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1. READ THE MANDATORY ARTICLE FROM MR. FAIZ             

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1. READ THE MANDATORY ARTICLE FROM MR. FAIZ             

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2. READ AT LEAST 2 ADDITIONAL ARTICLES.

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Overview: Deforestation Causes and Effect

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Overview: Deforestation Causes and Effect

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Causes And Solutions For Deforestation: What You Can Do

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Deforestation is a serious threat to our world despite it taking the backseat to more talked about issues. Take a closer look at deforestation here.

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Miren a la clave de los mapas o las figuras para entender el significado de los colores.

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WATCH: Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

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WATCH: Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

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The simple story of photosynthesis and food - Amanda Ooten

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(Spanish)

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Pista clandestina de aviación en un área boscosa del oriente de Honduras Z. PEARSON

La narco-deforestación azota a Centroamérica. Los bosques y las montañas de un corredor biológico en el Caribe y las comunidades indígenas sufren las tropelías de los contrabandistas de droga, que se aprovechan de su trato con gobiernos débiles, regímenes de propiedad conflictivos, alto nivel de pobreza, cambio climático, tala ilegal, megaproyectos de infraestructura y expansión de negocios agropecuarios.

La advertencia está contenida en un paquete de informes divulgados este lunes en la capital costarricense y elaborados por la Alianza Mesoamericana de Pueblos y Bosques y el Programa Salvadoreño de Investigación sobre Desarrollo y Medio Ambiente (PRISMA), en coordinación con universidades de Estados Unidos y grupos no gubernamentales de México y Centroamérica.

Pese a que la crisis ataca con dureza a la región de La Mosquitia, en Honduras y en Nicaragua, y en El Petén, en Guatemala, también zonas caribeñas más prósperas como Panamá y Costa Rica están en riesgo.

"En los paisajes rurales de Petén, objetos de disputa, se combinan sitios más nuevos de transferencia primaria de drogas con rutas secundarias establecidas de transbordo a México. En el Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre y áreas protegidas de la municipalidad de Sayaxché, la intensificación del narcotráfico ha coincidido con tasas anuales de deforestación de 5% y 10%, respectivamente. Análisis catastrales confirman que los narcotraficantes son propietarios de grandes fincas dentro de Laguna del Tigre y otras áreas protegidas", se lee en el informe.

"Focos de deforestación intensiva a menudo se superponen en el espacio con nodos de tráfico, en particular cerca de centros primarios de transferencia de drogas en las zonas orientales de Nicaragua y Honduras. Por ejemplo, en 2011, la Reserva de la Biosfera Río Plátano de Honduras fue calificada por UNESCO (Organización de Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura) como Patrimonio de la Humanidad en Peligro debido a las alarmantes tasas de pérdida de bosques atribuidas a la presencia de narcotraficantes, según indicarían las múltiples pistas de aterrizaje clandestinas a lo lago y a lo ancho de la reserva", puntualizó.

El área deforestada en Honduras es la suma de las nuevas talas de más de 5,2 millones de hectáreas, según el Espectroradiómetro de Imágenes de Media Resolución de la Administración Nacional del Espacio (NASA), de Estados Unidos.

La deforestación "fue aumentando al mismo ritmo que el aumento del tránsito de cocaína por el bosque de Honduras oriental. El gran tamaño de los nuevos manchones de deforestación detectados (más de 5,2 millones de hectáreas) en relación con los cuadros agrícolas indígenas (menos de dos millones de hectáreas) indicaría la presencia de agentes que cuentan con capital inusual en el terreno. De manera similar, en El Petén en Guatemala, el ingreso de una cantidad sin precedentes de cocaína en la región coincidió con un periodo de gran deforestación", explicó.

En una minuciosa descripción del fenómeno, los estudios determinaron que los narcotraficantes recurren a "tres mecanismos interrelacionados" para que la deforestación esté atada al establecimiento de centros de tránsito de drogas.

