Deforestation in the 21st century

When it comes to cutting down trees, satellite data reveals a shift from the patterns
of the past

Globally, roughly 13 million hectares of forest are destroyed each year. Such
deforestation has long been driven by farmers desperate to earn a living or by
loggers building new roads into pristine forest. But now new data appears to show
that big, block clearings that reflect industrial deforestation have come to dominate,
rather than these smaller-scale efforts that leave behind long, narrow swaths of
cleared land. Geographer Ruth DeFries of Columbia University and her colleagues
used satellite images to analyse tree-clearing in countries ringing the tropics,
representing 98 per cent of all remaining tropical forest. Instead of the usual ‘fish
bone' signature of deforestation from small-scale operations, large, chunky blocks of
cleared land reveal a new motive for cutting down woods.

In fact, a statistical analysis of 41 countries showed that forest loss rates were most
closely linked with urban population growth and agricultural exports in the early
part of the 21st century - even overall population growth was not as strong an
influence. ‘In previous decades, deforestation was associated with planned
colonisation, resettlement schemes in local areas and farmers clearing land to grow
food for subsistence,' DeFries says. ‘What we’re seeing now is a shift from small-
scale farmers driving deforestation to distant demands from urban growth,
agricultural trade and exports being more important drivers.’

In other words, the increasing urbanisation of the developing world, as populations

leave rural areas to concentrate in booming cities, is driving deforestation, rather
than containing it. Coupled with this there is an ongoing increase in consumption in
the developed world of products that have an impact on forests, whether furniture,
shoe leather or chicken feed. ‘One of the really striking characteristics of this
century is urbanisation and rapid urban growth in the developing world,’ DeFries
says, ‘People in cities need to eat.’ ‘There’s no surprise there,’ observes Scott
Poynton, executive director of the Tropical Forest Trust, a Switzerland-based
organisation that helps businesses implement and manage sustainable forestry in
countries such as Brazil, Congo and Indonesia. ‘It’s not about people chopping down
trees. It's all the people in New York, Europe and elsewhere who want cheap
products, primarily food.’

D
Dearies argues that in order to help sustain this increasing urban and global
demand, agricultural productivity will need to be increased on lands that have
already been cleared. This means that better crop varieties or better management
techniques will need to be used on the many degraded and abandoned lands in the
tropics. And the Tropical Forest Trust is building management systems to keep
illegally harvested wood from ending up in, for example, deck chairs, as well as
expanding its efforts to look at how to reduce the ‘forest footprint’ of agricultural
products such as palm oil. Poynton says, ‘The point is to give forests value as forests,
to keep them as forests and give them a use as forests. They’re not going to be
locked away as national parks. That’s not going to happen.’

But it is not all bad news. Halts in tropical deforestation have resulted in forest
regrowth in some areas where tropical lands were previously cleared. And forest
clearing in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest, dropped from roughly 1.9
million hectares a year in the 1990s to 1.6 million hectares a year over the last
decade, according to the Brazilian government. 'We know that deforestation has
slowed down in at least the Brazilian Amazon,’ DeFries says. ‘Every place is
different. Every country has its own particular situation, circumstances and driving
forces.’

Regardless of this, deforestation continues, and cutting down forests is one of the
largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity - a double blow
that both eliminates a biological system to suck up C02 and creates a new source of
greenhouse gases in the form of decaying plants. The United Nations Environment
Programme estimates that slowing such deforestation could reduce some 50 billion
metric tons of C02, or more than a year of global emissions. Indeed, international
climate negotiations continue to attempt to set up a system to encourage this,
known as the UN Development Programme’s fund for reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD). If policies
[like REDD] are to be effective, we need to understand what the driving forces are
behind deforestation, DeFries argues. This is particularly important in the light of
new pressures that are on the horizon: the need to reduce our dependence on fossil
fuels and find alternative power sources, particularly for private cars, is forcing
governments to make products such as biofuels more readily accessible. This will
only exacerbate the pressures on tropical forests.

But millions of hectares of pristine forest remain to protect, according to this new
analysis from Columbia University. Approximately 60 percent of the remaining
tropical forests are in countries or areas that currently have little agricultural trade
or urban growth. The amount of forest area in places like central Africa, Guyana and
Suriname, DeFries notes, is huge. ‘There’s a lot of forest that has not yet faced these
pressures.’

Questions 1-6
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

NB: You may use any letter more than once.

1 two ways that farming activity might be improved in the future

2 reference to a fall in the rate of deforestation in one area

3 the amount of forest cut down annually

4 how future transport requirements may increase deforestation levels

5 a reference to the typical shape of early deforested areas

6 key reasons why forests in some areas have not been cut down

Questions 7-8
Choose TWO letters, A-E.

