Why Is Deforestation Allowed?

The practice of deforestation is obviously a contentious one, with no small number of people furious that it is allowed to happen. Yet, it is allowed to happen nonetheless and this happens despite the controversy and the anger that it provokes. The big question is “why?”. And the answer is not that difficult to find. It is hard to stop deforestation because many of the world’s rainforests are in equatorial regions with little financial muscle.

Therefore when a major global company with an interest in developing the land for their own purposes waves a check at a government with little spending power, it is difficult for them to resist. If a country has a lot of money, it is easier to turn away the companies offering financial inducements to remove a beneficial resource. Although it is more financially beneficial long term to develop and harvest the resources for a continuing income, short term thinking dominates when you are already in debt to the world’s banks.

It is not just a story of governments with small budgets needing the money and reluctantly trading in resources for money, of course. In some cases, governments are just greedy. Whatever the case, though, the fact remains that until more companies are persuaded to spend their money more responsibly there will be many governments who are prepared to sacrifice the long term good of their country for financial expediency. It is to be hoped that there will be more green-friendly companies with the muscle and the initiative to ensure that rainforest resources are used correctly.

What Do We Lose With Deforestation?

We know, if we have been paying attention, that our planet has a wealth of natural resources that can be beneficial in many ways. What is less well-known is the extent to which this is the case. For example, the rainforest gives us 25% of the pharmaceutical products sold in the West. This sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But what is less well-known is that this 25% of our pharmaceutical products has come from rainforest resources that have barely been tested up until now. In actual fact, only 1% of the trees and plants in the Amazon have been tested by scientists.

When you consider that there is so much we don’t yet know about the plants that grow in the rainforest, the fact that companies are cutting it down becomes all the more insane. Although it seems like an apocalyptic suggestion, the truth is that there could be cures for a wide range of potentially fatal illnesses simply being thrown away by short-term thinking. 121 different prescription drugs sold in the world come from plant sources. How many more might we already have let go?

For the fight against cancer, more than 3000 plants have been proven to act against this often fatal illness. Of those plants, 70% are present in the rainforest, and twenty-five percent come from organisms that can only be found in the rainforest. When you look at that fact, it is not only irresponsible to cut down the rainforests, it is desperately destructive in a way which can never be excused.

Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

The fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs is one that is often quoted when it comes to financial matters. If you have a resource that keeps on giving, then by taking care of it you will always have something to rely on. If you sell that thing for a lump sum, or liquidate the resource for a single use, then you will only have the benefit for as long as it takes to use it up, spend it, eat it or whatever you plan to do with it. The people in the fable, who slaughtered the goose because they thought that it would be filled with gold, found that they had lost everything by wanting a quick profit.

The environment, not least the rainforest, is in many ways our golden goose. It contains many valuable resources that, harvested correctly, can be financially beneficial to the countries and the companies with access to the rainforest. By cutting it down for a quick profit, you may make more in the short term – although even this is open to debate – but you will certainly affect your profits in the future. People need to take a longer view of situations.

We have one environment, one planet. And while selling off parts of that environment can make for a short-term gain, that is all it will be. Once you have traded away something that has an ongoing use, you will all of a sudden find that the price you got for it will not sustain you for long, whereas if you had kept it going and harvested what it gave you, you would have been sustained for life. This is the important message of environmentalism.