The reasons behind deforestation of rainforests are well-founded and understandable challenges. Continuing population and consumption growth will mean that the global demand for food will increase for at least another 40 years. Globally, population increase itself causes problems to meet the growing demand. But also nationally, countries are forced to compete and turn to underhanded actions to ensure they receive their proper share or survive for that matter. Rainforests, they plants and animals that grow there, and us as a result, are the ones who pay the price for this competition and rising need for resources. While these problems do hold water, there must be a more suitable solution. We cannot continue to hack away at our dwindling remaining rainforests. We use them because of their resources, such as medical advantages, but we are over using them and in turn depleting these valuable resources at an alarming rate. Perhaps the solution to our problem lies within the efficiency of our consumption and use of resources. We need to do a better job utilizing resources and find new ways to increase the effectiveness of our existing resources under strain. If we cannot straighten up our act, it will be our children or their children that suffer. It is a very real possibility that we will not leave them enough to survive or force them to live poverty stricken lives. I would like to call attention to The Rainforest Alliance. For the past twenty years they have been working on this exact problem. They work to conserve natural resources in agriculture, tourism, and forestry. Farms that earn Rainforest Alliance certification conserve soil, waterways and habitat, and protect the rights and welfare of workers, but not at the expense of productivity or profitability. Now is the time to act, we cannot afford to wait any longer, because every moment we waste is another moment of precious life we lose.
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/blog/entry.cfm?number=101
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5967/812
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