set up a number of reserves in the Amazon, it has failed to provide funds for their maintenance and monitoring. Furthermore, there are many commercial activities within some of these reserves, one of the more notorious being Pacayu-Samaria. Numerous people live within the reserve, and oil and mineral extraction activities are carried on, to the great detriment of the forest. Moreover, the unstable political situation in this country leaves the future of the Peruvian Amazon in doubt.

1) Madagascar, one of the most biologically-rich areas on Earth, has perhaps the most endangered ecosystem. Forest removal began with the arrival of the first humans between 1500 and 2000 years ago. Originally much of the eastern part of the island was covered with forest, perhaps 11.2 million hectares. By 1950 only 7.6 million hectares remained; by 1985, only 3.8 million hectares, less than 34% of the original forest cover. Little reforestation has occurred, since the tree species here cannot adapt to clear-cut areas or to the soil degradation consequent upon deforestation, and so formerly forested areas have become covered with herbaceous plants. Originally, deforestation was carried out in the lowlands, areas of high population density, but this is changing as other areas are being cut at greater and greater rates (Green and Sussman, 1990). Much of the land now being converted is marginal and less-accessible land, and, since Madagascar has fragile soils, it has become the world’s "erosion capital" (Sierra Club Population Report, 1991-92). Some land has become so badly degraded that soil has been lost down to bedrock. Population growth in Madagascar is very high (3.1% per year in the early 1990's; a population doubling time of 22 years) and the remaining forest is threatened by the encroachment of subsistence farming and demands for fuel. This has led to removal of forest even in areas designated as nature reserves (Green and Sussman, 1990). At present Madagascar, with a relatively small land mass, has 8% of the world’s endangered mammals. Many of these are lemurs, almost all of which occur only here; fourteen species are on the path of the dodo. Many other species of birds and mammals have become highly endangered due to human activities, mainly habitat destruction (see also Part II, G6e).

2) Central Africa: Although there are areas set aside as reserves in Africa, rapid population growth and strife have put incredible pressures on the forests of the Congo basin. In the Great Lakes region of Central and Eastern Africa, "protected areas" of forest in fact contain at least 125,000 km² of farmland. At least half of the protected areas in Tanzania have been degraded by agricultural and other land uses (Musters de Graaf & ter Keurs, 2000). Nigeria has virtually no forest left, so that, in 1988, it earned $6 million from wood exports but spent $100 million on imported forest products. Other African countries are hot on Nigeria’s heels - Ivory Coast and Ghana among them. In 1980 Ivory Coast made $490 million on timber exports, but by 1987, only seven years later, the value of these exports was only $81 million (Postel and Ryan, 1991). Governments often offer ten-year tax "holidays" to timber companies, as in other parts of the tropics, in an effort to woo foreign (and local) investment.

In this area, tropical forest, which once covered one-third of the land area, has been reduced by at least 20%. Almost two million hectares are lost per year to agriculture. In Nepal and Bangladesh, the forests are almost gone.

1) India, in the late 1940s, was still heavily forested, with many endemic species. However, with the rapid rate of human population growth since then, and the encroachment of humans and livestock into forests, large areas of forest land have been replaced by wasteland. The government of India has designated 23% of the land as state forest land but less than 11% of the country is still covered by forest! And less than 2% of this area consists of natural forest (Alcorn and Molnar, 1996). India has a forest destruction rate of about 3.3% per year (Dobson, 1995), and deforestation and the unsustainable use of marginal lands has left approximately 40% of the country in wasteland. Much of India is subject to flooding, and dams have become silted up, due to the deforestation of watersheds. River flow is very low during dry seasons because of the severe damage to watersheds by deforestation, which has led to the salinization (and thus ruin) of coastal agricultural lands. Deforestation has additionally disrupted the historical pattern of subsistence living, which depended upon access to forest goods - such as wood for fuel and housing, building and living materials, and fruits. An increase in the already desperate poverty of many rural areas has been the result. All of these problems are exacerbated by the rapid growth of India’s population, which is now more than one billion.

2) In 1950, 70% of Thailand was still covered by rainforest, but by 1988 the cover had been reduced to 15% by virtually unrestrained logging (Hamilton & Chatterjee, 1991). Teak has long been the most profitable of the desirable tropical woods from this country, and even as late as 1988 teak generated US$20 million in revenue, despite a ban in 1973 of exports of teak wood. By 1985, demand for wood and wood products was more than five times the sustainable level (Hunsaker, 1996). Nevertheless, as desirable woods became more scarce, revenues from the forestry sector fell precipitously. Deforestation has been driven also by population growth, the expansion of agricultural land (much of it for export "cash crops"), land speculation, illegal logging, political intrigue and infighting, and the banking industry, which foreclosed on many farmers unable to make high-interest payments on loans, and driving them into the forest for survival. According to Hunsaker, almost a fifth of Thailand’s population was occupying forest reserve land (5.3 million hectares) by 1988.

