THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RAINFOREST

The beauty, majesty, and timelessness of a primary rainforest are indescribable. It is impossible to capture on film, to describe in words, or to explain to those who have never had the awe-inspiring experience of standing in the heart of a primary rainforest.

Rainforests have evolved over millions of years to turn into the incredibly complex environments they are today. Rainforests represent a store of living and breathing renewable natural resources that for eons, by virtue of their richness in both animal and plant species, have contributed a wealth of resources for the survival and well-being of humankind. These resources have included basic food supplies, clothing, shelter, fuel, spices, industrial raw materials, and medicine for all those who have lived in the majesty of the forest. However, the inner dynamics of a tropical rainforest is an intricate and fragile system. Everything is so interdependent that upsetting one part can lead to unknown damage or even destruction of the whole. Sadly, it has taken only a century of human intervention to destroy what nature designed to last forever.

The scale of human pressures on ecosystems everywhere has increased enormously in the last few decades. Since 1980 the global economy has tripled in size and the world population has increased by 30 percent. Consumption of everything on the planet has risen- at a cost to our ecosystems. In 2001, The World Resources Institute estimated that the demand for rice, wheat, and corn is expected to grow by 40% by 2020, increasing irrigation water demands by 50% or more. They further reported that the demand for wood could double by the year 2050; unfortunately, it is still the tropical forests of the world that supply the bulk of the world's demand for wood.

In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth's land surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already gone up in smoke. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world's tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! More than 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. If nothing is done to curb this trend, the entire Amazon could well be gone within fifty years.

Massive deforestation brings with it many ugly consequences-air and water pollution, soil erosion, malaria epidemics, the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the eviction and decimation of indigenous Indian tribes, and the loss of biodiversity through extinction of plants and animals. Fewer rainforests mean less rain, less oxygen for us to breathe, and an increased threat from global warming.

But who is really to blame? Consider what we industrialized Americans have done to our own homeland. We converted 90 percent of North America's virgin forests into firewood, shingles, furniture, railroad ties, and paper. Other industrialized countries have done no better. Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and other tropical countries with rainforests are often branded as "environmental villains" of the world, mainly because of their reported levels of destruction of their rainforests. But despite the levels of deforestation, up to 60 percent of their territory is still covered by natural tropical forests. In fact, today, much of the pressures on their remaining rainforests comes from servicing the needs and markets for wood products in industrialized countries that have already depleted their own natural resources. Industrial countries would not be buying rainforest hardwoods and timber had we not cut down our own trees long ago, nor would poachers in the Amazon jungle be slaughtering jaguar, ocelot, caiman, and otter if we did not provide lucrative markets for their skins in Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo.

Terrorism

Terrorism is one of the threats against which States must protect their citizens. States have not only the right but also the duty to do so. But States must also take the greatest care to ensure that counter-terrorism measures do not mutate into measures used to choak, or justify, violations of human rights. Terrorism has a nasty habit of causing the whole spectrum of opinion in a society to lurch in a repressive direction.

Internationally, we are beginning to see the increasing use of what I call the “T-word” –- terrorism –- to demonize political opponents, to throttle freedom of speech and the press, and to delegitimize legitimate political grievances. We are seeing too many cases where States living in tension with their neighbours make opportunistic use of the fight against terrorism to threaten or justify new military action on long-running disputes.

Similarly, States fighting various forms of unrest or insurgency are finding it tempting to abandon the slow, difficult, but sometimes necessary processes of political negotiation, for the deceptively easy option of military action.

Just as terrorism must never be excused, so must genuine grievances never be ignored.

We must act with determination to address, indeed solve, the political disputes and long-standing conflicts which underlie, fuel, and generate support for terrorism. To do so is not to reward terrorism or its perpetrators; it is to diminish their ability to find refuge or recruits, in any cause, any country. Only then can we truly know that the war on terrorism has been won -– and the world made a safer, better, more just place.

Terrorism is a global threat with global effects; its methods are murder and mayhem, but its consequences affect every aspect of the United Nations agenda –- from development to peace to human rights and the rule of law. No part of the United Nations mission is safe from the effects of terrorism; and no part of the world is immune from this scourge.

The United Nations has a clear obligation to deal with this global threat. The United Nations has an indispensable role to play in providing the legal and organizational framework within which the international campaign against terrorism can unfold. But our unrelenting position must be that any sacrifice of freedom or the rule of law within States, or any generation of new disputes between States in the name of anti-terrorism, is to hand the terrorists a victory that no act of theirs alone could possibly bring.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 895