By Simone
An orangutan climbs to the top of a tree for safety as she holds her newly born baby. They clutch on to the only tree for miles. The tree, bare as can be, sways as the two orangutans swing dangerously high in the air. The mother and son look down and watch the earth burn below them. Smoke and ash sting their faces as the ground turns to burn black clouds of smoke. The mother cries for help as their last minutes are near. The air is polluted with smoke, suffocating their precious breaths. Their home, their family, their whole world, is destroyed, all turned to ash. A thousand miles away, a consumer reaches up to grab a jar of Skippy peanut butter, little does the shopper know that the product in their hands is part of the reason why fifty orangutans are tragically killed every week. This is just one of the many realities happening right now as tropical forests are being burned, cleared, and replaced by the planting of palm oil trees and the raising of cattle and their food, abundantly known as deforestation.
Deforestation means removing or clearing the forest for non-forest use. (Morgan Stanley. National Geographic.) There are many causes of deforestation as well as the impacts of this process. I will be focusing on two main causes that are happening in the world today: animal agriculture and palm oil plantations. Animal agriculture is the biggest reason for climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and deforestation. (James Cameron and Suzy Amis Cameron. The Guardian.) 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, comes from animal agriculture. That is more than all exhaust coming from transportation services, such as cars, planes, buses, etc. combined. (Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn. Cowspiracy.) Deforestation started becoming a concern in the 1950s, mostly because of animal agriculture. (Sharon L. Cohen. The Classroom, The History of Deforestation.) Not until the 1960’s did we start cutting down the Amazon rainforest. (Wikipedia. Deforestation Of The Amazon Rainforest.) According to the documentary Cowspiracy, Livestock covers 45% of the earth’s total land. Palm oil production is the second biggest reason for deforestation. 40 million acres of land is being used for palm oil crops worldwide, now in 2020. (88 Acres the Seed Co. Palm Oil and Sustainability - Why We Choose Global Health.) This paper will talk about three important impacts: the increase of greenhouse gases and the decrease of plant and animal habitat as well as the habitat of indigenous people.
A major cause of deforestation is animal agriculture. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, Animal agriculture is the practice of breeding animals for the production of animal products and recreational purposes. Animal products typically include meat, eggs, dairy, and fur. Recreational purposes include horse farms for sport and pleasure and also include raising guard animals such as llamas, dogs, and donkeys. People cut, burn, and chop down forests to use the land for raising the animals for dairy products and for the animals that are eventually slaughtered for meat. Also, this land is used to grow soybean and corn crops to feed the animals.
According to the documentary Cowspiracy, animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of rainforest destruction, and 45% of the earth’s total land is occupied by livestock or their food. Brazil is home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest, this tropical area is the biggest rainforest in the world. (Britannica. The Editors Of Encyclopaedia Britannica.) After The United States, Brazil is the second most country in the world to do the most animal agriculture. (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser. Our World In Data, Meat and Dairy Production.) The Amazon rainforest can be found in Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. 2.7 million acres out of 1.4 billion acres of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed throughout the 1960s to 2020. (ALJAZEERA, Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Surges to a 12-year high.) India comes in third after Brazil for most animal farming, followed by China. (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser. Our World In Data, Meat and Dairy Production.) Even though plant-based meats are seeing an increase in popularity, globally, we still consume approximately 350 million tons of meat a year. An average person in the U.S. eats 209 pounds of meat a year. (The World Counts. Environmental Effects of Meat Production.) Because of this, we are losing 78 million acres of land in the Amazon rainforest each year. (Leslie Taylor. Rain-Tree publishers.) 19% of the Amazon rainforest is already gone. 80% of the amazon that has been destroyed is due to animal agriculture.