El primero es talar bosques para abrir caminos y pistas de aterrizajes clandestinas. El segundo es intensificar las presiones "preexistentes" sobre los bosques, al introducir cantidades "sin precedentes" de dinero y armas en zonas de frontera "que de por sí tienen un gobierno débil". "Cuando residentes productores, cultivadores de palma de aceite, especuladores inmobiliarios y traficantes de madera se involucran en el narcotráfico, se narco-capitalizan y se vuelven más audaces, por lo que expanden sus actividades, generalmente en perjuicio de los minifundistas (indígenas) que a menudo son defensores claves del bosque", precisó.

En este escenario, añadió, indígenas y campesinos "se declaran impotentes contra los sobornos, fraudes inmobiliarios y brutalidad que los despojan de sus tierras. El gobierno del bosque a niveles más altos también está desgastado por la violencia y la corrupción: los grupos de conservación han recibido amenazas y temen ingresar a las 'narco-zonas' y los fiscales estatales reciben coimas a cambio de desviar la mirada".

El tercer paso es que "las inmensas ganancias" obtenidas en el narcotráfico crean "fuertes incentivos" en las redes criminales para invertirlas en actividades agrícolas. "Convierten al bosque a la agricultura (generalmente pasturas o plantaciones de palma de aceite). Las ganancias requieren 'lavado'. La adquisición y 'mejoramiento' de tierras remotas (por deforestación) permite que los dólares se conviertan en activos privados sin dejar rastro y, a la vez, legitima la presencia" de los carteles del narcotráfico bajo la cobertura de una producción agropecuaria, subrayó.

"Las grandes 'narco-propiedades' además sirven para monopolizar el territorio contra organizaciones de narcotraficantes rivales y maximizar la zona de actividades de los traficantes", apuntó.

Aunque comprar bosques en áreas protegidas e indígenas es ilegal, los narcotraficantes "tienen suficiente influencia política como para asegurar su impunidad y, si hace falta, falsificar los títulos de propiedad de las tierras. Así, pueden obtener beneficios de la especulación inmobiliaria cuando las venden a organizaciones criminales (nacionales y extranjeras) que con frecuencia cada vez mayor utilizan el emprendimiento rural como rubro de diversificación", alertó.

La situación se agrava cuando el crimen organizado logra vender esas propiedades a "intereses corporativos legítimos" que buscan invertir en negocios agropecuarios en Centroamérica. "El resultado es que los bosques se convierten en forma permanente en tierras agrícolas", afirmó.

Según los documentos, con fronteras permeables, corrupción y debilidad institucional pública, sitios remotos de Guatemala y Honduras con "escasa población y poca presencia estatal" en áreas limítrofes boscosas "ofrecen condiciones ideales" para los traficantes, mientras Centroamérica se consolidó en los últimos años como puente del contrabando de estupefacientes de Colombia a México y Estados Unidos.

En una entrevista con EL PAÍS, la estadounidense Kendra McSweeney, investigadora del Departamento de Geografía de la Universidad del Estado de Ohio, y coautora de los estudios, explicó que el fenómeno se agravó desde que el Ejército de México lanzó, en 2006 y 2007, la guerra al narcotráfico, y los carteles mexicanos desplazaron sus operaciones a Centroamérica.

"En los últimos seis años, sobre todo, hemos visto un verdadero tsunami de cocaína que pasa por vías terrestres en Mesoamérica. Siempre había droga pasando por Centroamérica, pero nunca como en los últimos seis años", aseguró. "Los traficantes trabajan en zonas boscosas para traficar y limpiar sus ganancias sucias e invierten sus dólares sucios en potreros, ganadería, minería, agro-negocios como la palma africana y el bosque se convierte en pastizales por el narcotráfico", lamentó.

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La narco-deforestación azota a Centroamérica. Los bosques y las montañas de un corredor biológico en el Caribe y las comunidades indígenas sufren las tropelías de los contrabandistas de droga, que se aprovechan de su trato con gobiernos débiles, regímenes de propiedad conflictivos, alto nivel de pobreza, cambio climático, tala ilegal, megaproyectos de infraestructura y expansión de negocios agropecuarios.

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Remember that these two reactions exist as a cycle. The products of photosynthesis (glucose and oxygen) are the reactants of cellular respiration. The products of cellular respiration (carbon dioxide and water) are the reactants of photosynthesis.

