The tree population of the world is decreasing rapidly as legal and illegal logging of the world’s remaining rainforests accelerates towards disaster. If we continue like this and do nothing to redress the balance then the future for mankind looks bleak indeed.
Global Warming
Most governments now accept that the increase in carbon dioxide through fossil fuel burning, hydrocarbon burning and other industrial activity is responsible for the phenomenon we know as Global Warming. The problem is now so serious that there are World Summits where the consequences of continued deforestation are discussed. 
The Kyoto Agreement attempts to address these concerns, and to establish goals for the reduction of carbon emissions.
By far the most powerful tool available to us for tackling carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel consumption is the growing of trees. Trees are essential to us all, and we ignore their importance at our peril. It was the emergence of these silent giants in the world that helped to change the atmosphere from the lethal cocktail that it used to be by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and delivering the oxygen that is vital to all animal life, including our own. Trees fix atmospheric carbon dioxide through a process called ‘sequestration’, and essentially produce what is termed a ‘Carbon Credit’.
Using wood for furniture manufacture does not release this stored carbon dioxide; only burning the wood releases the carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere. We can even go a stage further and suggest that we should use wood in the place of non-renewable materials and even as a renewable fuel in order to reduce our consumption of our precious finite fossil fuel reserves. For example, all alternatives for the use of wood as a building material are non-renewable and require fossil fuel energy to be made. The message is, manage wood as a renewable resource, then, use more wood rather than the non-renewable alternatives and switch from using fossil fuels to using renewable wood energy.
Climate Change
Forests function to protect our water sources by acting as a water catchment. A large forest is a dark surface area on the planet so it will absorb heat from the sun. Water evaporating from the forest will cause clouds to form above in the colder air and fall back as rain. In this way, under the forest canopy a steady temperature and humidity is maintained. Not all the clouds formed release their moisture back onto the forest but are driven by the wind so that rain falls elsewhere. This is the structure which produce the climate with which we are familiar. Continued deforestation will, therefore, impact rainfall across the globe.
The changes to the world climate caused by global warming and deforestation could have catastrophic consequences for mankind. A rising global temperature could melt the polar ice regions and cause an increase to worldwide sea levels, inundating many areas and even entire countries. Rising temperatures could instead trigger an ice age by changing ocean currents. Or, as some hope, nothing may happen and we just go on as we are. But doing nothing is not an option for people who wish their children and children’s children to inherit the Earth as we are enjoying it.
GoldTeak
In reality it is quite a challenge to balance the social and economic priorities with environmental priorities but GoldTeak aims to take the step in the right direction. GoldTeak is an Ethical Investment. In addition to assisting local people and improving the quality of their lives, we are committed to try to help to restore the balance of nature by increasing the number of trees that are growing in the world.
Recent studies have shown that the natural forest in Indonesia alone is disappearing at an alarming rate, having accelerated from 2.47 million acres annually to 4.2 million. Trees are being illegally logged, and incredibly much of the natural teak is going into the process of paper pulping. In the Northern Hemisphere we are able to satisfy the demand for wood for pulping by planting vast pine forests. In equatorial climates where these softwoods typically do not grow and where economies do not permit the importation of paper or wood for pulping the only option appears to be the logging of entire natural forests. Paper pulping is an intensive industry; the equipment required for such an operations does not permit selective felling of trees more suitable for the process – everything is cut down and almost always little is replaced.
You can do something. You can balance the fossil fuels that you use through active participation in sequestration projects such as those managed by GoldTeak. Each journey you take by car or aeroplane increases the ‘Carbon Debt’ of the world. If you are curious about how many trees it takes to balance these journeys then click here for ‘Carbon Calculator’.
“Fostering the Linkage between Forests and Climate Change.pdf”
‘A Revised Forest Strategy for the World Bank Group’ July 2001.
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