The second leading cause of deforestation is palm oil production. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil that comes from the African oil palm. There are two different kinds of palm oil. One is called crude palm oil, which is produced by squeezing the fruit. The other kind of palm oil is known as palm kernel oil that comes from crushing the kernel. According to GreenPalm, in the 18th century, palm oil was first used for the making of candles. Although, in the 15th century there were scrolls written about palm oil used by European travelers traveling to West Africa. (Green Palm Sustainability. Palm Oil History.) Palm oil is excruciatingly terrible because people destroy forests to plant palm oil trees. Not only are they destroying forests, but people are also demolishing ecosystems, animals, plants, habitats, and many other important parts of the forest. Because palm oil can stand warmer temperatures than other oils, it is abundant in processed products such as peanut butter, ice cream, shampoo, makeup, soap, bread, chips, candy, etc. (World Wildlife Fund. Which Everyday Products Contain Palm Oil?) Palm oil has become one of the most consumed oils on this planet, increasing by nine percent each year. (Jennifer Collins. Made for Minds. Palm oil is the planet’s most widely consumed vegetable oil.) It is mainly used in processed products. Although you may not use it in your cooking, it is almost always in your: shampoo, makeup, soap, candles, detergent, ice cream, pizza dough, noodles, cookies, bread, chocolate, butter, and many more packaged products. Palm oil can be found in 51% of your average house products. (Friends of the Earth. Palm Oil in the North American consumer market.) Indonesia and Malaysia produce the most palm oil in the world. (Niall McCarthy. Which Countries Produce The Most Palm Oil?) Both countries make 84% of the world’s palm oil production. Thailand is in second place for palm oil production, followed by Columbia. (GreenPalm Sustainability. Where Is Palm Oil Grown?)
IMPACTS OF DEFORESTATION
There are many negative impacts of deforestation, however, this paper will focus on the increase of greenhouse gases, leading to global warming and the loss of plant and animal habitat and indigenous people.
One of the most devastating effects is the increase in greenhouse gases. There are gases in our atmosphere called greenhouse gases that trap the heat on our planet. This effect is called the greenhouse effect because it acts like a greenhouse. (Melissa Denchak. The Natural Resource Defence Center. Greenhouse Effect 10.) A greenhouse is a room made out of windows that lets sunlight in but traps the heat. The sun’s rays can go through the gases but then the heat gets trapped in. This is a good thing because if we did not have greenhouse gases then the earth would be too cold and life would not be able to survive. These gases are made up of carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane, and ozone. (Melissa Denchak. The Natural Resource Defence Center. Greenhouse Effect 10.) The earth only needs a little of these gases in the atmosphere to keep the planet warm enough for life to thrive. Humans are adding too much of these gases, making the earth warmer. Unfortunately, there has been a huge rise in greenhouse gases and the earth’s temperature is heating up at an alarming rate. (Melissa Denchak. The Natural Resource Defence Center. Greenhouse Effect 10.) According to NASA, The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. (Holly Shaftel, Randal Jackson, Susan Callery, and Daniel Bailey. NASA. Climate Change: How Do We Know?) Most of the warming years on record taking place since 2014. Because the earth is becoming too warm, ice glaciers are melting, coral reefs are dying and unexplained fires are burning the forests. If the ocean’s average temperature rises just two degrees Fahrenheit, then coral reefs will die. Coral reefs help by taking in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen. According to Smithsonian, the ocean produces 20% of the earth’s oxygen. (Kalila Morsink. Smithsonian. Ocean, find your blue.) Similar to coral reefs, trees help the earth by breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen. (Peter Wohlleben. The Hidden Life Of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret Life.) According to World Animal Protection, the Amazon creates 20% of the earth’s oxygen. Tragically, however, when trees are cut down all the carbon dioxide they were holding is released into the atmosphere. (Peter Wohlleben. The Hidden Life Of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret Life.)
