What Does Environmental Justice Look Like in the Fight Against Deforestation?

Forests are responsible for the regulation of our climate, carbon storage, and the lives of billions. Despite this, deforestation is continuing to rise at an extremely fast rate due to issues such as mining and commercial logging. The human costs are just as horrible for communities such as the Indigenous, who are highly dependent on the forest for their means of survival.

The people who are most often affected by climate change are often people of color, indigenous communities, and low-income families. All of these communities are not correctly represented. There is a very clear connection that comes with forest loss, and it's that indigenous communities are the most impacted. But they are also often the ones who are left out of the conversation on how to find a solution to such problems.

Indigenous communities consider forests to be a part of their entire lives and cultures. Unlike other cultures, they see forests as a source of food, medicine, and spirituality. When these communities are given free control over their lands, they are able to manage their forests in a sustainable fashion. However, when the control of the land is put into the hands of the government, we can see the trend of deforestation start to go on the rise.

There are an unlimited number of consequences that follow deforestation. Forests contain huge amounts of carbon, which gets released into the climate when trees are cut down on a massive scale. This causes climate change to drastically increase. This can also cause ecosystems to get disrupted. This is because deforestation creates lots of issues such as soil erosion, biodiversity collapse, and a reduction of rainfall.

There is an unequal distribution of the impacts of deforestation. The communities that face the majority of the side effects are rural and indigenous communities. Some benefit from deforestation, such as mining companies and national governments. Those who are benefiting almost never face the long-term consequences as well. This imbalance in impacts is called to attention by environmental justice efforts.

It has been shown in various studies that deforestation rates steadily fall when indigenous communities are given full control of their land. This shows us the importance of giving indigenous communities and leaders full leadership of land that is rightfully theirs, as well as allowing them to have a leadership role in the situation and be the primary decision makers in these situations.