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WOULD YOU BELIEVE-
A WORLD FIREWOOD CRISIS?
W
hy do so few
understand !he world
we live in? A firewood crisis
in an industrialized world?
Before you draw a hasty
conclusion read this
scenario.
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begins in North
America . In a clearing , in !he
timber forests of Western
Canada, workers are taking
a well -earned break .
11
is
only 8 o'clock in !he
morning, bu! !he men have
been working for hours.
trimming and preparing logs
for transportation lo !he
sawmills.
A tractor crunches
through !he undergrowth,
dragging felled logs of
spruce. As it approaches
!he clearing, its path is
blocked by a small birch
free. Once-twice-the
tractor nudges !he trunk, bu!
!he sturdy little tree doesn't
budge. Casually-almost
nonchalantly-a worker
picks up his chain saw and
saunters over.
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takes him
about five seconds lo cut it
down.
The tractor drives on into
the clearing, crushing !he
fallen birch and snapping !he
trunk in hall. Later, the tree
will be dumped on a huge
pile of timber on the edge of
the clearing. lt's !he junk
pile. In a month or two,
when !he pile has dried out,
men wíll set fire lo it. Time is
money in !he limber
business. 11 jusi isn' t
economical lo do anything
else bu! burn the " rubbish"
on the spot.
Those men in the clearing
would have been aslonished
to know thal lhere are
people elsewhere in lhe
world who would have
walked for three days lo gel
hold of thal tree.
Those people may live in
Ouagadougou, capital of
Upper Volta . Or maybe they
are farmers from a remole
village high in lhe Andes. Or
Haitian peasants scralching
a precarious living from a
few acres of scrub on their
country 's barren
h~lls.
All these people have
something in common-they
are facing an energy crisis.
Bul is not lhe kind of energy
crisis thal can be eased by
buying a smaller car, turning
down the thermostat or
insulating the attic. For
them, it is more
fundamental.
They often
can 't find enough firewood
to cook their evening mea!!
lf you have already read
the accompanying article,
you will realize that the
slaughter of !he world's
forests is going lo pose a
major ecological problem for
al/ ot
us in !he years jusi
ahead. For one third of our
world's people, !he crisis has
already begun.
Firewood
is
becoming increasingly hard
lo come by.
11
may sound ludicrous lo
a city dweller in North
America or Europe.
Firewood is no longer a par!
of his lite (unless perhaps he
has treated himself lo a
wood-burning stove as an
"alternative energy"
source). Bu! for most people
living in !he world's
underdeveloped places,
wood is not a novelty or a
luxury.
1
is the
only
source
of fuel they have. And it is
getting harder and harder lo
find enough.
Consider these statistics.
Approximately half the timber
cut in the world today is used
as fuel - for cooking and
heating. Most of this use is in
the underdeveloped
countries. The average user
consumes about one ton of
firewood a year. Many
countries are burning their
trees much !aster !han
natural growth can replace
them.
As wood becomes
scarcer, prices go up. There
are parts of Asia and Africa
where families have to
spend up to one third of the
family income on charcoal
and firewood.
Those who cannot afford
to pay the price must forage
for themselves.
1
is
becoming a common sight in
many areas to see trees
stripped of their leaves and
branches.
Each year, the desperate
search for wood moves
farther up the mountains, or
deeper into remole valleys.
Already, there is hardly a
tree left standing within 45
miles of Ouagadougou. The
once verdant hills of Haití
are almos! treeless. In India,
guards have been set lo
watch !he forests lo preven!
poaching. Because of
indiscriminate fuel gathering
and overgrazing, 100,000
hectares of North Africa are
swallowed up by the Sahara
each year. That's one acre
every two minutes.
Why don't people learn lo
cook with something else, is
throughout history. Down the
forests carne, whether for build–
ing materials, for ships, for use in
warfare, or as firewood, or mak–
ing room for agriculture. Sorne–
times just because they were "in
the way." In the Near East and
the M editerranean, overgrazing
by goats and other domestic ani–
mals has stripped off the remain–
ing ground cover. I n nonagricu l–
tural areas herds of goats also
played a significant part, eating
away at thc bark and sprouts of
trees. Finall y the last scrub t ree
in an area fell victim and then
there were none. The result: move
on to fresh ground or else try to
survive on deter iorating l and.
vent the formation of deser t. Still,
the land has become increasingly
less productive.
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The human factor is still to be
blamed for currently expanding
deserts in parts of the worl d.
Not t hat allland oncestripped of
its forest covering becomes desert.
1
n the British l sles the proportion of
natural forest still extant is esti–
mated at about 2 percent of what it
once was. Enough rain falls to pre-
As for the United States, farm–
ing, logging, industrial exploita–
tion and fires have leveled
hundreds of millions of acres of
forest. Erosion has made useless
for crops much of this deforested
land. W hat once seemed like lim–
itless wood lands i s now in need of
careful management.
W h ile sorne in the lumber
industry claim there i s still up to
The PLAIN TRUTH