Campaigning to save forests

Opposing destruction of forests
Campaigning against burning of woodlands
Protesting vegetation clearance
Campaigning against forest clearance

Description

Campaigning to save forests involves coordinated actions to raise public awareness, influence policy, and mobilize resources to prevent deforestation and degradation. Essential strategies include advocacy for stronger legal protections, promoting sustainable land use, supporting indigenous rights, and encouraging responsible consumption. These efforts aim to halt habitat loss, preserve biodiversity, and mitigate climate change by directly addressing drivers such as illegal logging, agricultural expansion, and weak enforcement of conservation laws.

Implementation

For decade, landowners in Rio Grande do Sul in the south of Brazil have used fire as a means to clear fields and woods for cattle ranching, in violation of the state legislation which prohibits this. In 1993, a team of environmental activists and forestry guards made a tour of the worst affected areas, confronted landowners and later denounced them to the Public Ministry. The action made headlines and later led to a debate in the House of Representatives.

Claim

An estimated 17.2 million hectares of forest lands and thousands of plant and animal species become extinct each year, many without even being noticed.

There are other economies based on forests that don't involve cutting them down. Often clear cutting forests ruin their other economic uses. The non- consumptive economic side of the forests is not well understood and has lost economic share to the business of clear cutting forests.