“Life On Land”

How to Help Natural Capital

Benjamin Jacobs

BADM 460 – Business and Society

Professor Laurie Pragne-Martin

February 1, 2021

Executive Summary

A massive problem humanity is facing right now is deforestation.  The United Nations has established that this is a serious issue with “Life on Land”.  Deforestation has become a massive elephant in the room for this issue.  Despite some progress being done, this is still a major issue.

Looking through some of the basic issues, major ones are in the Amazon with the fires as well as Bolsonaro’s anti-environment rhetoric being a major issue regarding the fate of the Amazon rainforest (Amigo, 2020), an incredibly important ecosystem on Earth.  Another problem is that deforestation consists of four major offenders: lumber, cattle, soybeans, and palm oil (2016).

How to combat this issue is through hosting tree-planting events, regulating major offenders in deforestation, and finally, closely monitoring the Amazon rainforest.  Implementing these solutions will take time though.  The first solution will require a budget, schedule, location, and scope for hosting the events.  The second solution requires knowledge of how much of each product is being produced on which land, as well as if it is possible to do something such as quantity ceilings for each of the industries.  Finally, the last solution needs to have how many acres of land was lost in the rainforest, how much needs to be restored, as well as if there needs to be intervention if Bolsonaro’s stance on the Amazon rainforest is too neglectful.

Overall, in order to make sure that the impact on deforestation is minimalized as much as possible in order to help the United Nations’ Life on Land goal, there needs to be regulation, volunteers to help restore damaged ecosystems, and monitoring from the government of the world’s most vital ecosystems.

Problem

There needs to be an acknowledgement about what issues .  The problem with the Life on Land issue is that there are scarce resources due to deforestation, as well as many species have been going extinct.  According to the United Nations, six important points about this issue are: 1.6 billion of the global population’s income are dependent on forests; over 80% of all terrestrial species live in 80% of the Earth’s forests; agriculture is what 2.6 billion people around the world are dependent on; by 2030, a third of carbon dioxide reductions could be solved by 33% nature-based solutions; compared to human livelihoods and well-being, the ecosystems on the planet are worth US$125 trillion per year; 60-80% of fresh water is provided by 60-80% of Earth’s mountain regions (n.d.).

Deforestation is a massive issue because it strips the land of resources and gets rid of trees that help pump oxygen into the air.  However, so far, there is some progress, with goals being made that can grow more vegetation, such as growing the farming industry in Sudan and growing more vegetation in Nepal.  According to the United Nations Development Programme, progress in the Nepal plan says that there has been a plan in Nepal to help restore its environment during the hard hit the economy took from the pandemic, and so far about 7000 trees have been planted alone (2020).  The major offenders of these are: beef cattle, soybeans, lumber, and palm oil (2016).

PESTEL

Political

Political factors regarding this issue derive from Brazil and its government’s connection to regulating the Amazon forest.  Back in 2019, there have been massive forest fires in the Amazon, having the area lose about 7200 square miles (Borunda, 2019).  In 2020, it was revealed that the previous year, there has also been a massive spike in deforestation by 30%, possibly from an anti-environmentalist rhetoric of Jair Bolsonaro (Amigo, 2020).

Environmental

Greenhouse gases have been holding steady since the 1990s despite the growing economy and population (Kamarck, 2019).  Since February of 2020, there has been a decline in greenhouse gas emissions, however (n.d.).  

Not only that, but there are still areas that are very at risk for deforestation.  According to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, some areas that are at most risk are Amazon, Borneo, and East Australia; keep in mind, these are not the only areas that are at extreme risk from deforestation (Schwartz, 2015).

Socio-Cultural

The public’s views on climate change is overall becoming more and more heard.  This is becoming an increasing issue amongst the public.  Especially within the last few years, there have been climate strikes and the How Dare You given to the United Nations by Greta Thunberg, it is safe to say that the public’s concern regarding climate change has been exponential growing within 5 years.  So of course, the general public is going to be very concerned towards the idea of deforestation and extinction of wildlife.

Another thing that is important to consider is what has been shown about the general public’s opinion for deforestation.  It’s said that 87% of citizens in a poll demand that there is strict regulation for manufacturing products that involve deforestation in the product’s manufacturing process (2019).

Overall, it is safe to say that the public’s opinion about these issues would be strongly against it since there is an ever-growing awareness about environmental issues such as climate change, so it will be natural for the attitudes of deforestation held by the general public to be similar in nature.