The second impact of deforestation is the loss of plant and animal habitats. A habitat is a place where a particular species of organisms live. When deforestation happens, many animals lose their homes. According to The National Geographic, 80% of the earth’s plants and animals live in the forest; deforestation is killing off these plants and animals, threatening them to extinction. (Christina Nunez. National Geographic. Climate 101: Deforestation.) According to Scientific American, current tropical deforestation rates are 8.5% higher than the 1990s, and 80 thousand acres of rainforest is lost per day. (Scientific American. Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests.) Scientists believe we are losing 135 plant and animal species every day. (Meryl Westlake. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Plants in the Earth’s sixth extinction.) Since plants and animals are starting to die, ecosystems are falling apart. (David Lindenmayer. The conversation. Things fall apart: why do the ecosystems we depend on collapse.) Everyone and everything relies on predators and prey to keep the earth in balance. If there are too many prey in our world, then they would eat too many plants. If there are too many predators in the ecosystems, then there would not be enough prey to eat the plants.
For example, in 1995, scientists released fourteen wolves into Yellowstone National park. (Brodie Farquhar. Yellowstone National Park trips. Wolf Reintroducment Changes Ecosystem in Yellowstone.) The pack of wolves started to eat the deer, and so the deer population declined to a more natural level. The absence of the deer helped parts of the park to regrow. Since there were not as many deer eating away the plants, forests started to sprout. When the forests grew back, bugs and berries started to populate. Since the berries and bugs started to grow, the birds came back to eat them. Other species were attracted because the trees came back. Beavers moved in, and so the dams the beavers built provided habitats for reptiles and muskrats. The wolves also killed coyotes, as a result, mice, and rabbits populated. The rabbits and mice attracted hawks, foxes, ravens, eagles, badgers, and weasels. The Yellowstone ecosystem has flourished since the wolves were reintroduced and have returned to a more natural and healthier environment. Predators and prey balance each other, helping the earth thrive; this is why biodiversity is so important.
Another example of the major loss of animal habitat is happening in a part of South Asia where fifty orangutans are gruesomely killed every week. These apes live in the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, located in the rainforest of South-East Asia. (Rima Sonigara. Greenpeace. World Orangutan Day - 10 Furry Facts.) Orangutans live almost their whole lives in the trees, only going down from the trees for water. The orangutans are getting killed because people are burning down the rainforest for timber and also for the land to grow palm fruit. The apes most often perish in the fires from deforestation. (The Orangutan Project. Orangutan Facts.)
Not only are animals losing their homes and land, but indigenous people that live in the rainforest are as well. According to The World Health Organization, Indigenous populations are communities that live within, or are attached to, geographically distinct traditional habitats or ancestral territories, and who identify themselves as being part of a distinct cultural group, descended from groups present in the area before modern states were created and current borders defined. (World Health Organization. Indigenous populations.) Indigenous people get their food and shelter from the rainforest, but since the rainforest is being cut down they can not live in these places where they have lived for centuries. These communities are forced to relocate into cities and cultures that are foreign to them. Their way of life is being lost forever. According to Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, Millions of indigenous people live in tropical moist forests which covers some 3.6 million square miles in 70 countries. 80% of these forests are found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Venezuela, and Zaire. (Cultural Survival. Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine. Deforestation: The Human Costs.)
SOLUTIONS
This paper will now address possible solutions for the most common causes of deforestation: animal agriculture and palm oil production on an individual basis as well as governmental solutions.
PLANT-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS
Here are some ways individuals can help reduce deforestation due to animal agriculture. If you ate a vegan diet for one day, you would save 30 square feet of forest land which is used to house animals and grow their food. 1/6th of an acre of land per year is required to feed one vegan. It takes three times as much land for a vegetarian. A standard meat-eating diet takes eighteen times as much land a year than a plant-based diet to feed an omnivore. (Cowspiracy. Cowspiracy Facts. Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn.) According to Cowspiracy, if you eat a plant-based hamburger, you will save 95% more land than a meat-based burger. (Cowspiracy. Cowspiracy Facts. Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn.) If everyone stopped eating animals, deforestation would be greatly reduced.
