Post contributed by architect Luis Bentancor. Below is an excerpt of an article he wrote called Deforestation & Architecture. This section is actually the final section of the article, discussing how architecture and deforestation are related, and what can be done to improve the situation. Para leerlo en español, visita Todo Arquitectura.
Architecture
If at first sight architecture does not seem to be related with what was exposed, in reality it is, and in a serious way.
In the industrialized countries from North America, Scandinavia and in many Pacific countries, wood is the most common material for the constructions of homes. And wood is always used in diverse and varied ways in all the stages of the construction process in the world.
According to the World Watch Institute based in Washington, 25% of the wood extracted from the forests is used for construction purposes. Because it is clear that architecture plays an important role in the demand for wood, it has its share of responsibility in the deforestation process.
Architecture, therefore, can contribute in a significant way to the diminution and prevention of this process.
How can architecture help fight the problem of deforestation and its consequences? It can in many ways in all the stages of the architectural process; from design to construction and until the end of the building’s life. Certain measures can be taken in this regard, some of them are:
- Specifying certified wood.
- During the construction process a plan can be elaborated to separate all the resulting debris, among them wood, so they can be then taken to recycling plants.
- It is possible to construct new buildings taking advantage of certain elements from old buildings. Structural elements, floors, windows and others wood elements that are still in good condition in abandoned buildings can be re-adapted in new projects, and can generally be acquired at a very low cost.
- In remodeling projects trying to save and use the largest amount possible of existing wood elements from the building.
- When a demolition is carried out, it is important to save the elements, which can be reused in other projects. This measure, together with the other three mentioned, decrease the demand of new wood.
- When new buildings or urbanizations are designed, adapt the design to the existing trees and include them in the new project, instead of cutting them and totally clean the terrain.
- Wood can be substituted for other alternative materials that are found in the region. For example, in many countries where there is a lot of bamboo, this material is an important construction material, and if we take in account that pine trees take 40 years to produce one cubic meter of wood and bamboo after 5 years can be a usable material, it is obvious that the use of this last material is a much more sustainable option.
Applying these measures, architecture contributes to the diminution of deforestation.
Saving the world from deforestation and its terrible consequences is not achieved by applying a few isolated measures, but with the combination of those small isolated measures that each inhabitant of the planet can carry out on a daily basis and in his/her professional activity. Architecture professionals have the ability and the responsibility to contribute in the attainment of this objective.
*Primary forests are those that have existed untouched by humans and/or other sorts of disturbances during periods of time larger than the normal life period of their mature trees.
To read the remainder of this article, which actually precedes this section, please click the link below.
Deforestation and Architecture
Luis Bentancor
Deforestation
Forests are one of the world’s most important and valuable ecosystems. The importance and value that they have covers ecological, climactic, social and cultural aspects. It’s impossible to think about planet earth and life in it, without them.
All the forests in general, and in particular the tropical forests, have an important role in the world.
They keep 60% of the planet’s biodiversity; and in some of them, there are plants and animal species that still have not been discovered by science.
- The existence of the forests guarantees the presence of water, vital element in life; they protect the streams and the regular distribution of this element throughout the land.
- Together with the oceans, they fulfill a fundamental role in the regulation of the hydrological cycle.
- They accumulate carbon through photosynthesis and they result vital to balance the carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere and to stop the greenhouse effect. One hectare of tropical forest can neutralize ten tons of carbon dioxide per year. It is calculated that all the built-up carbon in all the forests is ten times larger than all the fossil fuel that has been burnt in the last one hundred years.
- They constitute an important source of renewable raw material, wood, food, medicine, etc.
- Many indigenous civilizations and peoples depend on the forests, since these provide them with shelter, food, medicine, and other products; moreover, the people have carved their cultural and spiritual values around the forests. Forests are the only possible home for these peoples, which would not be able to survive without forests. Reason why the devastation of these means also the devastation of their culture, languages and knowledge.
- The forests have also a cultural meaning for the majority of the world’s civilizations.