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Video about how Deforestation problem caused the panaderos to change the way they make bread.

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el salvador: increasing problem of deforestation

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EL SALVADOR: INCREASING PROBLEM OF DEFORESTATION

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Spanish/Nat Baker's in El Salvador are being encouraged by environmentalists to switch their baking methods in an effort to cut down on the increasing problem of deforestation in the country. The new style uses butane gas instead of wood to bake the bread in huge, traditional furnaces.

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Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Copyright Rhett Butler 1994-2015 Anthrotect , an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region. Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant .

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Watch the Video. What is the threat to la reserva forestal?

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50 Acres of Forest Are Lost Every Hour in Colombia: Report

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The Amazon, highland and coastal regions of Colombia have the highest rates of deforestation in the country.

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What does the government do to prevent deforestation?

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Honduras lucha contra la deforestación del Río Plátano

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El gobierno hondureño desplegó militares en la biosfera de Río Plátano para desalojar a campesinos cuya actividad agrícola amenaza con destruir la mayor reserva forestal del país. Pero el plan implica dejar sin medios de subsistencia a decenas de familias.

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Why does the man write the letter to China? What is China doing to cause deforestation?

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Carta acerca de la deforestacion del Esequibo venezolano al Presidente de la República Popular China

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Carta abierta al Presidente de la República Popular China, Excmo. Sr. Xi Jinping acerca de la deforestacion del Esequibo venezolano por parte de la empresa china Bai Shan Lin por el Ingeniero Lenin Cardozo. Edición: Viviana Camacho Imágenes Archivo.

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Activists protest planned deforestation of coastal zone in Puerto Rico

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Activists and neighbors of Levittown, Puerto Rico set up an encampment to protest government plans to deforest a coastal zone to build a bike path. They say the area is prone to rough waters and floods and vegetation is a natural barrier against those menaces. teleSUR http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/v/puerto-rico-activistas-rechazan-proyecto-que-deforestaria-la-costa-en/

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English (put in Google translate if needed)

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Cocaine traffickers attempting to launder their profits are responsible for the disappearance of millions of acres of tropical forest across large swaths of Central America, according to a report.

The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that drug trafficking was responsible for up to 30% of annual deforestation in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, turning biodiverse forest into agricultural land.

The study's lead author, Dr Steven Sesnie from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said: "Most of the 'narco-driven' deforestation we identified happened in biodiverse moist forest areas, and around 30-60% of the annual loss happened within established protected areas, threatening conservation efforts to maintain forest carbon sinks, ecological services, and rural and indigenous livelihoods."

The research, which used annual deforestation estimates from 2001 to 2014, focuses on six Central American countries - Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. It estimates the role of drug trafficking, as opposed to drug cultivation, in deforestation for the first time.

"As the drugs move north their value increases and the traffickers and cartels are looking for ways to move this money into the legal economy. Purchasing forest and turning it into agricultural land is one of the main ways they do that," said Sesnie.

He said the US-led crackdown on drug cartels in Mexico and the Caribbean in the early 2000s concentrated cocaine trafficking activities through the Central American corridor.

"Now roughly 86% of the cocaine trafficked globally moves through Central America on its way to North American consumers, leaving an estimated $6bn US dollars in illegal profits in the region annually."

This had led to the loss of millions of acres of tropical forest over a decade as drugs cartels laundered their profits, Sesnie said.

"Our results highlight the key threats to remaining moist tropical forest and protected areas in Central America," he said, adding that remote forest areas with "low socioeconomic development" were particularly at risk.

The report calls for drugs and environment policy - nationally and internationally - to be integrated "to ensure that deforestation pressures on globally significant biodiversity sites are not intensified by ... supply-side drug policies in the region".

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'Narco-deforestation': cocaine trade destroying swaths of Central America

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Cocaine traffickers attempting to launder their profits are responsible for the disappearance of millions of acres of tropical forest across large swaths of Central America, according to a report. The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that drug trafficking was responsible for up to 30% of annual deforestation in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, turning biodiverse forest into agricultural land.

