Concerned about deforestation? Here are five things you can do.
First, how bad is deforestation really?
Forests are home to 50% of all species found on land, play a natural role in climate mitigation, provide most of the accessible fresh water, help in developing life saving medicines for deadly diseases, provide oxygen to animals and even mitigate natural hazards. We cannot afford to lose them.
We have lost half of all forests that existed on Earth, after the advent of the industrial revolution. Currently, we are losing forests at the rate of one football field per second (see here for details).
About 80% of global deforestation is because of expanding agriculture. Not all deforestation can be linked to aggregate demand by consumers — some of it is caused by rampant mismanagement, exploitation and inefficiency in resource utilization.
Solutions from an individual’s perspective have a common theme — they involve the boycott of products and services that harm the environment, in order to put pressure on the people who actually get their hands dirty. Anyway, here is a list of what we as individuals can do about it.
Solution #1 — The ubiquitous oil
The solution is pretty straightforward: Avoid all products that contain palm oil, for now.
It is difficult to think of a product these days, that does not contain palm oil in some form. Palm oil is truly ubiquitous, perhaps second only to plastics. Toothpastes, shampoos, soaps, conditioners, pet food, oatmeal, chocolate bars, body lotions, deodorants, vegetable oil for cooking many foods, candy bars, cookies, ice creams, dish-washing liquid and detergents — all have palm oil in varying forms.
Palm oil is, apparently, very versatile (see here for a long list of its variants). It can be used in the bio-fuel, food and cosmetics industries. Palm oil is available in the final products of Multi-National-Companies that sell their products throughout the world. Some of the big names that have been directly linked to deforestation are Nestle, Unilever and Procter & Gamble. (see here for how they are related)
Some brands of Procter & Gamble: Olay, Tide, Pantene, Vicks, Ariel, Head and Shoulders.
Some brands of Nestle: Ceralac, KitKat, MilkyBar, Nescafe, Maggi, Milo, Boost
Some brands of Unilever: Surf Excel, Bru coffee, Kissan, Knorr soups, Lipton, Kwality walls
Is palm oil inherently bad for the planet? No. Palm oil is the most productive of all vegetable oil crops. It is highly versatile too, and can therefore actually aid us in sustainable living. The real problem is that most of the production comes out of deforestation, instead of sustainable use of existing lands. The particular deforestation in South-East Asia is directly linked to global warming, air pollution and immense biodiversity loss. Indonesia and Malaysia lost 16% and 26% of their tree cover respectively since 2000, a major portion of which is directly linked to palm oil plantations.
Recently, Indonesia was in news for raging forest fires that destroyed large swathes of forests. The fires caused significant air pollution which affected thousands of people. These fires are routinely created by palm oil industries that light up forests to clear the way for more plantations.
Here is a sad story: when news of such raging fires comes up, there is universal condemnation from all of us. But the culprits behind this blatant mismanagement deftly recuse themselves when questioned (often with false promises) and continue luring us into their brands.
So, do we have to abstain from those brands? As ideal as that would be, its practically difficult. A prudent effort would be to avoid those brands and products as much as we can as individuals. That will mount pressure on the companies in the language they understand. But it is important that we voice our concerns and demand sustainable practices from those MNCs, since that would be a long term and practical solution. Real change will happen if we buy products only if we truly need them.
As a bonus, avoiding these products has a three-fold benefit:
- We can directly mount pressure on companies to create sustainable technologies and solutions, that will prevent deforestation in any form.
- Since most of those brands come packaged in plastics (some of which are notoriously difficult to recycle), we would reduce our own plastic footprint!
- This would empower us and serve as a head-start in changing our lifestyle to better suit a sustainable world.
Solution # 2 — A solution for a new and bitter problem
Everybody loves chocolates. They have a real contribution in the Global Happiness Index! (No, they didn’t say that yet.) But we all do know that chocolates are bitter unless sweetened.
There is another bitterness associated with chocolates: deforestation. Much of the world’s chocolate comes from Western Africa — from the countries Ghana and Ivory Coast. These countries are quite poor, and the people struggle to make ends meet. Many chocolate producing companies in the world depend on the poor small scale chocolate cultivators of these regions. There is deforestation, corruption, poverty and even child labour related to the chocolate that is produced. (see here for the full story)
Ivory Coast has lost over 80% of its forests in the last 50 years.
