Ian McDonaldAT HIGH tide, when the wind is strong, from my veranda in Bel Air Gardens I could swear the sea seems taller these days. I hope it is just my imagination, born of needless worry about global warming and its effects. But perhaps it is true, perhaps the sea is getting taller all around the world - warmer and taller and fiercer.
There seems to be a dispute among experts about how serious warming and its effects really are. But just as I read one report which reassures me that the seriousness of the matter is much exaggerated and that my family and I will not wake one morning soon to find the sea marching up the stairs, the very next day I read a report by marine biologists that hard and fast evidence of global warming is to be found in the awful fact that up to 95 per cent of the Indian Ocean's coral reefs have died in the past three years. The beautifully coloured reefs have been turning into piles of grey rubble as the coral expels the minute organisms that live in the hard limestone core and cannot tolerate a rise in sea temperature of over 1-2 degrees Centigrade, a norm which recently has been regularly exceeded.
Just as worrying in the dismal, continuing saga of man's sabotage of the world's environment is the steady, seemingly unstoppable destruction of the earth's forests.
The French poet and diplomat, St. John Perse, once pointed out that each published book consumed at least one noble forest tree and that hardly any book was worth the sacrifice of such beauty and such value, so that we should be careful about how much we write lest we cut all the forests Since 60 per cent of the earth's jungle is concentrated in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and its surrounding area, we in this region have a special responsibility. Experts cannot agree how fast the forests are disappearing but they all agree that they are disappearing fast. One estimate is that 11 million hectares are lost each year that is 50 acres a minute: the forests are going down at the rate of 50 acres a minute. According to another estimate, West Africa has already lost over 70 per cent of its rain forest while Southern Asia has lost over 60 per cent. In a few brief years half the Amazonian forest, it is estimated, may be destroyed.
It is a crime of enormous proportions. Forest occupies only 6 per cent of the world's land area but is the home of nearly half the world's animal and plant species. Deforestation leads to the extinction of countless of these species. Thousands of rain-forest species are extinguished every year. Let your imagination dwell on that for a moment. This wanton destruction of basic life-forms is unbelievable. In terms of the animal and plant kingdoms it is the worst of genocides.
Every species is valuable in its own right as a unique gift of the Creation. But in addition many of these species have economic potential as sources of food, beverages, gums, medicines, scents, pigments, and insecticides. Even more serious in the long-run, this genocide of species means a steady depletion of the global 'gene pool', the world's reservoir of natural species, from which new generic strains of plants for agriculture are derived. Once part of this gene pool is lost it is irreplaceable. It is like losing a priceless jewel every day of your life, except that it is worse since a jewel has no life.
When forests are cleared several nasty things also happen to the soil. Nutrients are lost from the soil since in many forests these are stored in the layers of vegetation and not in the soil itself. This happens to be particularly true of Amazonia.
Another big risk is simple soil erosion. The canopy of the forest shuts out sunlight and interrupts and softens torrential rainfall. The forest roots serve to bind together and protect the soil. Remove all this and the earth is defenceless and soon blows and washes away.
Ian McDonald is a regular contributor, who lives and works in Georgetown, Guyana.