Recently, there has been a movement that grass-fed beef consumption rates have become more popular in recent years due to animal welfare concerns as well as resulting in a higher quality of beef. Although, this is not a sustainable solution. The problem is, it is not sustainable to feed the number of people we have. If everyone who eats meat in the United States switched to grass-fed beef, every square inch of the United States alone with half of Canada, all of Central America, and half of South America would be needed to raise the animals. This is just to feed the United States. As the population is exploding, this is not a realistic option. (Cowspiracy. Cowspiracy Facts. Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn.)
There are also several solutions to the deforestation problem caused by palm oil production. You can help stop deforestation on an individual level by cutting out palm oil in your daily life. Check the labels on every item you buy, especially processed foods and body products. Companies know that palm oil is bad for the environment so they secretly hide palm oil under different names, such as vegetable oil, palm kernel oil, palm fruit oil, elaeis guineensis, palmitic acid, glycerin, and many more. (Melissa Breyers. Treehugger. 25 Sneaky Names for Palm Oil.) Furthermore, as I discussed above, individuals can stop eating meat because the livestock that you are eating is fed palm oil in their feed to help fatten them up.
Also, individuals can support environmental agencies that educate the public about the harmful effects of palm oil production. Examples are WWF, (World Wide Fund For Nature), Rainforest Alliance, GreenPeace, and Rainforest Action Network, which are a few organizations that cover this topic.
Also, you can educate yourself on which brands that do not use palm oil. Bunny Army is a website where they suggest brands that are animal and environmentally friendly. (Bunny Army, Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide. Sustainable Palm Oil: More to Buying Cruelty-Free. http://www.bunnyarmy.org/) Bunny Army also gives you a list of companies that use palm oil and how much sustainable versus unsustainable palm oil is in their products. Bunny Army also tells you how you can contact the companies via email or phone.
Furthermore, another way for an individual to help stop palm oil deforestation is by only buying RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certified products for those products that include palm oil. Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is a certification that companies can get if their products are made with palm oil that was grown on family-owned lands that did not require deforestation.
REDUCING FOOD WASTE
Another way you could help stop animal agriculture is by cutting down your amount of food waste. According to Aljazeera, 30% of the earth’s food production is being wasted. (Chris Arsenault. Aljazeera.) Just Eat It is a food waste movie that discusses how families waste so much food. (Jen Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin. Just Eat It.) Buy only what you can use. Freeze what you cannot.
GOVERNMENT AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL BASED SOLUTIONS
Governmental based solutions to help lessen deforestation due to animal agriculture is for environmental groups to start educating the public on the problem of animal agriculture deforestation. According to Michael Pollan, an environmental and food author, these groups are membership-based and do not want to scare off their supporters with something that seems radical to a meat-eating culture. Pollan says that environmental non-profits are businesses, and they do not want to appear too anti-meat. By challenging people’s habits, like meat-eating, they might lose donations. Although, many NGOs already acknowledge animal agriculture. Such as 1MillionWomen, PETA, (People for the Ethical Treatment.) Bunny Army, GreenPeace, and Cowspaircy. As organizations talk more about animal agriculture, our society will become more aware of solutions and start acting.
Here are some governmental based solutions to protect the Amazon rainforest, specifically in Brazil, as well as countries of Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Countries used to look up to Brazil for their environmental efforts, but recently, Brazil has not lived up to their previous reputation as environmental protectors. Ever since Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 Brazilian presidential victory, climate change and deforestation have largely been ignored. The president and his administration have gotten rid of environmental regulations, and have ended financial penalties and legal consequences for illegal clearing. (Leticia Casado and Ernesto Londono. The New York Times. Under Brazil’s Far-Right Leader, Amazon Protections Slashed and Forests Fall.)
