Global forests

43

GLOBAL

FORESTS

Another view B. Bowonder

and S. S. R. Prasad

This article argues that deforestation poses much greater risks to tropical areas and to developing countries than to temperate areas and developed countries, and that much research must be done before the full impact and possible remedies can be assessed. The authors also show why the situation is more alarming than a recent analysis of the deforestation problem indicates. Keywords: deforestation;

underdevelopment;

environmental

impoverishment

THE RESOURCEFUL EARTH contains a chapter with the title, “Global forests”,’ which can be considered as one perspective on the status of global forests. An analysis of the perspective given in that chapter will induce some scholars to debate the issues involved in forest resources depletion. Some issues arising out of the discussions in the chapter mentioned are considered below. Interactive trends In long-term forecasting the trends of a large number of issues have to be analysed, rather than one basic factor such as the percentage of forests lost to deforestation. It is the simultaneous action of a large number of factors that tends to intensify the magnitude of the problem-not the existing state alone. The combined effect of population increase, cattle grazing, pressure for increasing food production, industrialization (demand for wood, paper, building construction, etc), urbanization, discharge of effluents, increased water withdrawal and poor soils in forests in tropical countries is likely to be severe. There are about ten activities inducing deforestation, whereas there is virtually no pressure for afforestation. The FAO-UNEP-UNESCO study indicates that 76 developing countries deforest 11.3 million hectares (ha) per annum whereas only 1.1 million ha are afforested every year in these countries.’ Some major economic activities that induce pressure on forests are:

The authors are India, Hyderabad

at the

Centre for Energy, 500 049, India.

FUTURES Fatmary

1987

Environment

and Technology,

0016_3287/87/01004311$03.000

Administrative

Staff College of

1987 Buttetworth & Co(Pub1isher.s) Ltd

44

Global

forests:another

view

fuelwood extraction, cattle grazing, housing construction, road and reservoir construction, paper manufacturing (packing paper, pulpwood, packing materials, export of wood, shifting cultivation, submersion of forests by hydroelectric projects, conversion to agricultural lands, and conversion of forests to cash-crop plantations.

newsprint

etc),

There are only two activities that can counteract the pressure for deforestation-replantation and protection of forests. When there are strong economic pressures for deforestation and no counterbalancing forces, the existing trend will continue. Further, many activities inducing deforestation are increasing in magnitude in developing countries. Reliability of data The data given in Table 7 of Sedjo and Clawson are based on FAO’s Production Year Book* and the FAO-UNEP study5 and indicate only the officially recorded forest area. The FAO-UNEP survey data on India reports that the area under forests was 75.8 million ha in 1980. But, remote sensing data6 (based on satellite imagery) show that actual forest cover in India was 48.5 million ha in 1972-75 and this had come down to 37.4 million ha by 1980-82. The actual situation is more alarming than that reported by the FAO-UNEP survey. In other words, the analysis given by Sedjo and Clawson presents only part of the picture. Data on tropical forests, currently available in the form of area urider forests, have overstated the area since the data are based on forestry sources of the respective countries. For example, FAO data on the forest area in LesothG7 indicate that it did not change between 1974 and 1982. And the FAO-UNEP study’ itself states that available data on forest area are unreliable. For all these reasons, there is a strong need to assess the actual status of forests before any conclusive remarks are made. Long-run uncertainties The economic planning process and project appraisal systems currently in use discount the real worth of tropical forests by using9 discount rates higher than those prevalent (ie effective discount rates) in the developed countries. Haveman proposed that decisions have to be carefully made when the following conditions hold: l l l

when the resource use will cause irreversible changes; when we have no reliable information on the future value of a resource; if future generations are likely to value forests much more than we do today, we have to be more concerned about changes that foreclose future options. lo FUTURES February 1997

All these conditions have relevance as far as the future of forests in tropical countries is concerned. Economists have to re-examine the long-run uncertainties involved in forest depletion. Common

property

status

Forest utilization in tropical countries has a strong common property or open access status, and such systems cannot be compared with forests in developed First, the institutional factors countries which have little open access. responsible for offshore afforestation are likely to be different in developing countries because of the predominance of open access. Under increasing common property resources will experience higher population density, pressures for exploitation. But there will be little effort towards afforestation. Many countries where forest extraction is high are also countries where more than 90% of wood extracted is used as fuelwood (Figure 1). fn Sri Lanka unrecorded extraction accounts for more than 70% of total consumption.” So long as the commons remain unmanaged in a world of ever-increasing demands, intelligence is almost irrelevant: overconsumption and overpollution are inevitable. ” Common property forests will be depleted under three conditions, namely, when l l l

community control over the resource there is commercialization; and there is rapid population growth. l3

