lar stream flow, climate change and loss of biodiversity. Deforestation is second only to the burning of fossil fuels as a human source of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Almost all carbon dioxide released due to deforestation originates in the tropics. Annual global estimates of carbon dioxide released by deforestation are 2.8 billion metric tons. Deforestation accounts for about thirty-three percent of the annual emissions of carbon dioxide by humans. In 1987 eleven countries were responsible for eighty-two percent of the net carbon dioxide released: Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, Thailand, Laos, Nigeria, Vietnam, Philippines, Myanmar and India. During 1987 when there was intense land clearing by fire in Brazil's Amazon, more than 1.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is believed to have been released (Zuckerman, 299-303). Lowering the consumption of paper products will greatly reduce some of the burden on our forests. For example removal of your name from junk/bulk mailing lists. Writing or photocopying on both sides of the paper. Recycling waste paper and buying recycled paper products, use of cloth shopping bags, napkins, towels, and diapers in place of their respective paper counterparts is also obliging. Communicating our views to our elected representatives and building a movement toward forest protection are other steps that can be taken to promote forest conservation rather than deforestation. In the past Northern California's Pacific Lumber Company was a timber operation that set an example of good forestry practices. The family run firm harvested selectively from its one-hundred ninety-five acres of Redwood forest. These conservation efforts enabled Pacific Lumber to virtually guaranteed that the trees would last wellInto the next century. All that changed in 1985 when Charles Hurwitz of the New York based MAXXAM group bought the company. To pay the debt of the transaction Hurwitz doubled the logging rat...