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An Interview with Social Movement Leader and Parliamentarian Estela Hernandez

The social movement La Coordinadora is organizing to protect lands and waters - including the Bay of Jiquilisco, pictured here - from corporate development, instead promoting ecological health and sustainable livelihood. Photo: Erika Blumenfeld, EcoViva

La Coordinadora of the Lower Lempa and the Bay of Jiquilisco in El Salvador is a grassroots, community-led organization of 27,000 families in more than 100 communities. It is transforming economic and political power and the health of the environment, across the department of Usulután. Pillars of La Coordinadora are participatory democracy, empowerment of women and youth, and - still in the works - education and health care for all. The communities are generating income through a green economy based on ecological agriculture and fishing. La Coordinadora is working to build food sovereignty, protect ecosystems, and preserve the largest remaining mangrove forest in the area.
Estela Hernandez is a leader of La Coordinadora and its affiliated non-profit organization, the Mangrove Association. She is also an elected member of the national legislature. There, Hernandez sits on the Environment and Climate Change Commission, the body that drafts environmental legislation.
Beverly Bell: Tell us about how La Coordinadora got started and what changes it has sparked.

Estela Hernandez: La Coordinadora is a community organization, a social movement that came together in the Lower Lempa River Basin after the peace accords [of 1992, between the government and the revolutionaries, ending 14 years of civil war]. The area is in a flood plain, and was hosting a large community that had taken refuge [from the war] in Panama and had been repatriated, and others who had been in combat. They were all anxious to settle down in a place where they could make life-long plans.

La Coordinadora formed originally to find a response to the recurring floods so people could live there safely. Then we realized that we had to go beyond disaster prevention to see how people could satisfy their food needs, their housing and, well, everything that came from having been totally neglected by the government. So we started working on a plan that would allow people to organize and unite and address production, infrastructure, and environment. We're talking close to 86 communities, about 4,000 families, who decided collectively to address these issues.

We made a long-range development plan, based on the wealth of biodiversity in the region. There are good conditions for fishing and for agriculture - the area has some of the best soil in the country. Our plan is for local economies to be supported from our natural resources in a responsible manner, allowing for the regeneration of those resources to guarantee that future generations benefit from them, too. [Among many other things] we've gone from subsistence agriculture to production that provides some profit for the communities.

BB: What do you mean when you say "development"?

EH: We're talking about creating the conditions for people to have a decent, dignified life, with their health and education needs covered. Before, all that was marginal for the population.

BB: What is La Coordinadora's long-term vision for the community and the country?

EH: Well, we aspire to have an economy where the resources can be at the service of the whole population. We still have land concentrated in the hands of landowners who - even if they aren't officially owners, because we overcame that with the conflict and the peace accords - still monopolize the land to do [large-scale] mono-crop farming. So our aspiration is to start democratizing land so the communities will be the owners of the life resources.

BB: I'm guessing the powers that be in your area don't like your work very much.

EH: They don't, because these plans are the complete opposite of the way things have always been done. Let's take the example of private national companies; they get established in an area and extend their tentacles, and they merge with transnationals. It's difficult to have enough capacity at the community level to really be able to compete.

For example, in the Lower Lempa, there's a very important bay, the Bay of Jiquilisco. [La Coordinadora has established a biosphere reserve there.] It's where the best potential for basic grains, vegetables, shrimp, and fish comes from. A private company is thinking of setting up a tourist resort industry there, so we're really being pressured for our lands. A first resort was already developed in the northern area, and because there was no community participation for that one, people were left highly marginalized. Tourism has worsened the community's life conditions.

Now, a second company is aiming to get the infrastructure it needs for the hotel industry, for example, roads and sewage system. But we've fought a lot, and our allies too, so by now it's understood that if they're going to do that project, it shouldn't be done transgressing the local economy, environment, projects, resources, and biodiversity. Of course, the community's power increases once it's organized, so we have to expand into all 76 municipalities that border the coastal area for that project

BB: How is power constructed in La Coordinadora's communities?