Technological

So far, there have been several innovations in technology regarding helping the environment.  There have been some options, such as smart grids and solar glass (Nichols, 2019).  Not only that, but demand for renewable energy has increased by 1.5% during the first quarter of 2020.  Smart grids are basically grids that deliver energy in a more efficient and environmental-friendly way (n.d.).  They can also provide better recovery for power disturbances and lower electricity rates.  Another alternative would be solar glass.  Which allows to convert the solar rays to electricity (n.d.). How this can help the goal of life on land is that it can reduce any type of energy that requires any sort of tearing down trees.  Overall, these options are not the end-all be-all options, these would be good options to start regarding what technology could be used to reduce any kind of non-environmental-friendly practices.

Economic

Negative impacts that this can have on the economy is that in tourism.  Outside of wildlife, another important factor that could have just as much weight in this discussion about this particular issue is the tourism industry (n.d.).  In areas like South America, people would want to see places like the Amazon rainforest, but with deforestation, people would be less compelled to with the destruction of its ecosystems, harming its wildlife.

Legal

A good place to start regarding any legal-based factors or solutions to this that can be a good place to start is that there has been progress for regulating forestation in Canada.  For example, what Canada has done to prevent this issue is provide wildlife protection, and establish forest regrow practices (Government of Canada, 2020).

Potential Solutions

Important part of the solution is that it needs to destroy the issue caused by the cause.  This boils down to helping the issue with the four major offenders regarding deforestation: wood products, palm oil, soybeans, and beef cattle (2016).

To start, one example can be to start tree planting events in places that are at risk for deforestation.  This can help prevent these lands of their natural resources, as well as making sure that these lands will keep from being depleted of important resources.

Another would be regulations in places where these markets are strong.  This can help ease the effects deforestation has, and will help improve the current conditions these ecosystems are at risk to.

Finally, regarding the massive elephant in the room, one more solution would be to keep a close look on Amazon.  This is because with everything that it has faced within the last few years, it is important to make sure to keep a keen eye on Amazon so that problems do not escalate.

Evaluation

The tree planting program has already been considered successful as an operation to fight climate change.  So of course, it can only be natural for it to help the problem of deforestation.  Not only that, but trees are the pillar of an ecosystem.  They take carbon dioxide, and pump oxygen into the air.  So it would be natural that there will be consequences when they start to be taken down (n.d.).

Regarding the regulation suggestion, it seems that there would be no objection for the public.  Already, there has been demand for regulations on any products that require deforestation in their manufacturing process (2019).  So far, Canada has been successful with implementing these regulations with wildlife and tree harvesting (Government of Canada, 2020).  So far, there has been some progress made, as of 2018, the amount of deforestation has decreased from 64 to 34.3 thousand hectares of land (Government of Canada, 2020).  So it is safe to say that there is success with this plan.

Implementation

Tree-Planting Events

In order to implement this program, there needs to be important consideration from budgeting, locations, and timing.  To start there needs to be a negotiation of how much are any potential sponsors willing to pay for these events, how many people are willing to participate, as well as how much land is in need of forestation.

So, to start, it would be necessary to create a schedule for these events being hosted.  This is because there will be an understanding of how much time is needed for these events to be held, and so there can be time to organize the resources and budget necessary to host an event.

One example of how a schedule for hosting these events could happen could be organized like this:

Figure 1

Hypothetical Timeline for Organizing a Tree-Planting Event

Regulations

To start with the solution of regulation is that we should start at where this is prominent.  A good place to start is look at what Canada is doing with their regulations.  So far, Canada has been doing four important things to combat deforestation (Government of Canada, 2020).

There needs to be addressing quotas or any type of ceiling.  For example, companies cannot take more than 1000 trees within a month.  Tying back into the tree-planting events, an idea could be that if an area has a certain amount of hectares that has been deforested, allow some time to plant more trees in the area, and then give it some time for the trees to grow, and then allow lumber companies to use the forest again for wood products.

It is not just the lumber industry that should be managed as well, three more industries should be handled as well: beef cattle, palm oil, and soybeans (2016).  Starting with soybeans, these beans help reduce the need of nitrogen fertilizers.  Not only that, but its demand has increased significantly in the past 20 years, with a portion of this demand deeriving from cultivating it in places like the Amazon in order to meet the demand of consumers (2015).  So regarding the production of soybeans and its impact on deforestation, what needs to be done is more of a strategy of where people will be allowed to grow soybeans in order to minimize its impact on deforestation.  Palm oil can be regulated by looking at which countries grow the resources necessary to produce it.  Overall, some important locations that are very vital in this issue are Indonesia and Malaysia (2016).  What needs to happen is make sure that there is something like a quantity ceiling for how much is produced in these countries to make sure that palm oil production’s impact is at a minimum.  Finally, beef cattle’s contribution to deforestation is through methane and nitrous oxide, as well as soybeans being a primary part of their diet (2016).  So it needs to be addressed that there needs to be some regulation regarding the cattle industry in locations that are in ecosystems such as forests.  To start, there should be some form of monitoring of both the diet and how much cattle is being bred.