In November of 1988 heavy rains washed away the soil of the deforested slopes, causing massive flooding. Villages and agricultural land were inundated, and almost 400 people, as well as many thousands of domestic animals, were killed. The government banned logging on January 14, 1989, by revoking all logging concessions. However, this tripled the price of timber in Bangkok, and unleashed an orgy of illegal logging. Landless peasants followed the logging roads, making substantial inroads on the forests by slash-and-burn agriculture. This was the death knell for Thailand’s forests. Virtually all of the primary forest in Thailand has now disappeared. The logging ban in Thailand also led Thai timber companies to make profitable deals with Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, and they are now proceeding to transform timber-rich Myanmar into another Thailand. The first deal was signed between B and F Enterprises and the Myanmar junta in 1988, and 47 more followed within a few years (Hamilton & Chatterjee, 1991). Many of these deals are made, not with the central government, but with rebellious ethnic minority groups who do not recognize the central government.

To its credit, the Thai government has succeeded in greatly reducing fertility rates, has banned logging of natural forests, and has made some attempts at reforestation and resettlement of squatters, the latter with little success. This is mainly due to the vast corruption plaguing Thailand, its bureaucratic inefficiency and inertia, and the fact that the high government officials (mainly military officers) profit greatly from illegal logging and other activities facilitating or abetting deforestation. They evince minimal interest in the plight of the impoverished rural populations or in the fate of Thailand’s forests. And so, the last great teak forests of the world are on their way to extinction. And Thailand, once a major exporter of timber, has essentially only secondary forest left and is now an importer of wood. (For a detailed description of the situation in Thailand, see Hunsaker, 1991).

3) Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak): This area of Southeast Asia has undergone rapid economic expansion, based on industrialization and capitalization of natural resources. People in this area have always utilized rainforest products such as rattan, fruits, and wood, and engaged in small-scale cultivation or, on Borneo, swidden agriculture, but with a relatively small effect on the forest as a whole. Deforestation on a larger scale began in the late 19th century, when large tin reserves were discovered, and pepper, tobacco, and cassava cultivation became widespread. Much of this agricultural land was replanted with rubber at the end of the century, when rubber seedlings were smuggled out of the Amazon to other tropical areas. As early as 1916, however, there was worry about possible overexploitation of forests in Borneo, although in general it was felt that they were inexhaustible. No action was taken, partly for political reasons and partly because of the structure of the government.

Conversion to a profit-making and wholly exploitative system has occurred within the past half century, however, fueled by a population growth rate of 2.5% per annum through the 1980's. With the enormous increase in demand for tropical hardwoods in the 1960's and 1970's (due to a decline in availability of wood from logged-out temperate forests), Malaysia’s forests began to fall rapidly. The government in 1978 set in place a National Forestry Policy which strove to set policy for wood-processing, cutting rates and areas to be cut. This policy decreed that 45% of the land area should be cultivated by the mid-1990's and 39% remain under forest (mainly in mountainous and inaccessible regions). Inaccurate estimates as to the extent of forest resources were used by the government in setting these limits; in fact, there were no good data on this issue. Logging concessions exceeding the total estimated forested area have, over time, been issued by the government. Elsewhere, timber concessions were issued for areas which had already been denuded of marketable timber, and nature reserves were partly logged before they were surveyed. In the 1950's, 73% of the land in Peninsular Malaysia was forested, but more than half of this land has now been lost by conversion to agriculture and another quarter has been logged. This leaves much less than the 39% forest cover decreed by the National Forest Policy. This is not surprising, since, in practice, few attend to regulations. For instance, logging in the late 1970's exceeded the limits established by this policy by 500% (data from Brookfield, et al., 1993).

Most of the forest conversion in the peninsular portion of Malaysia, then, has been for cultivation, mainly of rubber and oil palm. Early agricultural conversion had been for rubber plantations, but since the rubber market was not expanding and became less profitable, much land was logged for small farmer-settlers (before they had arrived!) and also for large-scale oil palm plantations (a decision made in the 1960's by the government). Thus Malaysian forest conversion has been mainly for cash crops (Brookfield, et al., 1993). Land development was part of government policy which aimed to eliminate rural poverty and to provide a source of government income. FELDA, the government agency entrusted with the accomplishment of this goal, has turned into a vast agribusiness enterprise, and has recently restructured the agricultural activity of Peninsular Malaysia from rubber to oil palm cultivation. Additionally, by the late 1970's, more than 250,000 people had been resettled on cleared forest land, and FELDA had become by far the largest land-conversion organization in Malaysia (more than 6000 km² by early 1980's). The World Bank assisted by funding large "development" projects in the peninsular interior, and helped establish new urban centers there (Brookfield, et al., 1993).

