{"id":92642,"date":"2017-05-22T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=92642"},"modified":"2017-05-19T19:22:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T18:22:31","slug":"agony-of-mother-earth-worlds-forests-depleted-for-fuel-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/05\/agony-of-mother-earth-worlds-forests-depleted-for-fuel-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Agony of Mother Earth: World\u2019s Forests Depleted for Fuel (II)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second of a two-part series on how humankind has been systematically destroying world\u2019s forests\u2014the real lungs of Mother Earth. Part I dealt with the relentless destruction of forests.<\/em><\/p>\n

19 May 2017<\/em> \u2013 Humankind is the biggest ever predator of natural resources. Just take the case of forests, the real lungs of Mother Earth, and learn that every 60 seconds humans cut down 15 hectares of trees primarily for food or energy production. And that as much as 45,000 hectares of rainforest are cleared for every million kilos of beef exported from South America.<\/p>\n

Should these figures not be enough, Monique Barbut, the executive-secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), also drew world\u2019s attention to the fact that \u201cwhen we take away the forest it is not just the trees that go\u2026 The entire ecosystem begins to fall apart\u2026 with dire consequences for us all\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbut, who provided these and other figures on the occasion of this year\u2019s International Day of Forests \u2013marked under the theme \u201cForestry and Energy\u201d\u2014 also reminded that deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for over 17 per cent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

UNCCD\u2019s chief is far from the only expert to sound the alarm\u2013the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that up to seven per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans come from the production and use of fuel-wood and charcoal.<\/p>\n

This happens largely due to unsustainable forest management and inefficient charcoal manufacture and fuel-wood combustion, according to The Charcoal Transition report published on the Day (March 21).<\/p>\n

Right \u2013 but the other relevant fact is that for more than two billion people worldwide, wood fuel means a cooked meal, boiled water for safe drinking, and a warm dwelling, as this specialised body\u2019s director-general Jos\u00e9 Graziano da Silva timely recalled.<\/p>\n

Poor People in Rural Areas<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is especially important for poor people in rural areas of developing countries, where wood is often the only energy source available.<\/p>\n

Regions with the greatest incidence of poverty, most notably in Sub-Saharan Africa and low income households in Asia, are also the most dependent on fuel-wood: \u201cNearly 90 per cent of all fuel wood and charcoal use takes place in developing countries, where forests are often the only energy source available to the rural poor,\u201d said Manoel Sobral Filho, Director of the UN Forum on Forests Secretariat.<\/p>\n

However, much of the current production of wood fuel is \u201cunsustainable,\u201d contributing significantly to the degradation of forests and soils and the emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, said Graziano da Silva. \u201cIn many regions the conversion to charcoal is often done using rudimentary and polluting methods.\u201d<\/p>\n

He urged countries to reverse these negative trends in wood energy production and use. \u201cWe need, for instance, to adopt improved technologies for energy conversion.\u201d Currently the organisation he leads while is participating in several programmes to deliver fuel-efficient stoves, especially for poor people in Latin America and Africa.<\/p>\n

In conflict and famine-struck South Sudan, the organisation and partners have already distributed more than 30,000 improved stoves.<\/p>\n

For his part, Fiji\u2019s president, Jioji Konousi Konrote, stressed, \u201cWe need to turn our attention to scaling up the transfer of renewable energy technologies, particularly for forest biomass, in order to ensure that developing countries are making use of these technologies and keep pace with growing energy demands in a sustainable manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government of Fiji is poised to assume the\u00a0presidency<\/a>\u00a0of the next\u00a0Conference of Parties of the UN Climate Agreement<\/a>\u00a0scheduled to take place in in Bonn, Germany, in November.<\/p>\n

1 in 3 People Wood-Fuel Dependent<\/strong><\/p>\n

The challenge is huge knowing that more than 2.4 billion people \u2013about one-third of the world\u2019s population\u2013 still rely on the traditional use of wood-fuel for cooking, and many small enterprises use fuel-wood and charcoal as the main energy carriers for various purposes such as baking, tea processing and brickmaking.<\/p>\n

Of all the wood used as fuel worldwide, about 17 per cent is converted to charcoal, according to The Charcoal Transition report. The point is when charcoal is produced using inefficient technologies and unsustainable resources, the emission of greenhouse gases can be as high as 9 kg carbon dioxide equivalent per 1 kg charcoal produced.<\/p>\n

The report highlights that in the absence of realistic and renewable alternatives to charcoal in the near future, in particular, in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, greening the charcoal value chain and applying sustainable forest management practices are essential for mitigating climate change while maintaining the access of households to renewable energy.<\/p>\n

Changing the way wood is sourced and charcoal is made offers a high potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it says, adding that a shift from traditional ovens or stoves to highly efficient modern kilns could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent. At the end-use level, a transition from traditional stoves to improved state-of-the-art stoves could reduce emissions by around 60 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWood based energy accounts for 27 per cent of the total primary energy supply in Africa, 13 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean and 5 per cent in Asia and Oceania,\u201d according to FAO estimates.<\/p>\n

Forests continue to be under threat from unsustainable use, environmental degradation, rapid urbanisation, population growth, and the impacts of climate change. Between 2010 and 2015, global forest area saw a net decrease of 3.3 million hectares per year.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Baher Kamal, Egyptian-born, Spanish national secular journalist. He is founder and publisher of\u00a0<\/em>Human Wrongs Watch<\/a>. Kamal is a pro-peace, non-violence, human rights, harmonious coexistence defender among human beings and with Nature, with more than 43 years of professional experience. With these issues in sight, he covered practically all professional posts, from correspondent to chief editor of dailies and international news agencies.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 other-news.info<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Humankind is the biggest ever predator of natural resources. Just take the case of forests, the real lungs of Mother Earth, and learn that every 60 seconds humans cut down 15 hectares of trees primarily for food or energy production. And that as much as 45,000 hectares of rainforest are cleared for every million kilos of beef exported from South America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}