The Forest Buddies      
Save The Forests, Save Our Lives
   
 
About us
Global Perspective
 
Our website, “Forests: Our life-line - the deforestation dilemma,” is a complex global issue that touches on everyone’s life. From the air that we breathe to the food that we eat and the water that we drink, forests have an important role to play. This is discussed in the section on the importance of forests.

The increasing world population, especially in countries with lower socio-economic status, means more land is needed for development and farming, resulting in more deforestation. On the other hand, uncontrolled deforestation can lead to devastating effects globally.

Not only is land cleared for subsistence farming in developing countries such as Indonesia and Brazil, land is also cleared for mining, paper industry and grazing. This is to feed the growing needs in the more developed countries.

Indigenous people lost their ancestral land as a result of development when the Bakun Dam was built in Malaysia. In the Amazon, the indigenous people are losing their homes, culture and livelihood when land is cleared for commercial cultivation and grazing to feed the world's growing needs.

We should help curb massive deforestation by reducing, reusing and recycling. Going paperless as being done in the airline industry helps.

The internet, books and magazines provided us with useful data. The Straits Times, a Singaporean newspaper, gave us current worldwide news. We learnt about the Indonesian forest fire that brought haze to the South-east Asian countries.

Severe climate change worldwide from global warming is highlighted in the section on wacky weather. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard has pledged A$200 million to replant trees in South-east Asian countries, as one-fifth of global warming is contributed by deforestation. Uncontrolled deforestation has spurred the discussion on the carbon-credit programme globally too.

Deforestation can lead to flooding and snowstorm. Read the section on China to appreciate more. Landslide and floods also hit countries with a high rate of deforestation like Malaysia and Indonesia in 2006.

With our global perspectives, we hope you will find something useful in our website to help to make a difference and make the world a better place to live in.