Transcript Sample Lesson Plan Presentation

Global Connections:
Forests of the World
Activity 9
Researching Forests
Around the World
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DRAFT JAN 2010
Objectives
Study the concept of the global forest
Research a specific forest in the world
and develop a profile about that forest,
including your relationship to it.
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Searchable Key
Words
 forest ecosystem
 forest product
 [name of country]
forest resources
 world’s forests
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Background
Activity 9
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Activity 9 – Background
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Activity 9 – Background
Where are the World’s Forests?
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Activity 9 – Background
People and Forests:
Connected Through the Ages
First human
settlements
Forests were sources of food, fuel for fires, and shelter. huntergatherer societies, trees provided the primary building materials and
energy: cook, make pottery, and eventually smelt metal and work it
into crafts, farming implements, tools, and weapons
19th century
Early Greek and Roman used wood also as fuel for making glass,
dyes, soap, and construction materials such as brick, cement, and tile.
Wood was an indispensable material in bridges, buildings, mineshafts,
ships, wagons, water wheels, and windmills
late 19th /
Wood was also a crucial element in the expansion of railroads
early 20th
We still depend on wood: worldwide, more than 1 .7 million cubic
meters (60 million cubic feet) of wood are used as fuel each year, and
wood furnishes 70-90 percent of the energy needs of 34 developing
countries and for building materials more than 1 .5 million cubic
meters (53 million cubic feet) of wood are used for lumber, paper and
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paperboard.
Until the
Today
Activity 9 – Background
Forests As a Global Concern
Forests are a crucial element for life
Under great pressure from a growing human population
Forests as a top environmental concern
Reasons: deforestation and decline of forest health
Forests connected with global environmental concerns such:
population growth
global climate change
rise of infectious diseases
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Activity 9 – Background
Population Growth
 1999: world population topped 6 billion
 20th century: 75 percent of the growth
in world population over the entire
history of humans
 As a direct or indirect consequence,
that century also saw a loss of nearly
half of the world’s original forest
cover—some 3 billion hectares.
 Throughout the 1990s, many countries
with rapid population growth also had
high rates of deforestation.
“The correlation makes sense, given the additional need for farmland,
pastureland, and forest products as human numbers expand.” Lester Brown
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Activity 9 – Background
Population growth
An expanding world population means that the average amount of forest
land per person is becoming smaller and smaller.
At the same time, the per capita rate of wood consumption is rising.
 Even though most of the world’s people still live in poverty, our collective
wealth is growing.
With that wealth is a corresponding increase in overall consumption of
energy, food, and goods.
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Activity 9 – Background
Rising Consumption
• This rise in consumption of goods from forests is the
result not only of an increased population, but also of
individuals using more forest products.
• Since 1960, for example, the use of paper and paperboard per person in the world has nearly tripled.
• Developed countries account for most of the demand
for forest products.
• With just one-sixth of the world’s population based in
North America, Europe, and Japan, those regions
consume two-thirds of the world’s paper and paperboard
and half of its industrial wood.
• However, consumption of fuel-wood and industrial wood
in developing countries is also expected to increase.
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Activity 9 – Background
In fact, the consumption of goods from forests has
more than doubled in 30 years and will likely
continue to increase.
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Activity 9 – Background
Deforestation
Definition: the permanent removal of trees from a forested area
• Reasons: Loss of forest land, usually from development,
urbanization, or conversion to agriculture
• Today: forests cover about 3.9 billion hectares (9.6
billion acres) - almost a third of the Earth’s land surface
excluding Antarctica and Greenland.
• 11,000 years ago: forest land was double of today area
• During the 1990s:South America and Africa lost more
than 89 million hectares (219 million acres) of forest.
• Overall rate of world forest loss: appears to be slowing
• In tropical areas: rate of forest loss is accelerating,
likely exceeding 13 million hectares (32 million acres)
each year.
• Annual change rate of forest cover: both Asia and
Europe are showing a positive rate.
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Activity 9 – Background
Biodiversity
Definition: the variety and complexity of species that are present and that
interact in an ecosystem, plus the relative abundance of each, including genetic
variety within a species population, and species variety within an ecological
community.
• It is often used as an indicator of the health of that
ecosystem.
• Forests have the greatest species diversity of all
terrestrial ecosystems, holding about two-thirds of the
world’s known terrestrial species.
• Human-caused pressures such as agriculture, hunting,
and logging tend to decrease overall numbers of
species, threaten local native species, and often create
favorable conditions for nonnative species to colonize.
• Invasions by nonnative species are a major threat to
global biodiversity as a whole and to forests in particular.15
Activity 9 – Background
Invasive Species
Definition: a species that is 1) non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under
consideration and 2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or
environmental harm or harm to human health.
 Invasive plants and animals often do not have
natural predators to impede their reproduction.
 They tend to grow and reproduce quickly.
Example: In Tahiti the meconia tree was
introduced in 1937, as an attractive landscape
plant, and has since replaced the native forest
across much of the island, directly threatening
70 to 100 native plant species.