EH: Eight to ten communities join together in what is called a local group. The communities appoint their representatives for an assembly of the local group, and the assembly makes a plan of priorities for their communities, discussing what should and should not be done, especially in terms of agriculture, aquaculture, or whatever the focus of that area is. They take that back to the local group, which holds a full assembly. All the communities' decisions then go another assembly called the key group, where about 60 leaders come up with a single strategic plan. Then that is submitted to the municipal governments and the national government.

BB: Talk to me about the role of women in this local power process, please.

EH: Well, we know that in order to have real participation from women, it's necessary to generate the conditions, right? It's not just about the speech or about numbers. It's about making the contributions that women already make visible. It's not about giving her five more tasks on top of the ten she has, but rather, taking into consideration the work that she is already doing.

In the past, the women were the ones who mainly participated, but when it came to representing the community [in our local power process], there were mainly men. So we'd ask "Why?" And it was, "Well, who's going to take care of the children"? So we started to rupture the conditions that block women from decision-making spaces. We explored how it would be possible to have the family help out when she has to leave the community, for example. And we have training sessions specially aimed at the women.

Nowadays, we've reached a point in the board of directors of La Coordinadora where we are three women and two men. And not because our statutes cite that quota, but because the women's skills have been recognized. The same is true at the national level: in our department, of the two people and the two substitutes that we elected to the legislature, three are women. In fact, I was the first female representative in the history of the department of Usulután.

Within La Coordinadora and in our areas' representation in regional and national politics, the majority of those involved are women. The organization is very proud of that.

BB: You've talked about La Coordinadora's relationship with business. Tell me about your relationship with the national government.

EH: All the problems in our region are of a social, environmental, and political nature, so we've worked to affect local and national government. We've also been part of political parties that are in sync with us, representing the great majorities in our country. We have the FMLN party [the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, formerly a coalition of five guerrilla organizations that became a party after the peace accords were signed] that took office in 2009, with the support of the whole [grassroots] population. They realized that it was necessary to change the economic model, because all the wealth in our country was concentrated in a few hands. So La Coordinadora started to take our proposals to a public policy level.

That's people's power: democratic power coming from the social movement, and giving the local and national governments alternatives which we already know work.

We come from having governments that benefited only small oligarchic groups. But this government emerged from the large majority, so they have to respond to the sectors that have been marginalized, and to govern so the whole population benefits. We have advanced quite a bit.

BB: Is people's participation in La Coordinadora, the number of members and communities, growing?

EH: La Coordinadora has grown tremendously, to about 27,000 families. And we're no longer just in the Lower Lempa; there are two adjacent areas that are now part of the social movement.

This isn't just to improve our region, but to serve as a model for development for others. We understand that we're not an island, and we also feel responsible for what happens in the rest of the country.

For more information and to support the work of which Hernandez speaks, please contact its US-based partner organization, .
Many thanks to Karolo Aparicio and EcoViva for making this interview possible, and to Flavia Moreno for translating it.
Beverly Bell has worked for more than three decades as an advocate, organizer, and writer in collaboration with social movements in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. Her focus areas are just economies, democratic participation, and gender justice. Beverly currently serves as associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and coordinator of Other Worlds. She is author of Walking on Fire: Haitian Women Stories of Survival and Resistance, Fault Lines: Views Across Haiti's Divide, and Harvesting Justice: Transforming Food, Land, and Agricultural Systems in the Americas.
Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.

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Transforming Power, Protecting the Environment in El Salvador

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An Interview with Social Movement Leader and Parliamentarian Estela Hernandez The social movement La Coordinadora is organizing to protect lands and waters - including the Bay of Jiquilisco, pictured here - from corporate development, instead promoting ecological health and sustainable livelihood.

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Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia's southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicenter of the civil war.

A peace deal signed last year between the government and the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended half a century of conflict.

The accord has seen about 7,000 FARC fighters leave their strongholds and gather in 26 demobilization zones where so far rebels have surrendered about a third of their weapons to the United Nations.

But now a new battle is on: to preserve Colombia's forests that are under threat from farmers seeking grazing land and criminal gangs cutting down trees for illegal gold mining.

Colombia is home to a swath of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined.