“Zero deforestation cocoa only exists where all the forest has already disappeared,” wrote Francois Ruf, an economist with CIRAD, a French agricultural research and international cooperation organization — quote from Washington Post
So the solution: As before, we need to avoid chocolates! Some companies have taken genuine efforts to certify their products. Certification ensures that the product didn’t cause harm to humans or the environment during production. Though certification has failed in the past, we need it to pass for a sustainable, deforestation-free future. Demand more transparency from your favourite companies and ask them to ensure no injustice happens. You can always get their attention by boycotting and inspiring others to do so too.
Solution # 3 — The paper industry
The paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy in the world. It uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry. About 35% of all harvested trees are used for the paper industry.
Thankfully, the industry does have some positive measures overall — use of renewable energy and a moderately sustainable wood harvesting practice.
Yet, the paper industry cannot survive for long in the face of digital revolution and environmental pressure. This one image (above) of Bill Gates from 1994 says it all.
Solution is to digitize most of your stuff. Read e-books, make notes using your smartphone and your computers, use the existing books and notebooks well and recycle ALL waste paper products. It helps to even collect all your bills and product price tags together to put it for recycling! A fall in demand for paper products may help us get more land for food cultivation, thus reducing deforestation through agriculture, even if the effect is marginal.
Of course, much depends on changes in our traditional administration. Our school and office systems have relied very heavily on manual paperwork. Our public systems and markets still generate lots of paper bills. But all this is rapidly changing, and we need to ensure that we support such a transition and help it happen faster. Digital solutions are amazingly advanced, available, accessible and cheap. So here we have one infallible method to reduce our deforestation footprint.
#4 — Some long term solutions that need aggregate individual support
Much of the fight against deforestation depends on our lifestyle choice. But we can calculate our footprint really well, thanks to the efforts of thousands of people working on quantifying impacts of our choices.
- Population control is of course the driver of all environmental problems. But its not just about having less children; we need to ensure that we live closer together instead of having separate houses. The demand for land has to be reduced.
- The more we value biodiversity, the greater the pressure on governments and organizations to take care of them through forests. We should get to know the wildlife in our place, and express our desire to protect it.
- Making changes in our foods: about 80% deforestation happens because of agriculture. As human beings, we seem to love certain crops more than the others — rice, wheat, maize and sugarcane. But these crops are water and land intensive, encourage mono-culture and increase risks to food security. So to contribute your bit, diversify your diet! Have different food crops that take up less land and water to cultivate. The best food is the one that grows well in your region.
- Support resource efficiency in all its forms — technological, administrative, social and economical. Every resource that we utilize has (probably) affected some tree in its production. We need to support the reduce, reuse and recycle policy for all products. Every system created for human benefit can achieve sustainability by simply ramping up efficiency.
- Support the reduction of all sorts of inequality — this may sound far-fetched, but reducing inequality is one solution that can cure all problems. Destruction of forest land to cultivate crops is not a climate emergency for a landless laborer, it is his very livelihood. The burden of deforestation and climate change falls unfairly on the down-trodden people, and our efforts won’t work unless they are lifted up.
- Invest in quality education and spread awareness. Education and awareness of the world must exist in every individual, rich or poor, young or old. Always spread the word, and change people around you.
#5 — Measure your ecological impacts and ‘the number of earths’ you need
Fundamentally, why does deforestation happen? It happens because it somehow helps human welfare and lifestyle. If land sustains our lifestyle, there has to be a limit to which it can do so for our entire population.
This is where I urge you to measure how much land you need to sustain yourself for a year. If the Earth can manage to give that much land to all of us and replenish the resources we strip off it within a year, then we are there — we are sustainable!
So, click on the following link and find your ecological footprint. Its free and takes just 10 minutes of your time — https://www.footprintcalculator.org/
You will get a date in the end. Suppose you get 1 July, 2019, it means that you have used up all the resources you are allowed to use in one year (for a sustainable planet) within 6 months itself. And that also means that if everyone lived like you, we would need two earths.
Wish you a great journey in doing your bit to prevent deforestation!
