“A large proportion of the palm oil plantations are in areas previously covered by natural forest. An estimated 3,600 hectares of forest have been destroyed to make way for the palm oil plantations, including 100 hectares of the protected Gala forest reserve in Bugala, Kalangala . Deforestation is clearing Earth’s forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year.
The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation.
Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families.The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture.
Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl.
Not all deforestation is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees.
Deforestation has many negative effects on the environment. The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes.
Deforestation also drives climate change. Forest soils are moist, but without protection from sun-blocking tree cover they quickly dry out. Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor back into the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly become barren deserts.
Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and holds in heat at night. This disruption leads to more extreme temperatures swings that can be harmful to plants and animals.
Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests means larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—and increased speed and severity of global warming.
The quickest solution to deforestation would be to simply stop cutting down trees. Though deforestation rates have slowed a bit in recent years, financial realities make this unlikely to occur.
A more workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure that forest environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace the older ones felled in any given forest. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested land.
Uganda, the government, keen to attract foreign investment, has allowed foreign companies to move onto large areas of land for a range of projects, including carbon offset tree plantations, petroleum exploration and drilling and the development of large scale oil palm plantations. Wilmar International, one of the largest oilseeds corporations in the world, is developing palm oil plantations on highly biodiverse islands in Lake Victoria. Key partners in the project include the government of Uganda, the International Fund for Agriculture Development and Kenyan oilseeds company BIDCO, a company in which Wilmar International has a controlling interest. A large proportion of the palm oil plantations are in areas previously covered by natural forest. Based on IFAD reports, media outlets and interviews with community members, Friends of the Earth estimates that 3,600 hectares of forest have been destroyed to make way for the palm oil plantations. In addition to severe environmental and climate impacts, this deforestation has robbed islanders of their food, medicine, and livelihood. Friends of the Earth’s research shows that the project has thrown people Issue brief Landgrabs, forests & finance: Issue brief #5 Palm oil landgrab in Uganda: Wilmar International’s violations in Kalangala Island off their land with inadequate compensation, in violation of national laws and international norms, degraded water sources and severely impacted food security. In addition, of 1800 workers employed, almost 95 percent are foreign, and wages are extremely poor. The first phase of the project was completed in 2011, and despite these social and environmental problems,1 as well as community demands that the project be entirely reformed— or shut down—the second phase of the project is currently going forward. This will expand palm oil plantations onto several more islands and increase social and environmental impacts as well. The project is being promoted as an effort to reduce poverty—but instead it is causing displacement, food insecurity and deforestation. There are serious questions about the justification for donor funding and private investment in the project. Affected communities are demanding the return of land improperly taken, guarantees for the protection of community land rights, so sad .
