Deforestation as a Form of Green Criminology - Essay Example

College: Green Criminology Deforestation as a form of green criminology Green crimes may simply be defined as crimes against the environment. Green criminology is the study of harmful acts (or omissions) relating to the environment which may be criminalised or regulated by law, or may not be subject to regulation at all. These Acts will be measured by the harm that they cause to identifiable victims. There are four main primary categories of green crimes in which the environment becomes degraded through human actions all of which have become the subject of legislative efforts. These new categories are crimes of air pollution, crimes of deforestation, crimes of species decline and against animal rights, and crimes of water pollution. Crimes of deforestation Our area of consideration will focus on deforestation a category of green crime and we subject it to green criminology test. Deforestation as a crime against environment can be defined as the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non forest use for example conversion of forestland to agriculture or urban use. Deforestation is often misused to include any activity where all trees in an area are removed but in temperate climates, the removal of all trees in an area in conformance with sustainable forestry practices is correctly described as regeneration harvest (Butler, 2009). People engage in deforestation for many reasons but the removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity it also causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations. Disregard or ignorance of the value, weak forest management and lack of environmental laws are some of the factors that contribute to deforestation. deforestation has a number of causes, including corruption of government institutions, the inequitable distribution of wealth and power, population growth and overpopulation, and urbanization. Globalization is viewed as another root cause of deforestation. In 2000 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that deforestation can result from "a combination of population pressure and stagnating economic, social and technological conditions. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, the direct cause of deforestation is agriculture. The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Many important forest functions have no markets, and hence, no economic value that is readily apparent to the forests' owners or the communities that rely on forests for their well-being. From the perspective of the developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services. Developing countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America, cut down their forests centuries ago and benefited greatly from this deforestation, and that it is hypocritical to deny developing countries the same opportunities that the poor shouldn't have to bear the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem. This is one of the major problems with green crimes where the developed nations are reluctant in implementing them (Patel-Weynand, 2002). 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 lead to further deforestation. New crimes and criminals here would include those who deal in the destruction of rainforests and valuable lands; those who exploit natural resources for their own ends; and ‘black markets’ that develop around the sale of many of these valuable commodities. An example of a new kind of environmental crime may be the use of herbicidal chemical sprays against certain plant crops, which has damaged more than just the original targets: and lead to contamination of the food chain and water-table, a variety of health problems, birth defects, stillbirths, and so on. Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and major cause’s greenhouse effect. Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deforestation could account for one-third of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Trees and other plants remove carbon from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis and release oxygen back into the atmosphere during normal respiration. In order for forests to take up carbon, the wood must be harvested and turned into long-lived products and trees must be re-planted. Deforestation may cause carbon stores held in soil to be released. Forests are stores of carbon and can be either sinks or sources depending upon environmental circumstances (Butler, 2009). Forests are also able to extract carbon dioxide and pollutants from the air, thus contributing to biosphere stability Deforestation affects water cycle. Trees extract groundwater through their roots and release it into the atmosphere. When part of a forest is removed, the trees no longer evaporate away this water, resulting in a much drier climate. Deforestation reduces the content of water in the soil and groundwater as well as atmospheric moisture it also reduces soil cohesion, so that erosion, flooding and landslides ensue. Shrinking forest cover lessens the landscape's capacity to intercept, retain and transpire precipitation. Instead of trapping precipitation, which then percolates to groundwater systems, deforested areas become sources of surface water runoff, which moves much faster than subsurface flows. It also decreases evapotranspiration, which lessens atmospheric moisture which affects precipitation levels in some cases. Tree roots bind soil together, and if the soil is sufficiently shallow they act to keep the soil in place by also binding with underlying bedrock. Tree removal on steep slopes with shallow soil thus increases the risk of landslides, which can threaten people living nearby. Deforestation results in declines in biodiversity. The removal or destruction of areas of forest cover has resulted in a degraded environment with reduced biodiversity. Forests support biodiversity, providing habitat for wildlife, forests foster medicinal conservation thus deforestation can destroy genetic variations (Patel-Weynand, 2002). In controlling deforestation various methods have been developed to farm more intensively which include high-yield hybrid