Amazon Monitoring

The Amazon is an extremely important ecosystem for the Earth, so of course, it is extremely important that it does not die out completely.  Overall, to start would be to analyze what type of protocols that Bolsonaro is doing regarding its protection.  If what Bolsonaro is doing is not enough or simply put, all of his policies regarding the environment are extremely neglectful, then there should be some type of intervention by other countries.  So in order to implement monitoring of the Amazon, there should be variables of how many hectares have been taken down, how much has been restored, and finally if there are any programs or events where people plan to plant trees in wherever is temporarily barren in the Amazon Rainforest.

Conclusion

To summarize, a massive issue that people face right now is the deforestation of land and putting many species of wildlife at risk.  So to combat that, something such as tree-planting events and regulations are good solutions to help fight these current issues.

References

Amigo, I. (2020, February 25). When will the Amazon hit a tipping point? Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00508-4.

Beef Cattle. Union of Concerned Scientists. (2016, January 15). https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/beef-cattle.

Borunda, A. (2019, August 29). See how much of the Amazon is burning, how it compares to other years. Environment. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/amazon-fires-cause-deforestation-graphic-map/.

Economy. Deforestation. http://deforestationapes.weebly.com/economy.html.

Fern. (2020, September 9). Poll shows broad citizen support for regulating products that drive deforestation. Fern. https://www.fern.org/publications-insight/poll-shows-broad-citizen-support-for-regulating-products-that-drive-deforestation-1968/.

Goal 15: Life on land. https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-15-life-on-land.html.

Goal 15: Life on Land. The Global Goals. https://www.globalgoals.org/15-life-on-land.

Government of Canada. (2018). Estimated area (hectares) of annual deforestation in Canada, by industrial sector, 1990 to 2018.  Government of Canada.

Iea. Global energy and CO2 emissions in 2020 – Global Energy Review 2020 – Analysis. IEA. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020.

IEA, Rate of change of global primary energy demand, 1900-2020, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/rate-of-change-of-global-primary-energy-demand-1900-2020.

Kamarck, E. (2019, September 23). The challenging politics of climate change. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-challenging-politics-of-climate-change/.

Natural Resources Canada, N. R. (2020, June 29). Government of Canada. Natural Resources Canada. https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/sustainable-forest-management/canadas-forest-laws/17497.

Natural Resources Canada. (2020, December 16). Government of Canada. Natural Resources Canada. https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/state-canadas-forests-report/how-much-forest-does-canada-have/indicator-deforestation-afforestation/16546.

Natural Resources Canada. (2020, June 29). Government of Canada. Natural Resources Canada. https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/sustainable-forest-management/canadas-forest-laws/17497.

Palm Oil. Union of Concerned Scientists. (2016, January 18). https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/palm-oil.

Public Broadcasting Service. Independent Lens . TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai . Benefits of Planting Trees. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/takingroot/benefits.html.

Schwartz, J. (2015, April 27). 11 of the world’s most threatened forests. WWF. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/11-of-the-world-s-most-threatened-forests.

Smart Grid: The Smart Grid. Smart Grid: The Smart Grid | SmartGrid.gov. (2019, December 16). https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid/smart_grid.html.

Solar glass: a clean and transparent energy. IMNOVATION. https://www.imnovation-hub.com/energy/solar-glass-a-window-to-the-future-of-energy/.

Soybeans. Union of Concerned Scientists. (2015, October 9). https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/soybeans.

UN Development Programme. (2020, October 7). Nepal begins a green recovery. Medium. https://undp.medium.com/nepal-begins-a-green-recovery-3f62e6ed694d.

What’s Driving Deforestation? Union of Concerned Scientists.  (2016, February 8). https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation.

Appendix

Graphs

Figure 2

Estimated Area (Hectares) of Annual Deforestation in Canada, by Industrial Sector, 1990 to 2018

Note.  This determines how many hectares of land has been used for deforestation, and the colors within each line differentiates how much was used for what reason.

Figure 3

Rate of Change of Global Primary Energy Demand, 1900-2020