It is in war-torn areas like Caqueta where deforestation is on the rise following the FARC demobilization, and where Colombia - in partnership with Norway - is focusing efforts to halt forest loss with a scheme that offers former fighters training and jobs as forest guardians.

As FARC fighters abandon their jungle strongholds, once no-go conflict areas are opening up for business.

Farmers are pushing deeper into forests, cutting down more trees to make way for grazing land for cattle and agriculture.

"We are seeing early signs of this already in Colombia so that is definitely a concern," Vidar Helgesen, Norway's environment minister, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"With peace and with the prospect of FARC handing in their arms, existing farmers are ... more offensive in their approaches, they are more daring in that they are also expanding and engaging in practices that are not sustainable," Helgesen said this week on a visit to Colombia to launch the new forest conservation program.

Norway is donating about $3.5 million over two years to the pilot project it hopes will stem deforestation by offering paid jobs to ex-FARC fighters and communities to safeguard forests.

When forests are degraded or destroyed, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere, with deforestation accounting for 10 to 15 percent of carbon emissions worldwide.

"We hope this project can be the way for more activities whereby peace comes with green dividends," Helgesen said.
Ex-Combatants
About 1,100 ex-FARC fighters, as well as villagers in Caqueta, will be trained in how to track and report illegal logging, along with sustainable farming methods and ecotourism projects - a way of helping them integrate back into civilian society.

Some jobs will be offered as forest guardians in national parks, others in local government environment agencies.

"Reintegration is very important for the return to civilian life and when giving economic opportunities there's a bigger chance that the reconciliation process will succeed," Helgesen said.

Joshua Mitrotti, head of Colombia's reintegration agency, said integrating thousands of ex-guerrillas into society requires access to education and training, and on businesses and rural communities willing to give them a second chance.

"This program is the first initiative that combines environmental protection with reincorporation .. while protecting land and creating income generation," Mitrotti said.

Many former fighters have spent most of their lives fighting in the jungle and have few other skills and little education.

The first challenge is getting ex-fighters back in schools, said Christian Visnes at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the aid agency carrying out the project on the ground.

A survey of about 6,300 FARC fighters by NRC this year showed about 10 percent are illiterate and only two in five have finished primary school.

By providing skills training and jobs, rebels are less likely to pick up a weapon again and join other criminal groups.

"It's about creating opportunities to take away the incentive to become part of another [criminal] group," said Visnes, Latin America director of NRC.
Paid to Protect Forests
Colombia has declared the goal of zero net deforestation by 2020 and halting the loss of all natural forest by 2030.

Norway is also helping Colombia and other countries to stem forest less through the United Nations program aimed at Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).

Countries participating in REDD+ receive payouts for meeting verified emission reduction targets for slowing deforestation over several years.

The payments are usually distributed to farmers, grassroots communities and indigenous groups working on forest protection.

Under the REDD+ program, Colombia on Wednesday received a payment of $10 million from Norway aimed at promoting sustainable rural development in war-torn regions.

This follows the first payment of $6 million last year from Norway, Britain and Germany for reducing emissions from deforestation in its Amazon rainforest in 2013 and 2014.

Rich from offshore oil, Norway is the biggest donor to REDD+, and is also financing projects to help protect forests from Ethiopia and Liberia to Peru and Guyana, as well as projects worth $1 billion each for Indonesia and Brazil.

But the program has struggled to attract private funding and governments need to do more to get businesses on board, Helgesen said.

According to a 2015 report by U.S.-based environmental group Forest Trends, REDD+ is "significantly short" of estimates indicating at least $20 billion per year is needed to reduce global deforestation by 50 percent.

"We are way short of where we should be in terms of funding," Helgesen said.

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голос америки

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As Colombia's FARC Disarms, Rebels Enlisted to Fight Deforestation

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Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia's southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicenter of the civil war. A peace deal signed last year between the government and the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended half a century of conflict.

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© Programa REDD - Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación de Bosques en Centroamérica y República Dominicana

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Deforestation in terms of Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

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Deforestation in terms of Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

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Deforestation Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com

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Deforestation is the removal of trees for requirements of growing population. They remove the trees and use the land to make farms. They also use the wood from the trees to make buildings or to burn the trees for heat.