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Activity 9 – Background
Global Climate Change
Definition: long-term changes in temperature, moisture, and air mass
movements occurring globally.
• Forests are interrelated with the issue of global
climate change.
• The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the
atmosphere rose 30 percent from 1850 to 1998,
mostly as a result of humans burning fossil fuels,
but also from burning wood for cooking and
heating.
• Climate models predict that more CO2 will warm
the Earth’s atmosphere, causing changes in
precipitation, sea level, and weather patterns, as
well as in the distribution, extent, and structure
of the world’s ecosystems.
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Activity 9 – Background
Carbon cycles
 Carbon naturally cycles between the atmosphere,
oceans, vegetation, animal life, and soils.
 During the process of photosynthesis, trees absorb CO2
from the atmosphere and sequester (store) it in their
woody tissues.
 Forests sequester more carbon than any other terrestrial
ecosystem, and an average forest tree can remove
approximately 9kg of CO2 from the atmosphere each
year.
 On a global scale, forests’ potential to store carbon
makes them critical for stabilizing atmospheric gases
such as CO2.
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Activity 9 – Background
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http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0159-the-carbon-cycle.php
Activity 9 – Background
Image: http://adaptation.rncan.gc.ca/posters/on/on_07_e.php
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Activity 9 – Background
Political Stability
When forests and other natural resources become
scarce or severely degraded, political and social
instability can follow, thereby leading to political
crisis or even armed conflict.
Example: In Haiti there has been a precipitous decline in
forest cover as a result of the uncontrolled logging, the
conversion of forest to farmland, and the use of wood as
a primary fuel. In 1920, Haiti was covered with trees more than 60 percent of the land was forested. Today,
less than 2 percent of the land remains as forest. The
degraded environment has contributed to political
instability and large-scale migrations.
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Activity 9 – Background
Infectious Disease
Human health may also be closely related to forest
health.
Example: in the depths of the tropical rainforests of Peru,
people are contracting malaria, a disease that was
unknown in that region until recently. Scientists have
found that deforestation is directly involved in this new
disease pattern. Apparently, as the forest is cleared and
as wildlife is eliminated, the mosquitoes that carry the
disease must seek out new hosts - namely humans.
Although most malaria cases originate in the tropics, the
United States and Europe have experienced a steady
increase in “airport malaria” involving people who never
visited the tropics themselves, but who were exposed to
people who had.
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Activity 9 – Background
Feeding the World’s Hungry
The world’s farmers face a common crucial
issue:
How to affordably feed more and more people
without impoverishing the land?
Problem: Throughout the world and throughout thousands
of years, this pressing need has led to cutting or burning
forest land to make room for more farm land. One of the
major underlying causes of deforestation today is
subsistence farming, with farmers simply trying to feed
their families.
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Activity 9 – Background
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Activity 9 – Background
Indigenous Peoples and Cultures
• Many indigenous peoples throughout the world have a
long history of using and managing forests and are
severely affected when forests are degraded or lost.
• Past and present forestry policies have often excluded
local peoples from forest planning and stewardship,
resulting in a disruption of lives and livelihood for those
peoples and a decline in forests.
• Facing deforestation and forest degradation, many local
indigenous communities are reasserting their role as
stewards of the forests.
Example: In many parts of the world indigenous peoples are
organizing to stop the rapid economic development that has
led to deforestation. At the same time, the traditional
knowledge of indigenous peoples is increasingly being
recognized as an important component of sustainable forest
management.
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Activity 9 – Background
From Global to Local Connection
The extent and health of the world’s forests on a global scale
are affected by activities that take place on a local level.
Those activities such as…
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farming and ranching
gathering fuelwood
conducting commercial logging
converting native forest to plantations with trees grown as a crop
increasing urbanization and building new settlements
and constructing roads and hydroelectric reservoirs
… may have profound effects on specific forest lands.
Although local activities affect the forest, where, when, and
how intensively those activities take place are often driven
by economic, political, and social forces on a national or
international scale.
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Activity 9 – Background
Global Responses for Forests
As global interest in the world’s forests continues
to expand, coordinated international efforts are
having a growing effect on how forests are used.
Example: international agreements to reduce carbon
dioxide and other ”greenhouse gases” have already
prompted financial incentives for private landowners in
the United States and Latin America to turn their farm
land into productive forests, which, in turn, store or
sequester carbon.
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Activity 9 – Background
Rio 92
At the United Nation’s 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth
Summit (also called United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development, UNCED),
world leaders from 102 countries adopted two
international declarations that affirm the
importance of the forests of the world.
1. Statement of Forest Principles
2. Agenda 21
PS: The summit also produced conventions on biodiversity, climate change
and desertification which have implications for forest management.
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Activity 9 – Background
Since the meeting in Rio de Janeiro…
• …several national and international programs
have been launched to measure progress
toward sustainable forest management
• …the most comprehensive and potentially farreaching of those programs are the regional and
international initiatives, which now involve more
than 100 countries
• By endorsing these initiatives, each participating
country has made a commitment to work toward
the sustainable management of all of its forests.