Brazil covers a huge amount of land, they have used this land to grow many different crops, mine for petroleum and iron, and graze cattle for meat and dairy products. Since Brazil produces an abundance of food and products, other countries depend on Brazil’s products to use. Smaller counties that do not have the land to produce these products or countries that do not have the same natural resources or perhaps do not have the warm climate for tropical produce, purchase these items from Brazil. This situation combined with Brazil's current president who values economic growth over environmental protection has created a situation in which deforestation has greatly increased. Brazil has shipped over $224 billion worth of products around the world. According to the World’s Top Exports, China has currently spent $62.9 billion on Brazilian products. That is 28% of Brazilians total exports. The United States has bought $29.7 billion worth of productions from Brazil which is 13% total of Brazil’s exports. The Netherlands has spent $10 billion, making up 4.5% of Brazil’s exports, and Argentina $9.7 billion, with a total of 4.3% of Brazil's exported products. (Daniel Workman. World’s Top Exports. Brazil’s Top Exports.)
As long as other countries keep buying from Brazil, Brazil will be tempted to continue prioritizing deforestation over environmental protection. This is a very complicated issue, to help stop this global problem, governments need to sanction Brazil to pressure them into more environmentally friendly practices. Even if it means paying higher prices for meat, dairy, and other products, paying more money on your meat and dairy products is better than paying the price of deforestation, climate change, and eventually, the earth’s future.
Another global solution for deforestation due to animal agriculture is for countries to follow the example Norway has given. In 2016, Norway was the first country in history pledging to ban deforestation in their country. According to Good Nature Travel, the Norwegian government announced that Norwegians will not award any government contacts to companies that contribute to deforestation. Not only did Norway stop practicing deforestation, but they also gave $250 million to Guyana to protect their forests. The money was enough for four years, between 2011 and 2015. In 2008, Norway gave Brazil $1 billion to help stop deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Seven years later, in 2015, The South American continent saved around 33,000 square miles of forest, along with 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from polluting the atmosphere. No other countries have followed Norway’s example of completely stopping their deforestation to turn climate change around. (Candice Gaukel Andrews. Good Nature Travel. Norway Is The World’s First Nation To Ban Deforestation.)
On a larger scale, companies should have a plan to switch over to either other oils instead of palm oil or switch over to only using sustainable palm oil. The government could help these companies with some financial incentive for doing this conversion. According to BBC Environment, some businesses that use palm oil can oftentimes use an oil called microalgae. Microalgae are made in a lab and it is grown in a matter of days. This oil does not require deforestation to grow. Microalgae uses sunshine to combine water and carbon dioxide into oils. Special types of species of microalgae have extreme levels of these oils which then are taken out of the algae and used to produce biofuels, such as biodiesel. Solazyme is a California company that uses microalgae to make oils for biodiesel. (Frank Swain. FUTURE. How Do We Go Palm Oil Free?)
Another oil that can sometimes replace palm oil is mealworm oil. According to EarthBuddies, farmers tested mealworm oil in chicken’s feed. The chickens grew just as well as if they were fed with palm oil. The mealworm oil actually showed improvements in their meat. According to EarthBuddies, mealworm oil can be produced quicker than palm oil, and it does not take up as much land. Per year, 150 tons of mealworm oil can be produced on 2.4 acres of land and only four tons of palm oil can be produced on that same amount of land and time. Farmers create mealworm oil by grinding the worms. Then, they press the mealworms in a compressor to get the oil out. The oil then will be strained through many different processes for the oil to be used. This process includes heating and fermenting. (EarthBuddies. Mealworm Oil - A New Innovation To Fight Palm Oil’s Deforestation.) Even though this is not a vegan solution, it seems that this is a better alternative because mealworm oil does not need land, therefore, not cutting down the forest and not destroying animal and plant habitat. Mealworms can multiply easily, so extinction for the worms is not a concern.
CONCLUSION
My mother used to live in Venezuela. She spent some time in the Amazon rainforest. One time, driving down to Brazil, there would be miles of beautiful rainforest, full of life with tropical animals, birds, sounds, and smells. Suddenly, the lush growth would end and become barren. Life, green and moist, would be followed by death, burnt and dusty. This is where the land was being cleared for animal agriculture, palm oil, and many other foods. At our current rate of deforestation, the Amazon will be lost in fifty years. We need to start taking action before it is too late. The planet is in danger and we can only change this if we stop putting food on our plate and products in our home that causes deforestation.
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