Article Summary: 'Second Life'

The article ‘Second Life’ was printed in The Economist on January 15th, 2009. The link to the article is: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12926042

It has been claimed that 100 species become extinct every day. Yet according to Joseph Wright of the Smithsonian Tropical Institute and Helene Muller-Landau of the University of Minnesota, these predictions are overstated and there is the possibility for environmental improvement. Not only is the human population growth slowing in many tropical countries; the increasing urbanization of the population is leaving agriculturally marginal land vacant and open for a ‘second forest’ to re-grow. Wright and Muller-Landau predicted that this land would, within a few decades, regain half of the original biomass, allowing for its re-colonization by many species. They believe that by 2030, more than one third of the tropical forests original territory will still remain and in certain areas, its size could even increase. Due to this, the rate of extinction should also decline.
This view is, though positive, not taking into account certain factors and ‘symptoms’ that may or may not affect the rate of extinction, as well as the forest growth rate. One of these, proposed by Elizabeth Bennet of the Wildlife Conservation Society, is that though tropical forests look healthy from satellite pictures, in reality they are empty; this is known as ‘empty forest syndrome’. This is because large birds and mammals are less resistant and therefore more likely to become extinct; in addition, they are hunted and used for trade. Though the extinction rate has been overstated, the species that survive are insects. Secondly, a country’s population growth rate is not the sole indicator of the expected growth rate of the tropical forest. Industries require land for production and it is likely that the vacant land will not remain so for long; the liberalization of agriculture and the rise in demand for bio-fuels alone could lead to the increase in demand for land in the tropics. In addition, climate change is another unfavorable factor that affects the rate of extinction; certain tropical species are not equipped to deal with a rise in temperature by as little as 3°C. In conclusion, the optimistic prediction of these two individuals takes into account certain positive aspects of human development; however, the reality of many negative factors will probably guarantee that their hopes will never be fulfilled.