Gotta Beef with Trees

 

           From insightcrime.org

Cow belches and flatulence have been on the humorous, but very real, side of greenhouse gas emissions (producing methane, which is 23 times heavier than carbon dioxide). The demand for beef is still rising, and cattle ranches have been absorbing increasing amounts of forests that used to be part of the carbon dioxide absorption system. Aside from the issue of raising and killing sentient beings as a food source, that cutting back/burning forest land for ranching is increasingly challenging to environmentalists seeking to contain global warming.

We are losing forests for all kinds of reasons. Some from wildfires, which are themselves a product of global warming. But vastly more land for agricultural and mining reasons. Even to organized crime. Jennifer Devine, Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Texas State University, writing for the November 15th TheConversation.com, tells us: “Every year the world loses an estimated 25 million acres (10 million hectares) of forest, an area larger than the state of Indiana. Nearly all of it is in the tropics.

“Tropical forests store enormous quantities of carbon and are home to at least two-thirds of the world’s living species, so deforestation has disastrous consequences for climate change and conservation. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, slowing its buildup in the atmosphere – but when they are burned or logged, they release their stored carbon, fueling further warming. Tropical forest loss generates nearly 50% more greenhouse gases than does the global transportation sector.

“At the 2021 U.N. conference on climate change in Glasgow, more than 100 world leaders pledged on Nov. 1 to halt deforestation by 2030. In the Declaration on Forests and Land Use, countries outlined their strategy, which focuses on supporting trade and development policies that promote sustainable production and consumption…

“Among major products that promote deforestation, beef is in a class by itself. Beef production is now estimated to be the biggest driver of deforestation worldwide, accounting for 41% of global forest losses. In the Amazon alone, cattle ranching accounts for 80% of deforestation. From 2000 to 2011, beef production emitted nearly 200 times more greenhouse gases than soy, and 60 times more than oil palm in tropical countries with high deforestation rates.

“Beef is produced in many countries, but it mainly drives forest losses in Latin America. On the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa and the plains of the U.S. Midwest, cattle graze without directly contributing to deforestation… [B]eef production in these regions indirectly contributes to deforestation by increasing demand for soy-based feed… Under President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon – mainly for beef and soy production – has accelerated.

“Together, soy and palm oil drive nearly 10% of deforestation annually – almost 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares)… Clearing land for palm oil plantations fuels large-scale rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia, where most of the world’s palm oil is produced, destroying habitat for endangered and threatened species such as orangutans, elephants and tigers. More recently, palm oil production has expanded to other parts of Asia, Central and South America and Central and West Africa.” The rising demand for wood products is also driving deforestation. 

All bad stuff, but even when deforestation is clearly illegal, whether from bribes to officials to pretend that clearing fires are “acts of nature” or simply to look the other way, there is another very ugly side to deforestation few of us ever think about: the involvement of organized crime: “Making the supply chains for [beef, soy palm oil and wood products] more sustainable is an important strategy for reducing deforestation. But another industry plays an important role, especially in tropical forests: organized crime. Large, lucrative industries offer opportunities to move and launder money; as a result, in many parts of the world, deforestation is driven by the drug trade.

“In South America and Central America, drug trafficking organizations are the vanguard of deforestation. Drug traffickers are illegally logging forests in the Amazon and hiding cocaine in timber shipments to Europe. In my research, I have analyzed how traffickers illegally log and raise cattle in protected areas in Central America to launder money and claim drug smuggling territory. Other scholars estimate that 30% to 60% of deforestation in the region is ‘narco-deforestation.’

“Legal and illegal activities also interweave along the commodity chains for palm oil and soy. Forest Trends, a U.S. nonprofit that promotes market-based approaches to forest conservation, estimates that nearly half of deforestation for commercial products like cattle, soy, palm oil and wood products is illegal. According to the group’s analysis, exports tied to illegal deforestation are worth US$61 billion annually and are responsible for 25% of total global tropical deforestation.” Devine. We seldom link corruption to climate change, but as you can see, that hard fact is just one of so many barriers humanity faces to contain climate change’s existential threat to life as we know it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as my continuing presentation of variables that push against the containment of greenhouse gasses, it is equally clear that the issue is vastly more complicated than most of us realize… even as we must find a viable answer.