The Dilemma
As the world's
tropical rainforests disappear,
continuously increasing demand for tropical hardwoods pushes their prices ever higher.
Motivated by these continually
increasing prices, loggers press ever deeper into the last remaining
rainforests, followed by local populations in search of cultivatable land
who clear the remainder of the trees by slash and burn.
In
most instances, spurred by the need for foreign currency, the developing countries which
are home to these rainforests are permitting their destruction.
As tropical
deforestation mounts,
environmentalists are escalating pressure to stop this exploitation and destruction of the
world's rainforests.
Some countries are beginning to
listen. Thailand, for example, banned logging in that country in 1988, and Costa Rica
has now protected nearly 26% of the area of its country in national parks or reserves.
The trend is unmistakable, and
the facts are compelling. The world's rainforests will be either protected . . . or they
will be destroyed. We cannot know today what the choice of each country that possesses
rainforest will be.
We can know for certain,
however, that regardless of what choices will be made, the world's rainforests are
becoming increasingly unavailable as a source of supply for tropical hardwoods.
But with ever increasing demand,
and ever increasing prices, where will these prized tropical hardwoods come from?
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