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Activity 9 – Background
Forest certification
 The process of verifying that forests are well-managed and
communicating that through some type of recognition program.
 Certification of forests and wood procurement was developed to provide
guidelines and structure - a set of standards - to promote responsible
forestry, and then verify it through third party independent certification.
 Certification is also a way to satisfy market demand - from consumers
and customers - for “green” products.
 There are many different forest certification systems around the world,
each with a slightly different focus to reflect differentiating features such
as land ownership patterns, governmental structures, forest owner
values, and differences in forest types.
 All of these standards promote economic, environmental, and social
values by including auditable requirements for a variety of issues
including:
• protection of special biological and cultural sites,
• management strategies to protect species at risk and wildlife habitat,
• sustainable harvest levels,
• and prompt regeneration.
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Activity 9 – Background
Some examples of labels
This helps consumers identify and give preference
to products from well managed forests.
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Activity 9 – Background
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Activity 9 – Background
Buying Time for the World’s Forests
• Many countries rely on forest products for economic
development, and many individuals have few viable
choices other than to cut or clear forest land for survival.
• Some regions, especially with developed economies and
temperate climates, are making significant progress
toward creating sustainable forest management, revising
forestry policy and legislation, and strengthening forestry
institutions.
• However, in regions with developing economies and
tropical ecosystems, forest area continues to be lost.
Many of those countries lack the strong institutions
needed to reverse the trend, owing in part to limited
financial resources.
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Activity 9 – Background
Think about this…
“The world is faced with an increasingly
complex challenge: is it possible to achieve
sustainable forest management and to
achieve equitable economic progress at the
same time?”
This is a challenge we must face on the local and
global levels because safeguarding the world's
forests is essential to the future health of all
living things, including human beings.
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Doing the activity
Activity 9
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Activity 9 – Doing the activity
Now, time to work!
Question:
What do you know about forests in other countries?
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The task is research a forested area in another country
or region and create a profile about that forest.
You will follow the “Forests of the World Profile”
The profile must contain information for each question.
It is necessary to identify your sources of information in
a bibliography.
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Activity 9 – Doing the activity
Resources to be used
 At the student page there is a list with some suggestions
for where to begin getting the country information.
 You must also use at least one primary, or first-hand,
source of information, such as an interview, letter, or
research document.
 To locate a primary source, some possibilities are:
(a) e-mailing a Peace Corps volunteer who currently lives in that
country
(b) talking with a relative or an exchange student from that country
(c) interviewing someone who imports products from that country
(d) accessing a government website of that country
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Activity 9 – Doing the activity
How to select a country?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Read through “The World Forest Tour” cards for ideas.
Look over “Global Connections: Forests of the World”
poster for a country that has a large percentage of
forest land.
Trace back to its origins a product they use
(such as tropical nuts, fruit, or coffee).
Choose your families’ country of origin.
Consider an area you have been curious about visiting
or exploring.
Decide on a famous forest region you have heard of
(such as the Cloud Forest of Costa Rica, Black Forest
of Germany, Amazon Rain Forest of Brazil, or
California Redwood Forest).
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Activity 9 – Doing the activity
Student Page:
“Forest of the World Profile”
Let’s read it and understand each category of
information for your research…
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Activity 9 – Doing the activity
Presentation in class
 The presentation must describe some of the
main features of the forest you researched
 Compare the similarities and differences
between the different forests.
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Assessment
 Presentation of a forest profiles showing
your understanding about what type of
forest is present in the country or region,
what factors influence the type and size
of the forest, how people in the country
or region view and use the forest, and
how people around the globe are
connected to this forest.
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Enrichment
Activity 9
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Activity 9 – Enrichment
International connection
Make contact with students in another country, and
have them exchange information about their
local forests and culture.
Resources:
– U.S. Department of Education’s “Teacher's Guide to
International Collaboration on the Internet”
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/tech/international/index.html
– Peace Corps’ “Coverdell World Wise Schools”
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws.
– EPALS Classroom Exchange at http://www.epals.com
– International Education and Resource Network
http://www.iearn.org.
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Activity 9 – Enrichment - Careers
Careers
Investigate careers and volunteer opportunities
(such as in tourism and international
development) in which detailed country
information is used on-the-job.
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Activity 9 – Enrichment - Technology
Technology
Examine:
a. communication technologies in terms of how
people get news and
b. information from around the world.
As you do your forest research for this module, you can
record the sources of your information (cable TV,
Internet, print, and so on), including when, why, and
from where the information originated.
Analyze the sources of information and their influence on
our understanding of forests around the world.
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Resource
• U.S. Department of Education’s “Teacher's
Guide to International Collaboration on the
Internet”:
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/tech/intern
ational/index.html.
• Peace Corps’ “Coverdell World Wise
Schools”: http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws.
• EPALS
Classroom
Exchange:
http://www.epals.com
• International Education and Resource
Network: http://www.iearn.org.
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