Greenwashing the long-term degradation of the planet’s forest-based biodiversity

Take a very close look at this satellite picture. To the untrained eye
it may seemed that a landscape of forest has turned into a landscape
of desert in just a year?

But these images are only grassland affected by drought, not forestland! This
is the same line of reasoning in the article below which claims that
“top scientists” say destroyed forests have actually regrown and
entirely replaced irreplaceable, and highly biologically diverse
ecosystems, which were actually destroyed. It’s the same reasoning that makes
logging okay because they plant two trees for every big one they cut
down. And what if someone told you it was okay to kill your grandma
because they promised to replace her with two newborn orphaned babies that they didn’t plan to take much care of? Point is: claims that forests grow back and that logging is
no big deal neglects the long term loss of soil productivity, neglects
the long term loss of stable hydrologic function, neglects the loss of ecologic
diversity. And without these three elements the necessary complexity
which creates ecosystem resiliency is nearly entirely lost. So next time
someone tries to tell you how the issue of deforestation is just a
bunch of hype… –Editor, Forest Policy Research

Evidence rainforests regenerate after logging is causing a row in the
scientific world with some experts claiming fewer species will go
extinct. Satellite data to be debated by top scientists show huge
tracts of abandoned tropical forests that were once logged or farmed
are regrowing. Some researchers contend that this process has been
inadequately factored into estimates of future species loss – but
others maintain that only 50 to 80 per cent of plant species may
return to logged or altered forests. Scientists meeting at the
National Museum of Natural History in Washington are debating
extinction rates in the tropics. Conservationists argue that the loss
of the rainforests due to logging, climate change and other factors,
is fuelling catastrophic rates of extinction – despite the evidence of
rainforest regrowth in many places.

(On the left is a real Tropical rainforest, on the right is an oil palm
crop. Can you see the difference? Yet according to this industry
backed “Scientist” there is no difference between these two?)

Joseph Wright of the
Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has pointed out
that the tropics now have more protected land than North America,
Europe or Japan. In a 2006 study he asserted that “large areas of
tropical forest cover will remain in 2030 and beyond…. We believe
that the area covered by tropical forest will never fall to the
exceedingly low levels that are often predicted and that extinction
will threaten a smaller proportion of tropical forest species than
previously predicted.” Cristian Samper, director of the National
Museum of Natural History, who will preside at the event, said: “By
bringing together the world’s foremost authorities on different
aspects of rainforest science, we hope to achieve new insights into a
situation with potentially profound implications for all species, ours
included.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/forests/4217675/Rainforest-loss-may-have-been-overstated-scientists.html

— Posted to http://forestpolicyresearch.com via gmail to posterous and
also to forestpolicyresearch@yahoogroups.com

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