Figure 1. Wood extraction and fuelwood use FUTURES February 1987

is lost;

Forest resources in the developing countries are subjected to the three conditions, and hence it will be difficult to arrest the situations unless these conditions are reversed. Intergenerational

equity

Deforestation has also to be considered as an intergenerational equity problem. I4 Forests cannot be protected purely on economic criteria, since intergenerational equity has ethical dimensions. The ethical question can be posed as: does the present generation have ethical rights to deplete forests irreversibly? Any permanent destruction of carrying capacity required to support more people in the present implies a reduction in the population at all future time periods and consequently a reduction in the total number of people ever to live.15 On purely cost-benefit terms, forests may have benefits only if they are extracted. But forests have productive, protective and regulatory functions. The currently used economic criteria overemphasize the productive function and underestimate the protective and regulatory roles of forests. Nonmarket value of forestsi (like fuelwood) and services attributable or assignable to regulatory values of forests (like protecting the soil and retaining the moisture) do not normally find a place in any analysis. The chapter by Sedjo and Clawson is no exception. Land

ownership

patterns

The most important missing factor in the analysis by Sedjo and Clawson is the combined prevalence of poverty and small land-holding size in developing countries. The unequal access to land,‘? low awareness, absolute poverty and the need for a cheap source of energy for cooking will hasten deforestation. All these factors are completely absent in the developed countries. The prevalence of poverty makes it difficult to run systematic afforestation programmes, or for poor households to use alternative fuels. The poor are difficult to reach and have fewer resources. For example, in India there are 48 million households with less than 1 .O ha of land. It is this group that is difficult to reach and unless this group is given access to land or biomass resources, fuelwood extraction is likely to go on unabated. The poverty-access to land-deforestation linkage is a critical factor that has been neglected in The Resourceful Earth. Average values conceal the skewness of the distribution of forest resources and the qualitative differences in land ownership patterns prevalent in developing countries. Economic

and ecological

overextraction

When dealing with a renewable resource like forests it is preferable to use the concept of overextraction. Percentage change in forest area is not an adequate concept to deal with all major issues concerning forest depletion. Economic overextraction and biological overextraction are different concepts.‘s Biological overextraction is that level of extraction beyond the sustainable yield, and it is this that occurs when price-to-cost ratios go up. In open-access forestry, the cost of extraction is likely to be the same for all illegal extractors; hence when FUTURES F&NW

1987

Global for&:

Figure 2. Fuelwood extraction

anothtr view

47

and per capita income

market prices go up, common property resources are overextracted. Economic overextraction is that condition beyond which the marginal cost is higher than the marginal revenue of extraction. In forests that have common property status, both biological and economic overextraction (in common property forestry, every new subject has an incentive to extract) are natural.‘g Whenever prevalent discount rates are higher than the bionqmic growth rate, there will be biological overextraction since the forest products saved for the future will have a lower value compared to the revenue obtained today.20 There is a strong need for a comprehensive study to examine areas in which there is severe overextraction beyond the sustainable yield. A number of countries-Burundi, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Ghana, Swaziland, Tunisia, Pakistan, Haiti and Egypt- use more woodfuel than the sustainable forest yield, and it is certain that forests will be degraded severely in these countries.” In the case of bioresources, it is the difference between the annual incremental growth and annual extraction that will determine the sustainability of a resource. The rate of fuelwood extraction from unit forest area exceeds the annual incremental growth in a large number of countries (Figure 2) (the rates of extraction are estimates since they are based on the higher area-under-forestcover reported by FAO). Th e values are alarming even at this optimistic level. The average incremental biomass yield varies between 1 and 6 cubic metres per ha per year in different countries, and in all tropical countries where the extraction is higher than the incremental biomass yield there will be depletion of

forest stock. In temperate climates extraction may be high, but incremental yield is higher. When one talks about global forests it is evident that deforestation is not a severe problem in temperate zones (Figure 2) and this has been well brought out by Sedjo and Clawson. The causes and consequences of the problem have been examined in detail. Causal

structure

Deforestation 0 l l

0

of deforestation

is caused by a large number of factors, but the major reasons are:

fuelwood extraction to satisfy a basic need; cattle grazing; conversion of forests into agricultural land; and overextraction of forest produce from existing forests.

