Interview

This interview was conducted with Elizabeth McGovern a science teacher of biology for the Worcester Public School System.

The latest statistics prove that rainforest land converted to cattle operations yields the landowner $60 per acre; if timber is harvested, the land is worth $400 per acre. However, if medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, rubber, chocolate, and other renewable and sustainable resources are harvested, the land will yield the landowner $2,400 per acre. With this being a fact why do you believe deforestation still takes place?

-Unfortunately the timber industry has brainwashed people into believing that they can make money by cutting down trees and farming the land, when in fact it is the timber industry who make the largest portion of the money. Also most of the poor only know how to farm, they have not been trained in harvesting the land for sustainable crops.

One way each and every person in the United States can take part in this solution to save the rainforests is by helping to create a consumer market and demand for sustainable rainforest products. Do you know of any other ways people of the United Stated can help save the rainforests?

-By refusing to purchase wood that is taken from the rain forest. Also by only buying goods that are made from sustainable rainforest products and refusing to by good that are not.

                                                    

Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. How do you believe the world would be impacted without rainforests?

-The rainforests are the earth’s lungs, that is to say after the ocean they are the largest carbon dioxide sink and they give back oxygen. Because they are mostly found in the tropics this happens year round.

More than half of the world's estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests. One-fifth of the world's fresh water is in the Amazon Basin. What impact does deforestation have on not only these species and water base but the rest of the world?

-There is the possibility that one of those species could be a plant that could cure cancer or heart disease. Without these plants possible cures would never be found.

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rainforest. Twenty-five percent of the active ingredients in today's cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest. What do you know about the benefits of the rainforest when it comes to making medical drugs?

-I know that the breast cancer drug taxol is made from yew trees that are found only in the temperate rain forest of the Pacific northwest.

Tom Lovejoy, who now runs the Heinz Foundation, initial work focused on traditional academic study, such as bird banding has done more work than most popularizing the cause of the Amazon, both internationally and within Brazil. He has done many things to help the Amazon, one of the more popular things he did was write the article “Highway to Extinction” which questioned the construction of the TransAmazon Highway. What do you believe other foundations run by big corporations can do to help the rainforests?

-I think that they should ban the use of any non sustainable resource taken from the rainforest. Also as Lovejoy did these corporations should publicize what is happening in the rainforests and what can be done to change it. 

Restoration seeks to remove the pressures which are altering or removing the rainforests, and then deliberately manage the forest that remains in such a way as to encourage natural self-repair by the ecosystem. Do you think there is enough restoration taking place or do you think more should be taking place?

-There should be more. Presently there is more restoration taking place then in the past but more is needed.

Deforestation can also trigger global climate change by altering atmospheric circulation patterns (via changes in the earth’s latent heat flux) and altering atmospheric chemistry (via changes in greenhouse gases). What do you know about the correlation between deforestation and global warming?

-As I mentioned earlier the rainforest is the second largest co2 sink, if it goes then the level or atmospheric co2 will rise tremendously. This is a big correlation to global warming because greenhouse gases cause global warming and 72% of greenhouse gas emissions are co2.

All forms of life within the rainforest are highly interdependent, so that even small changes in the habitat or species can have serious knock-on effects throughout the ecosystem. With that being said how does the extinction of a specie or the clearing of certain trees negatively affect other species?

-It will interfere with the food web, once one chain within the web is gone the entire web can collapse. This can cause more species to go extinct which will just continue this trend.  

To end deforestation a wide variety of solutions have been suggested, including more research and development on tropical resources, more and better educated about the forests, more and better forest conservation and restoration schemes, more widespread use of debt-for-nature swaps, increased commodity prices for and import restrictions on timber, and increased co-operation between to seek viable and sustainable uses of the rainforest. What do you think works/will work best to end deforestation?

-Education! If more people become aware of how this can affect them then they may start to do something about it.