crops, greenhouse, autonomous building gardens, and hydroponics. Other farming methods aimed at reducing deforestation are cyclic agriculture, where cattle are grazed on farm land that is rejuvenating. Cyclic agriculture actually increases the fertility of the soil. Intensive farming can also decrease soil nutrients by consuming at an accelerated rate the trace minerals needed for crop growth .a better way is through the concept of food forests in permaculture, which consists of agro forest systems designed to imitate natural forests, with an emphasis on plant and animal species of interest for food, timber and other uses. These systems have low dependence on fossil fuels and agro-chemicals, are highly self-maintaining, highly productive, and with strong positive impact on soil and water quality, and biodiversity. Another method vital in controlling deforestation is Monitoring which includes “visual interpretation of aerial photos or satellite imagery and hot-spot analysis using expert opinion or coarse resolution satellite data to identify locations for detailed digital analysis with high resolution satellite images. More important is the issue of quantifying the damage and its possible consequences and this is the main reason why deforestation rate and total area deforested have been used for monitoring deforestation in many regions. There are Efforts to stop or slow deforestation by using policies designed to prevent conflicts between short-term gains from converting forest to farmland and long-term problems forest loss would cause, long-term planning to stop and even reverse deforestation through substituting timber by other products and more efficient use of land that had been farmed for many centuries and silviculture. 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. Reforestation and afforestation helps in increasing the area of forested lands as well as changing precipitation patterns due to climate change. This would be done by identifying where precipitation is projected to increase and setting up reforestation projects in these locations. To meet the world's demand for wood, high yielding forest plantations are suitable. Thus countries are encouraged to develop forest plantations. People should be criminally or liable to environmental offenses without necessarily to prove mens rea. In cases of corporations they are deemed to be a separate legal person, acting in their own right and because the they needs others to think and act, they cannot be guilty of a criminal offence Corporate wrongdoing pays, because the structured criminogenic nature of the corporation is almost always avoided in cases where real people are actually prosecuted, laws are to provide specifically that managers or any other person who knew of the crime is to be made liable and prosecuted (Butler, 2009). There are some charitable organizations aimed at preventing deforestation an example is The Arbor Day Foundation's Rain Forest Rescue program which is a charity that helps to prevent deforestation. It uses donated money to buy up and preserve rainforest land before the lumber companies can buy it. The Arbor Day Foundation then protects the land from deforestation. This also locks in the way of life of the primitive tribes living on the forest land. Organizations such as Community Forestry International, Cool Earth, The Nature Conservancy, World Wide Fund for Nature, Conservation International, African Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace also focus on preserving forest habitats. Major international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Bank, have begun to develop programs for reducing the danger of deforestation through reducing emissions by a slogan going by name Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). It uses monetary incentives to encourage developing countries roll back deforestation. During the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties-15 in Copenhagen in December 2009 (Copenhagen Accord of 18 December 2009". UNFCC. 2009), an accord was reached with a collective commitment by developed countries for new and additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions for funding. There is devising of tools for use in monitoring developing country adherence to their agreed REDDS targets the tools rely on remote forest monitoring using satellite imagery and other data sources, including the Center for Global Development's FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action) initiative and the Group on Earth Observations' Forest Carbon Tracking Portal. Conclusion Deforestation is one of the key areas of environmental crimes caused by various human activities some of which are commercial and others not. It has numerous adverse effects on the environment if not curbed or sustainable methods of exploitation put in place. The fight against deforestation has also not been spared by the mayhem of developing countries being used as dump sites and as the ones expected to show much of the compliance while the developed countries stand aside. To be able to prevent this crime from taking root there must be management strategies put in place as well as effective laws without loopholes like the requirement of mensrea (Patel-Weynand ,2002) . References Patel-Weygand, Toral 2002 Biodiversity and sustainable forestry: State of the science review. The National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry, Washington DC Butler, Rhett A 2009 "Impact of Population and Poverty on Rainforests". A Place Out of Time: Tropical Rainforests and the Perils They Face. Susanna B Hecht, Susan Kandel, Ileana Gomes, Nelson Cuellar and Herman Rosa 2006 “Globalization, Forest Resurgence and Environmental Politics in El Salvador World Development Vol. 34, No. 2. pp. 308–323. Frederic Achard, Hugh D Eva, Hans-Jurgen Stibig, Philippe Mayaux "Determination of deforestation rates of the world's humid tropical forests." Science 297:5583: pp. 999-1003(2002) Silvio Ferraz. "Using indicators of deforestation and land use dynamics to support conservation strategies: Forest Ecology and Management. (2009) Read More

 

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