Very little lowland forest remains in Peninsular Malaysia, and even montane forests up to 1500m are being cleared. Some rainforest remains in the north and elsewhere in isolated and mountainous patches, but the connection between the two large northern forested areas has been severed. Peninsular Malaysia can no longer provide much timber, but for the past 30 years much of the world supply of hardwood has come from Borneo (including Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo).

In Borneo most of the deforestation has been for the purpose of supplying the timber industry. Fifty years ago Sarawak, one of the two Malaysian states on the north coast of Borneo, was almost entirely covered with forest, but by 1989 60% of the land had been licensed for timber extraction and huge areas have since been logged. By the late 1980's, this area supplied almost one-third of the world’s hardwood timber. Lately, the proportion has dropped, due to resource exhaustion, and attention has now shifted to the Neotropics.

With the decline in hardwoods, timber extraction has turned to less-desirable, softer wood species. Timber-processing has become a big business, and consumes species which would not have been utilized in the boom days of the timber industry in Asia. Much of this processed wood is exported. In Borneo, interestingly, the middlemen who buy timber for the mills have become the controlling factor in these enterprises. They can buy logs obtained from illegal sources, and they can buy immature trees, which should be left to provide a future supply of timber. Policy has no effect here (Brookfield, et al., 1993).

Sadly, much of the logging has been extremely wasteful. In Borneo, loggers remove all accessible hardwood trees in areas designated for cutting, rather than only 56-72% as required by regulations, and the formerly huge expanse of dipterocarp forest has been chopped into fragments. While logging, the timber companies routinely harvest 57% of the forest area in a patchwork of sites; however, they also degrade another 20-30% of the land for roads, logging yards and camps. Little is left, usually less than 20% as undisturbed forest, and that only in isolated pieces (Curran, 1999). Even worse, the forest is not left to regenerate (if it could), but is usually replanted with exotic commercial species in monocultures.

Prior to substantial logging activity, there was little hunting, but once logging roads had been built, hunting became intensive. "Anything seen was shot at." (Bennett and Dahaban, 1995) In Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) logging has been just as intense. According to Siegert, et al., (2001) more than 180 million m³ of logs have been harvested there since 1969.

In Malaysia, the state governments (and sultans) control land rights. As in Brazil, government policies encourage deforestation. Timber concessions are sold at far below market value. Since these concessions quickly became the most important source of revenue for state governments, their allocation is a political tool. Concessions are given for 20 years, which means that a logging company has to extract the maximum amount of timber in a relatively short time to recoup expenses and make profits. To supply the demand - much of it from Japan - the hardwood timber industry, using mechanized timber extraction and heavy road-clearing machinery and log-haulers, is able to extract huge volumes of trees from the forests. This is in part because the dipterocarp forests of Southeast Asia provide a very high volume of desirable hardwood timber per hectare compared to forests in Asia or the New World. The spectacular huge dipterocarps, with their enormous buttress roots, spell their own doom. As pointed out in Brookfield, et al. (1993, p. 501), "No one gets any pecuniary advantage from conserving the resource." And that’s all that counts.

As a consequence of these virtually unrestrained activities, there have been major floods in Malaysia, as watersheds have been logged. Sedimentation of rivers is substantial. The conversion of forest land to other uses has changed rainfall patterns, and there are often droughts and water shortages - this in a moist forest area! The necessity of replanting oil palm and rubber at regular intervals of less than 30 years leads to much erosion when trees are removed, and runoff from agricultural land is high, perhaps 16 times that from undisturbed forest. When droughts occur (as with the recent El Niño years), and with the alterations in precipitation exacerbated by forest loss, rainfall has been reduced sufficiently to affect tree reproduction and regeneration and to cause fires. After logging, there have been many large fires, often set to clear land. In 1998, 80% of the fires associated with El Niño were the result of the activities of logging firms and plantations (Curran, 1999).

Approximately 800,000 hectares in Malaysia are protected as parks; about one million hectares as reserves; 600,000 hectares as wildlife reserves; 100,000 as "protection forests" plus a few others, altogether amounting to about 1,700,000 hectares. Only the national forest, Taman Negara, is secure, and it represents only one ecosystem - lowland moist forest, and contains only 3% of the endemic tree species and 30% of known palm species in Malaysia. Completely unprotected are mangrove forests, wetland forests, and highland forests. Many of the reserves are fragments only, and of these, a substantial number have been reduced in size or used for other purposes (Soepadmo, 1995). Wildlife sanctuaries have restrictions on hunting but are not completely protected. In Malaysian Borneo, which formerly had huge forests, exploitation is rampant, protection is inadequate, there is little forest management, and there is much illegal agricultural conversion and logging. The protected areas are not adequate to maintain the wide range of biodiversity in this rich area. It is anticipated that, at present rates of deforestation, more than 50% of Malaysian forest species will become extinct, many of them endemic to this area.