The causes for deforestation are poverty, underdevelopment and unequal access to land. The percentage of wood extracted which is used as fuelwood is more than 80% in developing countries, whereas it is low in developed countries. In countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc, more than 95% of wood extracted is used as fuelwood (Figure 1). Most countries where fuelwood extraction is high (Figure 2) are also lowincome, developing countries with high population growth and high growth rate of wood extraction.22 Sedjo and Clawson have shown that the price of wood has been increasing at a much faster rate than other prices and this will induce new investments for afforestation. Afforestation is an activity with a long gestation period. When interest rates are high, discount rates are high and investment maturing after a long delay will have a lower present value. In the case of common property resources, if the prices go up it does not induce investments. Another major factor aiding deforestation is overgrazing. Many of the developing countries have high cattle populations and these are left for open grazing. In developed countries, when the prices of forest products go up this stimulates investment for afforestation. In developing countries where capital is scarce and there is fuelwood shortage, price rises result in increased illegal extraction of wood. Increasing population density and decreasing areas of forests (in common property form) will work in opposite directions to induce further deforestation. This situation is in sharp contrast with that prevalent in developed countries. The institutional mechanisms stimulating afforestation are inherently weak in developing countries. The problem of deforestation is that, when a large number of subjects are involved (poor people extracting fuelwood), the marginal cost of controlling deforestation will be high.23 Most fuelwood is extracted illegally because of the open-access condition; hence, the marginal social benefit of afforestation is likely to be low. Food-fodder-fuelwood-forest

link

Sedjo and Clawson in their analysis do not take into account the irreversibility deforestation in tropical areas, though in their chapter there is a subsection

of on

FUTURES February 1987

Global

forests:another view

49

change in forest cover will have environmental consequences. 24 Percentage different effects in different regions. For example, in the hilly terrain of Nepal even small changes can cause irreversible degeneration. Tropical soils are nutrient-poor, heavily leached and subjected to heavy rainfall over short mechanisms in tropical forests are very periods. 25 The nutrient recycling fragile. ” The tropical forest systems suffer extreme shortage of nutrients and soils have relatively low cation exchange capacity. When a tropical forest is cleared the humus content is bound to diminish rapidly (50% reduction in the first six months after clearing), converting a high productive ecosystem into a low productive area. In other words, deforestation in tropical areas is bound to have long-term consequences because of the loss of nutrients and loss of water retention capability. The food-fodder-fuelwood-forest interaction is brought out clearly below: 1. 2. 3.

4.

The tropical areas of Asia and Africa are areas with less calories intake than needed.” The tropical areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America have high rates of population growth,zs and high rates of growth of fuelwood extraction.” The heavily populated areas of Asia and Africa have low per capita water availability or high water deficiency’” (Figure 3). Asia, which has 58% of the world’s population, has only 26% of the global water run-off.3’ Large portions of Asia and Africa are semi-arid in nature (Figure 4), with high rainfall variability, low biomass productivity, low moisture retention, and high evapotranspiration. Overgrazing and deforestation will have severe effects in these areas.

The changes that follow tropical deforestation under these circumstances are catastrophic, since deforestation is accompanied by a number of irreversible changes, 32drastically reducing the productivity of the ecosystem. These are:

Figure 3. Water deficiency

FUTURES F&rum-y 1987

and water surplus zones of the world

Figure 4. Arid and semi-arid regions of the world l

0 l l

0 0 l l

stream flow increases (water retention is reduced); transpiration is reduced (water recharge into the soil is low); concentration of dissolved solids increases; erosion increases; soil temperature increases; rate of nitrification increases; rate of decomposition of organic matter (humus) increases; and dissolved substances in soil increase.

Deforestation in temperate areas will have considerably less impact. In contrast, deforestation in tropical countries affects the very basis of agricultural productivity since tropical ecosystems are fragile because of poor soil and the delicate nutrient recycling mechanisms. Deforestation will have a higher impact water-deficient and nutrient-poor semi-arid areas (the on low-productive, greater part of Asia and Africa). Forests have different functions and structure in different agroclimatic regions. Sedjo and Clawson’s analysis is weak on the ecosystem-economy linkages. The comments made on the kunae by Pearce33 and Daly34 corroborate the weakness of the thesis of Sedjo and Clawson. An inteshowing economic and ecosystem intergrated theory of development35 dependencies clearly indicates that in view of the tropical and subtropical climates, soils and vegetation, developing countries of South Asia will have a lower ecological carrying capacity than those of the newly industrialized countries of the temperate zones. Conclusion In other words, the risks of deforestation are higher in developing countries: the link between forests, soil, water retention and agricultural productivity is strong in the tropics because of the poor soil productivity (arising out of climatic conditions) and low per capita water availability. The argument that global forests are under no threat thus has two serious flaws:

