4. Deforestation
 
Definition:
 
The commercial process of clearing of forests. World Bank
 
What are some of the problems related to this issue?
 
Every year, the U.S. and Canada chop down 34 million Christmas trees - enough to cover the state of Rhode Island with a forest. Monroe County Waste Management District
 
In the first four years of NAFTA, 15 wood product companies, including International Paper and Boisie Cascade, set up shop in Mexico, cutting some of North America's largest intact forests.  Corpwatch
 
In less than one hundred years over half of the forest has now been cut and burned, leaving whole areas fo the earth bare and unprotected, rendering entire regions lifeless.  Four days of global military spending, which is estimated to run about $8 billion, could finance a five-year action plan to protect the world's remaining tropical rain forests. Green Networld, 2004
 
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in 1995 reached the highest level ever recorded --29,000 square kilometers, an area equivalent to New Jersey and Connecticut in a single burning season. Environmental Defense Fund
 
Each year, people destroy tens of thousands of square miles of tropical forests.  This vast destruction is a huge economic loss to the countries losing their forests and threatens the entire world ecosystem.  The direct causes of this destruction are such practices as inefficient commercial logging and the conversion of forests to farms and cattle ranches.  However, the fundamental causes of this devastation are unwise policies of both developing and developed nations.  Robert C. Repetto, Yale University
 
Tree root systems are essential for keeping topsoil in place, deforestation can bring about soil erosion. In addition, loss of trees is said to contribute to global warming because trees reduce greenhouse gases and provide shade.  World Bank
 

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