4) Twenty years ago Indonesia planned a national protected area system, with large conservation areas within a variety of biogeographic regions. All forest areas were allocated for production, watersheds, or conservation. Unfortunately, these principles were not incorporated into practice, and Indonesia is well on its way to losing all of its vast rainforests (not many years ago, more than 70% of its land area). The political instability and chaos, as well as extraordinary levels of corruption, have led to an abrogation of any conservation principles.

Indonesia for a number of years sought to use the vast land areas of Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) and Sumatra to resettle many people from other islands ("transmigrasi"), and many people were moved there from overcrowded Java and Bali. This was long part of Indonesian government policy to relieve urban and rural population pressures, much to the ecological detriment of the colonized areas. Many of these schemes failed, as in Sumatra, where the converted forest land proved unsuitable for cultivation and unable to sustain families. Many other people have also migrated there on their own and work large areas of land.

As elsewhere, highway construction and urbanization have contributed a great deal to forest removal in Indonesia. Businessmen, government officials, politicians and workers make money from these activities. The interests of the future, the environment and the local small farmers are rarely considered. Deforestation is driven by profit and in some places in the name of socioeconomic equality. Meanwhile, the lowland forests on the island chain may be completely destroyed by 2005. Now, in Borneo, the forests are being heedlessly razed for agriculture and timber. Often forests are simply burned to make way for short-lived agricultural plots, without the extraction of timber first. Because of this senseless activity, the virtually "limitless" forests in Kalimantan will be almost gone by 2010.

During the reign of President Suharto (1966-1998), cronyism and nepotism deposited timber concessions in the hands of the president’s family, friends, military officers, and large business operations. Since then the management of forests (except for national parks and reserves) has been taken over by local entities, which have no ability to plan management policies nor do they have the personnel or funds or will to carry out such plans. The situation has been illustrated by Jepson, et al., (2001) in the huge Kerinci-Semblat National Park in Sumatra, which is surrounded by logging concessions (highly biodiverse areas which were removed from the park under political pressure). The World Bank and other international agencies provided funds for the management of Kerinci-Semblat, which provides habitat for the almost extinct Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran tiger, and the Asian elephant. Despite this, illegal logging operations follow logging roads into the forest, much forest land has been cleared and burned for agriculture, and there are many sawmills operating within the parks. There is almost no security, and the illegal logging gangs terrorize or bribe the legal concessionaires and the district forest officials into ignoring their activities. Officials in the local government are either in collusion with the illegal operators or face violence if they try to prohibit their activities. In another park, Gunung Leuser, logging gangs have negotiated "concessions" which intrude within the park boundaries. These gangs are supported by groups from the army and from rebel groups which are supported with foreign monies. Communities concur with these illegal activities because they are afraid of the gangs and also because they receive huge amounts of cash from allowing or "selling" logging concessions (which they have no legal right to issue). These illegal operations appear to be backed by important individuals, in one case (at least), a member of the national People’s Assembly. Few consider the disastrous effects of the rapid deforestation which is ensuing. Kerinci’s rich lowland forest will be gone in three years and this destruction will result in an increased risk of fires (as occurred during the severe El Niño event of 1998-1999), land degradation, loss of watersheds (which leads to flooding with concomitant loss of crops, houses and roads), and other effects which are discussed under the deforestation section, above.

Among the many endangered species in Indonesia is the silvery gibbon, which now has a population size of 400 to 2,000. This small primate is hanging on in the fragments of rainforest left on Java, its only home, and one of the most densely populated regions on earth. They are found in small parks, some with no more than ten animals, population sizes which are untenable, and too genetically isolated to survive unaided. These gibbons are collected for pets and perhaps hunted as well (Derr, 2002). Orangutans, which are perhaps the best-known Asian primates, are in serious trouble as well, as their habitat is reduced and the adults are killed for food, or to obtain the babies for pets. We could continue the list (Sumatran tigers and the Javan rhinoceros, to mention only the largest mammals), but it would be virtually endless.

And the list of threatened forests goes on and on -The Philippines, many areas in the Amazon, the Tai forest of Ivory Coast, forests in East Africa, the Pacific islands, northern Australia. As Whitmore (1998) asserted, "...economists eager to enrich a nation, apply their dismal pseudoscience to override basic biological principles and dictate the removal of a larger harvest than the forest can sustain without degradation.