Which TWO of these reasons do experts give for current patterns of deforestation?

A to provide jobs

B to create transport routes

C to feed city dwellers

D to manufacture low-budget consumer items

E to meet government targets

Questions 9-10
Choose TWO letters, A-E.

The list below gives some of the impacts of tropical deforestation.

Which TWO of these results are mentioned by the writer of the text?
A local food supplies fall

B soil becomes less fertile

C some areas have new forest growth

D some regions become uninhabitable

E local economies suffer

Questions 11-13
Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for
each answer.

11 The expression ‘a ..............................’ is used to assess the amount of wood used in

certain types of production.

12 Greenhouse gases result from the .............................. that remain after trees have
been cut down.

13 About .............................. of the world’s tropical forests have not experienced

deforestation yet.

Passage 2
Australian culture and culture shock

Sometimes work, study or an sense of adventure take us out of our familiar

surroundings to go and live in a different culture. The experience can be difficult,
even shocking.

Almost everyone who studies, lives or works abroad has problems adjusting to a
new culture. This response is commonly referred to as 'culture shock'. Culture shock
can be defined as 'the physical and emotional discomfort a person experiences when
entering a culture different from their own' (Weaver, 1993).

For people moving to Australia, Price (2001) has identified certain values which
may give rise to culture shock. Firstly, he argues that Australians place a high value
on independence and personal choice. This means that a teacher or course tutor will
not tell students what to do, but will give them a number of options and suggest they
work out which one is the best in their circumstances. It also means that they are
expected to take action if something goes wrong and seek out resources and support
for themselves.
Australians are also prepared to accept a range of opinions rather than believing
there is one truth. This means that in an educational setting, students will be
expected to form their own opinions and defend the reasons for that point of view
and the evidence for it.

Price also comments that Australians are uncomfortable with differences in status
and hence idealise the idea of treating everyone equally. An illustration of this is that
most adult Australians call each other by their first names. This concern with
equality means that Australians are uncomfortable taking anything too seriously
and are even ready to joke about themselves.

Australians believe that life should have a balance between work and leisure time.
As a consequence, some students may be critical of others who they perceive as
doing nothing but study.

Australian notions of privacy mean that areas such as financial matters, appearance
and relationships are only discussed with close friends. While people may volunteer
such information, they may resent someone actually asking them unless the
friendship is firmly established. Even then, it is considered very impolite to ask
someone what they earn. With older people, it is also rude to ask how old they are,
why they are not married or why they do not have children. It is also impolite to ask
people how much they have paid for something, unless there is a very good reason
for asking.

Kohls (1996) describes culture shock as a process of change marked by four basic
stages. During the first stage, the new arrival is excited to be in a new place, so this is
often referred to as the "honeymoon" stage. Like a tourist, they are intrigued by all
the new sights and sounds, new smells and tastes of their surroundings. They may
have some problems, but usually they accept them as just part of the novelty. At this
point, it is the similarities that stand out, and it seems to the newcomer that people
everywhere and their way of life are very much alike. This period of euphoria may
last from a couple of weeks to a month, but the letdown is inevitable.

During the second stage, known as the 'rejection' stage, the newcomer starts to
experience difficulties due to the differences between the new culture and the way
they were accustomed to living. The initial enthusiasm turns into irritation,
frustration, anger and depression, and these feelings may have the effect of people
rejecting the new culture so that they notice only the things that cause them trouble,
which they then complain about. In addition, they may feel homesick, bored,
withdrawn and irritable during this period as well.

Fortunately, most people gradually learn to adapt to the new culture and move on to
the third stage, known as 'adjustment and reorientation'. During this stage a
transition occurs to a new optimistic attitude. As the newcomer begins to
understand more of the new culture, they are able to interpret some of the subtle
cultural clues which passed by unnoticed earlier. Now things make more sense and
the culture seems more familiar. As a result, they begin to develop problem-solving
skills, and feelings of disorientation and anxiety no longer affect them.

In Kohls's model, in the fourth stage, newcomers undergo a process of adaptation.

They have settled into the new culture, and this results in a feeling of direction and
self-confidence. They have accepted the new food, drinks, habits and customs and
may even find themselves enjoying some of the very customs that bothered them so
much previously. In addition, they realise that the new culture has good and bad
things to offer and that no way is really better than another, just different.

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading
passage?

Write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

1 Australian teachers will suggest alternatives to students rather than offer one
solution.

2 In Australia, teachers will show interest in students’ personal circumstances.

3 Australians use people’s first names so that everyone feels their status is similar.

4 Students who study all the time may receive positive comments from their
colleagues.

5 It is acceptable to discuss financial issues with people you do not know well.

6 Younger Australians tend to be friendlier than older Australians.