newsroom

TODAY Tuesday 27 January 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: 'Bye, 'Bye Brazil

Only five percent of the woodlands of the United States have not been logged at some time or other. Virtually nothing remains of the Forest Primeval east of the Rockies. In New York, New England, and the Upper Midwest, we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that trees have recaptured the terrain to their greatest extent since 1820, but today's woods, though wonderful, can't compare with the virgin forest for species diversity or for sheer unbroken breadth. Politeness might prompt Americans to be a little understanding when confronted with evidence of deforestation in the tropics.

But it's still a bummer. Today's New York Times features an article by Diana Jean Schemo with a telling headline: "Data Show Recent Burning of Amazon Is Worst Ever." Yesterday the Brazilian government issued figures on deforestation that were withheld until after the Kyoto conference. They show that loss of Amazonian forests has reached historically high levels in the five years since the Earth Summit at Rio. The Brazilians calculate losses over the past three years as averaging about 9,000 square miles per year. Schemo reports that other estimates (with broader definitions of what constitutes deforestation) say that the annual loss is closer to 22,000 square miles. No one disputes that the rate of destruction is way up since the early 1990s.

What's particularly distressing, not to mention ironic, is that Brazilian laws were introduced -- and some passed -- to preclude what happened from happening. Landowners big and small ignored them, and the responsible government agencies, with little money and little power to enforce, could not stem the tide. Among the lessons, I suppose, is that you can't have conservation without at least one of the following: an evolved civil society where rules are followed; economic incentives that favor the preservation of resources; or a strong belief system that sanctifies the unmeddled-with. Brazil (or Indonesia, to recall another society with a forest-burning problem) has none of those three conditions. My bias is that the only significant sources of nature worship will come from post-industrial elites from already-rich societies (our readers!). For Amazonians and Sumatrans and almost everybody else, it looks like the best ways to preserve biodiversity will be for their societies to gain the ability to rope off some of the landscape and to help people make a good living off the other part.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

And now for something completely different. If you're fatigued with all this handwringing about obvious things like trees, try for a little of the consolation that art can provide. Howard Junker, potentate of the magazine Zyzzyva ("the last word"), takes you on a tour of the best Websites on the literature of nature. Katherine Kormendi provides a helpful overview of some of the main currents in contemporary eco-art.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

1/26: Jaywalking and Jaydriving
1/23: Good Biotech, Bad Biotech
1/22: No More Roads
1/21: Swordfish
1/20: Electromagnetic Sleuthing
1/16: Good News Way Down Under
1/15: Twenty-Four Forty or Fight!
1/14: Your Tax Dollars at Work
1/13: Johnny Mobil Appleseed
1/12: Superbowl, Scientific Uncertainty, and the Future of Al Gore
1/9: Goodbye, Delaware
1/8: Leaf Blowers, Old Cars, Class Conflict
1/7: The Great Improvement That Didn't
1/6: Proactive, Shmoactive
1/5: Mediocre Landscapes and Hope for the Planet
1/2: The Greatest Environmental Cause of the Year
12/31/97: The Top Twelve Environment Stories of 1997

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.