Unfortunately forests are disappearing as a result of human actions. It is estimated that 80% of the world’s primary forests have been destroyed*; and of the original world’s forests, less that one fifth still remains in its natural status.
During the last 20 years 200 million hectares have been lost and actually approximately 15 million hectares are destroyed annually.
- Africa looses close to 4 million hectares of forest per year, and western Africa forests have been totally eliminated.
- Europe lost a large part of its forests during the XIX century.
- In North America the lumber industry has ravaged millions of hectares.
- In places like Central America the deforestation rate is 48 hectares per hour, at this rate, it is calculated that in 44 years there will be no forests in this region.
- In the Amazon, the largest primary forest on earth, the deforestation of its territory advances rapidly.
The consequences of the deforestation are negative from any point of view.
The deforestation means the banishment of animal and vegetal species, due to the loss of its habitat. It reflects negatively in the conservation of water, originating floods and droughts. It causes the soil’s erosion, as well as the increase in temperature. As a result the ecological balance is broken. This harms the nearby populations and activities such as agriculture, cattle and fishing.
It also causes a lack of regulation in the hydrological cycle and the world’s climate. The greenhouse effect increases with the deforestation, on one hand because the amount of trees decrease to trap the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and on the other hand, when the forests are burnt or cut, they release carbon accumulated in the form of carbon dioxide, thus, the concentration in the atmosphere of this component increases, and it is carbon dioxide the component that contributes the most to the greenhouse effect. It is estimated that deforestation constitutes a third of all the carbon dioxide liberated in the atmosphere by human activity. Deforestation and climate changes are intimately related.
From the social and cultural point of view, for the populations and indigenous communities that live and depend on the forests, deforestation means the loss of means of survival and brings with it malnutrition, the increase of illnesses, emigration and even the disappearance of the community.
The causes of deforestation can be divided in two, the direct causes and the indirect causes. Among the main direct causes we have:
- The exploitation of wood from the forests. When lumber is harvested for industrial purposes, it is taken out in large scale, becoming one of the main causes of worldwide deforestation.
- The substitution of the forests for agriculture and cattle. The forests’ soil is a poor soil for these practices; therefore, after just a few years it becomes a depleted land.
- Urbanization.
- Mining and petroleum activity.
- The construction of infrastructures, hydroelectric dams where forests land and roads flood.
- Forest fires.
- Acid rain.
The indirect causes are the ones that make the direct causes exist are among others:.
- The production and consumption models, which create a big demand for wood, mainly in the developed countries.
- Bad economic and social politics. Some of these promote the substitution of the forests with agriculture and cattle in a large scale in order to supply the international market, and others instead, force many poor farmers to destroy forests to cultivate the land to survive.
- Uncontrolled industrialization, which provokes contamination and causes acid rain.
Certified wood
Aware of the deforestation problem and its consequences, in 1993 representatives of environmental organizations, indigenous organizations, wood industrials, merchants of the forests products and other groups and institutions from 25 countries met in Toronto Canada and created the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest certification system, with the purpose of improving the management of the forests to try and save the planet from deforestation.
Forest certification is a monitoring system, which certifies that the products which originate from a forest have been extracted from forests that have been well managed from the environmental, economical and social point of view, based on certain established standards. It guarantees that the certified products do not contribute to the increase of deforestation problems. The certified products are marked with a seal.
The certification is an independent and non-profit technical system.
Even though the certified wood is more expensive that the non-certified, the certification guarantees environmental, economical and social benefits for the producers and consumers of the forest products, as well as for all humanity. Today there are diverse systems of certification, regional and national, The Pan European Forest certificate-PEFC or The Canadian Standard Association-CSA e.g., but the FSC is the most important and recognized, and the only one applicable internationally.
However, for many non-governmental organizations the certification is not going in the right direction, since it is based mainly in the manner the wood is cut, and it works only if the consumers want to buy certified wood. They say what should be done is to reduce the excessive consumption of wood in the world.
Nevertheless, it can be said that the certification is at least an initiative, a beginning, to try to solve the existing problems.