64 THE FIVE-YEAR OUTLOOK 



PRESERVING THE WORLD S TROPICAL 

 FORESTS 



Depletion of a nation's natural resources to provide the 

 basic necessities of life or to improve living standards can 

 pose major conflicts between short-term and long-term 

 interests. That kind of problem is exemplified by the 

 world's forest resources, which currently are seriously 

 threatened. The spread of agriculture, the harvesting of 

 timber, and the clearing of forest land for grazing have 

 contributed greatly to serious deforestation m many parts 

 of the world, presenting many potential problems for the 

 future . 



Over the past 20 years, forest coverage of the world's 

 land surface has been reduced from over 25 percent to 20 

 percent. At current loss rates, coverage is projected to 

 drop to 17 percent during the next 22 years and to stabilize 

 around the year 2020, when only about 14 percent of 

 Earth's land surface will be forested. Much of the forest 

 loss will occur in tropical forests in developing countries, 

 where it is estimated that all physically accessible forests 

 will have been cut down by the year 2020. The loss of that 

 resource to the people of the developing countries, who 

 use 90 percent of the cut wood for cooking and heating, 

 could be catastrophic.^ 



Such large losses will also have far-reaching effects that 

 go beyond the areas where deforestation will occur Rapid 

 and widespread loss of the world's tropical forests will 

 adversely affect absorption and retention of rainfall, caus- 

 ing widespread runoff and soil erosion. Regional tempera- 

 ture and rainfall patterns could be altered, affecting agri- 

 cultural production and water supply in areas far removed 

 from the deforested lands, and some plant and animal 

 species would be lost and the total diversity of species 

 greatly reduced. Additionally, large-scale reductions in 

 vegetation could seriously affect Earth's capacity to reab- 

 sorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (NR). 



Although the United States contains only about 1 per- 

 cent of the world's tropical forests, their preservation 

 throughout the world is of direct interest to this country. 

 Tropical forests are a major source of specialty woods and 

 pharmaceuticals exported to the United States and other 

 nations. In addition, the flooding, loss of land for agri- 

 cultural purposes, and growing scarcity of fuelwood due 

 to forest loss combine to deepen social and economic 

 problems in the deforested countries, adding pressures for 

 massive migration of people and increasing the potential 

 for political instability.'' 



As in the case of water resources, world deforestation is 

 primarily a social/political/managerial problem involving 

 balances among competing needs and sectors of society. 

 Science and technology can therefore affect it only mar- 

 ginally. In its December 1980 report, the U.S. Interagency 

 Task Force on Tropical Forests recommended a variety of 

 policy actions. Included were two directly related to sci- 



ence and technology activities: first, the Task Force rec- 

 ommended initiation of an internationally coordinated 

 action program on tropical forest research; second, it 

 recommended doubling of the worldwide rate of reforesta- 

 tion and afforestation, activities that are heavily science 

 and technology based (NR). In addition, better analysis of 

 the potential political, economic, and social con- 

 sequences of severe deforestation is warranted so that 

 effective counteractive measures can be developed 

 (SSRC-1). 



COMBATING THE DESERTIFICATION OF LANDS 



Agriculture, wood cutting, and overgrazing of rangeland 

 are increasing the spread of desertlike conditions in the 

 world's land areas, especially in less developed countries. 

 The process has been termed "desertification" and in- 

 volves the sustained decline and/or destruction of the 

 productivity of arid and semiarid lands. Where the proc- 

 ess is unchecked, land becomes unfit for range or crops 

 (NR). 



About one third of the total world land is arid, and it 

 supports about one seventh of the global population. That 

 arid land is widely threatened. Present global losses to 

 desertification are estimated to be about 6 million hectares 

 annually (an area approximating the size of Maine), and 

 the world's desert areas are projected to increase from 

 their current 800 million hectares by another 20 percent 

 by the year 2000.' 



While the problem is most serious in less developed 

 countries, agricultural productivity is being affected by 

 desertification in many industrialized countries, including 

 the United States. The increased use of chemical fertil- 

 izers, water, and herbicides and pesticides has compen- 

 sated somewhat for declines in soil conditions in the 

 industrialized regions. But these products are expensive, 

 and chemical fertilizers and r,tst4cidos can also damage 

 the soil and cause other environmental problems.^ 



Although much of the problem is political and man- 

 agerial in nature, there are some opportunities for science 

 and technology to contribute to the alleviation of des- 

 ertification and its impacts. Opportunities include design 

 of research and development programs on salt-tolerant 

 crops and vegetative covering, increased attention to the 

 possibility of developing economic uses for naturally oc- 

 curring arid plants, rehabilitation of degraded lands, in- 

 troduction of operational desertification monitoring tech- 

 niques, and improvement in techniques for managing 

 surface-water and ground- water reservoirs. Those kinds 

 of scientific and technological efforts provide an oppor- 

 tunity to lessen the impacts of or partially reverse the 

 trends toward desertification in our arid and semiarid 

 lands in the coming years (NR). 