4 Land area 1982 (million ha)

328.8 80.4 14.0 6.5 14.4 58.3 959.7 936 122.2

‘1983 (mllllons)

725 94.6 15.3 15.7 95.9 18.6 1033 234 33.8 2.21 1.18 1.09 2.40 6.67 0.32

Persons per ha

245 28 11 2 37 11 76 115 27

Cattle 1983 (millions)

Forest area Fuelwood Fuelwood 1982 extraction extraction (million ha) (million m3) per unit forest area (m3) 67.520 212 3.15 2.870 18.4 6.44 4.450 14.1 3.17 2.383 7.6 3.21 2.145 31.1 14.51 2.470 27.9 11.29 128.225 154.6 1.21 284.464 101.9 0.36 26.270 27.9 1.05 1984), except for columns headed ‘Persons per ha’,

0.736 0.576 0.678 1.398 5.263 0.407 0.165 0.130 0.447

119 51 :5 13’ 14.5 181 13.4 40.6

Grazing unit per ha

Goats and sheep 1983 (millions)

COMPETITION

Source: FAO, Production Year Book (Rome, Italy, Food and Agricultural Organization, ‘Goats and sheep 1983 (millions)’ and ‘Fuelwood extraction per unit forest area (ms)‘.

India Pakistan Nepal Sri Lanka Bangladesh Kenya China USA Ethiopia

Country

TABLE 1. FOOD-FODDER-FUELWOOD

52

0

l

Globalforests: another uicw

The loss of temperature forests and tropical forests are not the same since the two systems are basically different. Compensating for the loss of one by the other has no logical basis. Tropical deforestation will weaken the very base of agricultural productivity since, in the fragile arid and semi-arid ecosystems, forests play a critical role, and a majority of areas of Asia and Africa fall into this category.

Any ecosystem has an inherent carrying capacity it can sustain. When fragile ecosystems (with inherently low carrying capacity) are subjected to a large number of stresses at the same time as population increases-overgrazing, effluent discharge, deforestation, urbanization, increased water withdrawal etc-they are irreversibly degraded. Semi-arid and arid systems have low carrying capacities and any addition of population at the limit of that capacity will cause irreversible degradation. Semi-arid and arid tropical ecosystems can recover from disturbances only if they are not further disturbed for centuries.36 These tropical areas have low carrying capacities but they are areas with high population densities.37 In other words, deforestation, overgrazing, high population density and high rates of population growth will add stresses exponentially to the delicately balanced, water-limited and forest-deficient ecosystems with their inherently low carrying capacity. It is not the existing state that is alarming, but the convergence of a number of factors that make the of the magnitude of the problem severe. To highlight the interactiveness problem, the forest situation in South Asian countries (with high population density) has been compared with that of countries such as USA and China (Table 1). The person-to-land ratio is very high in the South Asian countries, as is the cattle-to-land ratio, and fuelwood extraction is much higher than the sustainable incremental yield. The food-fuelwood-fodder competition makes the deforestation problem a very complex one in the developing countries. Understanding the problem in its entirety is what is needed. Existing information on forest dynamics is unreliable, and only through detailed regionspecific studies can real predictions about the future trends be arrived at. Without detailed micro-level data no amount of analysis can predict the longterm interactive effects. Sedjo and Clawson have made sweeping remarks with a weak empirical base, and without considering the specific impact of forest clearing in relation to ecosystem structure and functioning.

Notes and references 1. R. A. Sedjo and M. Clawson, “Global forests”, in J. L. Simon and H. Kahn, editors, I;hc Resourceful Earth (Oxford, UK, Basil Blackwell, 1984), pages 128-170. 2. M. Hadley and J. P. Lanly, “Tropical forest ecosystems”, Nature &Resources, 19, (l), 1983, pages 2-19. 3. Sedjo and Clawson, op cd, reference 1. 4. FAO, Production Year Book, 38 (Rome, Italy, Food and Agricultural Organization, 1984). 5. FAO-UNEP, Forest Resources of Tropical Asia (Rome, Italy, Food and Agricultural Organization, 1981). 6. National Remote Sensing Agency, Mapping for Forest Cover in India jam Satellite Zmagq (Hyderabad, India, National Remote Sensing Agency, 1983). 7. FAO, op cif, reference 4.

