1. Deforestation Joe, Cohen, Harrison

2. Role of Consumers  Forests are cut down for money or to provide for families  Farmers cut forests to create space for crops and livestock  Logging operations cut down countless trees each year to create roads  Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors (forest fires)

3. Role of Government  Deforestation is not logging, it is when trees are clear-cut for a change to a non-forest land use such as city development or agriculture.  -in 2005 it had affected less than 0.002% of Canada’s forests  -on a global levels, Canada is only accountable for 0.4% of global deforestation.  -Canada has 402 million hectares wooded land and in 2005 only 9400 hectares were lost due to deforestation  -over half of the land that was cut was cut for the reason of pastures and crops.

4. Multinational Corporations  Deforestation has shifted from poverty driven farming to large corporations cutting forests for projects in mining, logging, oil and gas development.  The world has lost about 40% of forest area, most of which cut down by multinational corporations

5. International Community  Deforestation accounts for over 20% of all the greenhouse gas emissions globally. It is worse than all the cars, trains, planes, trucks and boats combined.  Not only does it hurt the environment, it hurts the 1.6 billion people who depend on forests for food and economic activity.  Governments around the world have realized that the old growth forests that they are losing will not be coming back and are keeping a closer eye on them with increased protection of these lands.  Every year nearly 13 million hectares of land are lost due to deforestation but this number is on the decrease  On average per year in the 1990’s 8.9 million hectares were lost, this is now at 7.3 million hectares per year.

6. Suggestions and Solutions  Carefully manage forest resources by…  Eliminating clear cutting to make sure that forests stay intact  The cutting that does occur should be balanced by planting enough young trees to replace the old ones