Deforestation is one of the main forces driving forward Climate Change. It is bad for us, the environment and the planet in every sense of the word. In order to understand how to stop it from continuing, we must understand why it is occurring so rapidly. Deforestation happens for many reasons such as the demand for wood and because land is needed for the raising of cattle for beef and for agriculture. Our consumption of products that require deforestation needs to drop drastically or else our planet could be in serious danger.
Tropical forests sustain half of all life on earth and removing them basically means removing habitats for people and animals. Over a billion people depend on forests as the primary reason for survival. That is a lot of people losing their livelihood because of our consumption habits. In this post, we discuss an organization that is trying to tackle the issue of deforestation by the name of REDD+.
REDD+
REDD+ stands for Reducing Emissions and Deforestation from forest Degradation in developing countries. It is an international organization developed by the United Nations and the World Bank that tries to ensure our forests stays standing up so as to not to add more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Trying to preserve these forests is an extremely important initiative as deforestation
releases the same amount of CO2 as the entirety of the transportation sector. How REDD+ is saving the forest is by paying communities in developing countries to keep their trees standing. This is very important as forests act as carbon sinks meaning they take in and store carbon for energy. When we cut them down, the carbon they store releases back into the atmosphere. A tropical forest the size of a football field is destroyed every 4 seconds. That is a lot of carbon releasing into our air.
We love trees so much but not enough to keep them alive. Isn’t it ironic that we destroy the thing that keeps us alive?
Problems With REDD+:
The concept of REDD+ protecting the forest is great but it is doing it at the expense of the indigenous and forest locals. Yes, it’s true that REDD+ pays these communities but the amounts are small and frankly, not worth it. Especially not when the indigenous are not respected in terms of their lifestyles and rights to the land. Nature is very precious to them and cannot be monetized. So the backlash has been about how the developed countries are trying to buy off the air and land with no respect to its inhabitants.
Another source of backlash has been the fact that the developing countries are restricting the indigenous people from using the forests and from hunting and fishing in them. Aside from it being unjust because it’s taking away their livelihood, it is also hypocritical. These countries are still hunting, fishing and consuming all these products that add to deforestation yet they want the indigenous to stop. They want to offload the work they need to do for Climate Change unto other countries and that is just not fair.
Good intentions don’t mean good actions so REDD+ obviously has to do some work.
What are your thoughts of REDD+? What Organizations would you like us to write about next? Let us know in the comments below!
Related:
The Green Belt Movement in Kenya