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Global

8. FAG-UNEP, tion, 1981). 9. C. A. Tisdell, 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 2 1. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

ForestResources of Tropical Ajica Rome, “Conservingliving

resources

forests:another view 53

Italy, Food and Agricultural

in Third World countries”,

Organiza-

ZntemutionalJou&

of

Environmental Studies, 22, 1983, pages 1 l-24. R. H. Haveman, “Economic evaluation of long run uncertainties”, Futures, 9, 1977, pages 365-374. B. Bowonder, “Forest depletion”, Resources Policy, 9, 1983, pages 206-224; and B. Bowonder, “Deforestation in developing countries”, Journal of Environmental System-s, 15, 1986, pages 171-192. in H. E. Daly and A. F. Umana, editors, Energy, G. Hardin, “Ending the squanderarchy”, Economics and the Environment (Boulder, CO, USA, West View Press, 1981), pages 147-164. and the tragedy of the commons”, Environmental Conservation, 12, F. Berkes, “Fishermen 1985, pages 199-206. E. J. Mishan, “Economic criteria for intergenerational comparisons”, Futures, 9, 1977, pages 303-403. H. E. Daly, “Postscript: unresolved problems and issues”, in H. E. Daly and A. F. Umana, editors, op tit, reference 12, pages 165-185. E. G. Farnworth, T. H. Tidrick and C. F. Jordan, “A synthesis of ecological and economic theory toward more complete valuation of tropical moist forests”, Journal of Environmental Studies, 21, 1983, pages 11-28; E. G. Famworth et al, “The value of natural ecosystems”, Environmental Conservation, 8, (4), 1981, pages 275-282; W. M. Smathers, C. F. Jordan et al, “An economic production-function approach to ecosystem management”, Bioscience, 33, (lo), 1983, pages 642-646. scarcity and economic growth in poor developing countries”, D. W. Pearce, “Resource Futures, 17, (5), 1985, pages 440-445. “When is overfishing underfishing”, Environmental S. Cunningham and D. Whitmarsh, Management, 5, 1981, pages 377-384. C. W. Clark, Bioeconomic Modelling and Fisheries Manag-t (New York, USA, Wiley, 1985). of ecological risk and economics profit in the T. Schmitt and C. Wissel, “Interdependence Ecological Modclling, 28, 1985, pages 20 l-2 15. exploitation of renewable resources”, I Bowonder, op tit, reference 11. Bowonder, op tit, reference 11. V. Ostrom and E. Ostrom, “A theory for institutional analysis of common pool problems”, in G. Hardin and J. Baden, editors, Managing the Commons (San Francisco, CA, USA, Freeman, 1977), pages 157-172. Sedjo and Clawson, op tit, reference 1, page 159. W. Weischet, “Ecological considerations concerning the unsatisfactory development of the rural economy in the tropics”, Applied Geography and Development, 26, 1985, pages 7-32. R. Herrera, C. F. Jordan, E. Madina and H. Khnga, “How human activities disturb the nutrient cycles”, AMBZO, 10, 1981, pages 109-l 14; C. F. Jordan and R. Herrera, “Tropical Nature and Resources, 17, (2), 198 1, pages 7 - 13. forest ecosystems”, S. N. Luoma, Introduction to Environmental Issues (New York, USA, Macmillan, 1984). in J. Lenihan and W. W. Fletcher, editors, J. Tivey, “Environmental impact of cultivation”, Floor Agriculture and Environment (Glasgow, UK, Blackie, 1975), pages 21-47. Haveman, op tit, reference 10. M. Falkenmark, G. Lindh, L. De ‘Mare and C. Widstrand, Water and Sociep (Oxford, UK, Pergamon Press, 1980). L. R. Brown, Statcofthe World: 1985(Washington, DC, USA, World Watch Institute, 1985). B. Bowonder, “Catastrophe theory and environmental changes”, Scienceand Public Policy, II, 1984, pages 94-99. Pearce, op tit, reference 17. confusion: economics of Julian Simon”, Fufures, 17, 1985, pages H. E. Daly, “Ultimate 446-450. K. Dopfer, The New Political Economy of Development (London, UK, Macmillan, 1979). Dopfer, op tit, reference 35. C. A. Tisdell, “World conservation strategies, economic policies and sustainable resource use Environmental Professional, 7, 1985, pages 102-107. in developing countries”,

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