Newsgroups: rec.woodworking

billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:

I wrote:

>:    Your reasoning here escapes me.   You said that 0.5 percent of the 
>:    forested area of Brazil is still a *LOT*, so this means you think
>:    that a lot of area is deforested, and the obvious conclusion is that
>:    a *LOT* of wood can result from this.   Then you turn around and say
>:    that the percentage of deforested wood that makes it onto the world
>:    market must be small.   
>:   
>:    It would seem to me that the conclusion from your statement that 0.5%
>:    is a *LOT* of area and a *LOT* of wood should lead us to conclude that
>:    a *LOT* of the wood on the market is deforested wood.  
>
billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:

>Nope - most of it is cut for farming. Tom is right - very little of the
>hardwood ends up on the international market.

   So you are saying that they just burn the hardwood?   I was given
   the impression that the wood was cut down and sold for quick cash
   on the international market and the land was used for farming.

   If this is the case, than most of the wood could be coming from
   this deforestation.

I wrote:

>:    Also, did the shuttle look at Africa?  Sumatra?  Borneo?  
>:    Southeast Asia?    If  so, why do we not have similar figures for these 
>:    areas?
>

>Apparently, they are not areas of concern to the environmentalists. There
>are a few other countries that are being stripped. Maybe the environmentalists
>will give them some attention now.

   Apparently you are wrong.  Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace,
   and most of the other environmental organizations have been focusing
   on these areas as much as amazonia for years.   I know because I have
   been an active member of these organizations for years.

   In fact, the statment about Brazil COULD be very misleading.   Amazonia
   encompasses parts of Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.   The South American
   Rainforests include many countries.  What the Space Shuttle detected
   could easily be an atypical fluctuation in the deforestation rate
   in Brazil, which has no parallel in other parts of South America.

   In Madagascar, many species are directly threatened due to deforestation.
   Madagascar comprises a significant percentage of the world's rainforests,
   and nearly half of it's rainforests are gone.   This figure comes form
   research on the lemur done by the San Francisco Zoological Society.
   The slash-and-burn done there turns the hardwoods over to the international
   exotic hardwood market.   In Africa, Borneo, etc., there is well known
   destruction of forests both for forest products AND to create grazing land.
   This problem is well-known by environmentalists.

   Also your contention that the deforested land in Amazonia that has been
   grazed by cattle eventually returns to forest is simply incorrect.
   Once the rainforest has been destroyed and the land is no longer useful
   for grazing, it is subject to desertification.  None of the slash-and-burn
   agriculture in Brazil had naturally returned to rainforest.  It doesn't
   happen.

   One does not need to look only at Brazil.   Smithsonian World did a 
   study of deforestation in Africa that showed that one of the causes of
   famine there is continuing desertification due to rainforest destruction.
   The rainforests represented a stable habitat for both people and animals.
   Once destroyed, the land is arable for a few seasons, and then becomes
   desert.  This represents a net loss of food resources for people in the
   region.
   
>:    I just can't believe that the ground and air surveys have been so 
>:    far off, and only the SHUTTLE could detect the actual amount of 
>:    deforestation, nor do I believe that scientists have purposely been
>:    exagerating the amount of deforestation over the last decade.
>
>You forget just how large the area is. You cannot get good estimates from
>low altitudes. I doubt if the scientists were exaggerating - they were only
>doing the best they could, with what information they had.

   Long before the space shuttle, people were able to accurately
   survey huge areas of the world.   Land area estimates and accurate 
   board feet estimates of forets in both North and South America were 
   available long before the first orbit of sputnik.   How do you think
   accurate charts of the Pacific Ocean were created before the space
   shuttle?   

   I simply don't believe it.
Newsgroups: rec.woodworking