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How deforestation affects birds

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A Bicknell's Thrush photographed in the Adirondacks. Photo by Jeff Nadler.

Sierra de Bahoruco National Park is a vital haven for some of the rarest endemic birds in the Caribbean Basin-such as the La Selle Thrush, Western Chat-Tanager, and White-winged Warbler. But its cloud-forest habitat is being illegally logged and cleared for crops. And conservationists say the government of the Dominican Republic is doing little to stop it.

An important section of the UNESCO Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve, the park was established to protect more than 400 square miles of mostly forested mountains on the island of Hispaniola. It is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the Caribbean-a crucial refuge for many endemic animals, plants, and insects, some of which are doubtless still unknown to science.

Living Bird science editor Hugh Powell reported on illegal farming in Bahoruco two years ago in our All About Birds blog, but sadly, the deforestation continues. At the time of his blog post, in April 2013, Powell wrote that some 30 square miles of forest in the park had been destroyed. That figure is rising quickly.

People are cutting down trees inside the park boundaries with seeming impunity, destroying pristine tracts of cloud forest to make charcoal and to clear the way for planting avocado trees, beans, corn, and other crops. The worst of the destruction is not being done by local subsistence farmers but by commercial agricultural interests that take over forest plots, hire people to clear them, and make arrangements with tenant farmers-often from the poorer nation of Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. These sharecroppers do all of the dirty work in exchange for a mere 20 percent of the crop.

According to Chris Rimmer, executive director of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, several endemic birds of Hispaniola depend on the cloud-forest habitat now being destroyed at Bahoruco. Rimmer has spent 20 years in Bahoruco studying the winter ecology of the Bicknell's Thrush, one of the rarest and most threatened songbirds of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of these thrushes winter on Hispaniola, and Rimmer says Bahoruco has some of the best available habitat for them.
Click on picture for a bigger image. Map courtesy of Intec/Geometrics Lab.
The Dominican Ministry of the Environment has a legal mandate to maintain and protect the country's national parks, but the laws are not being enforced. Organizations such as Grupo Jaragua (in the Dominican Republic), Vermont Center for Ecostudies, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and American Bird Conservancy havepetitioned the ministry to crack down on the illegal activities in Bahoruco.
A crucial refuge for birds (such as the Bicknell's Thrush at right) as well as other wildlife and plants, the Dominican Republic's Sierra Bahoruco National Park is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the Caribbean. Yet people are destroying vast areas of forest in the park to make way for illegal agriculture. Photo by Marvin del Cid/Diario Libre.
Journalists are bringing attention to the situation, too. In March Marvin del Cid, a reporter at Diario Libre, the leading newspaper in the Dominican Republic, wrote an article documenting the unabated destruction (see an English translation at http://tinyurl.com/qykkxhq). He and his colleagues used a drone-mounted camera to conduct an aerial inspection of Bahoruco. The photos they obtained are shocking, capturing the deforestation while it was happening, as tenant farmers burned trees to clear the land in preparation for planting crops (see photo on right).

These shortsighted actions affect not only wildlife but people as well. The soil is poor and will be quickly ruined as crops are grown there, and local inhabitants will lose the watershed benefits of the forest. "As more people inhabit the island, water is becoming an increasingly precious resource," says Rimmer. Without the protection of cloud-forest cover, water loss and erosion will be much greater, which could be catastrophic for Dominicans and Haitians alike.

"It's time to ratchet up the pressure on the Dominican government by creating media attention and visibility to raise public awareness," says Rimmer. That might be the only hope for this critically threatened area

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Illegal Deforestation Continues in the Dominican Republic; Threatens Bicknell's Thrushes

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Sierra de Bahoruco National Park is a vital haven for some of the rarest endemic birds in the Caribbean Basin-such as the La Selle Thrush, Western Chat-Tanager, and White-winged Warbler. But its cloud-forest habitat is being illegally logged and cleared for crops. And conservationists say the govern

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Organelles of Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

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Organelles of Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

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Photosynthesis happens in the chloroplast of PLANTS ONLY. Cellular respiration happens in the mitochondria of PLANT AND ANIMAL CELLS.

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