In the last year, XPRIZE researched the future of forests, trying to understand how to minimize damage to forests, while preserving their value to humanity and without harming the global economy. As part of the research, 18 trends with a harmful effect on the forests were identified, and 26 solutions that are accepted today (but fail to prevent deforestation and unsustainable logging)
In the last year, XPRIZE researched the future of forests, trying to understand how to minimize damage to forests, while preserving their value to humanity and without harming the global economy. As part of the research, 18 trends with a harmful effect on the forests were identified, and 26 solutions that are accepted today (but fail to prevent deforestation and unsustainable logging). The research was conducted in collaboration with an online community of forestry researchers brought together for the cause, and the conclusions were shared with and corroborated by some of the leading experts on the future of forests.
I was honored to take part in this research (especially towards the end), helping to take all this information and distill it into four possible scenarios that describe forests in 2040. In each of these scenarios, certain challenges to the future of forests are resolved, while others remain unanswered.
I want to share with you in this record the two most extreme scenarios we have created: a future of forest collapse, and a future of hope for forests. You are invited to read both and then decide which one sounds more reasonable.
Please note that this is a translation of the scenarios from the full report. You can read it in English, and there you will also be exposed to the trends and solutions that we outlined, in the following link. Also, the research took part in the study Sebag Kechichian, John Griesberger, Dr. Shai Hershkowitz (Head of Research at Express) and Zenia Tata (Chief Director of Impact), and it was funded by the Kimberly-Clark company. I joined the research at a relatively late stage, after almost all the raw information had already been collected.
The future of forests: total collapse
By the year 2040 it was already clear that the forests were in total collapse - with serious consequences for the environment and humanity as a whole.
The vast pine forests, which once covered most of Canada, Sweden and Finland, could not cope with global warming and began to die at an increased rate. Parents in these countries no longer want to take their children to play in what is now known as the "tree cemetery".
Lumberjacks have gained access to protected public forests and private lands, and are carrying out massive unsustainable logging operations. Poachers followed, emptying the forests of tigers, monkeys, tapirs, antelopes, pigs, elephants, gorillas and other apes. The children in 2040 know that when they visit the zoo, they are seeing the last representatives of these impressive animals, which will soon become extinct.
The unsupervised trade in animals, along with the unsupervised logging, robs the forests of beautiful bird species such as parrots and macaws, along with many other birds. This loss costs humanity dearly, because these species play a critical role in the ecosystem: they spread seeds, pollinate the forest trees and stop the excessive spread of insect populations that can harm the environment in large numbers.
Accordingly, governments fail to deal with invasive and harmful species. Pest insect populations are exploding in the forests of North America, Europe and East Asia. Vast areas of forests are beginning to thin out...
As a result of the spreading desertification process, many fertile lands become dry desert areas. The sunlight is reflected back from the dry land, so the atmosphere heats up even more and global warming accelerates.
Climate change continues all the time, resulting in sea level rise, devastating and unpredictable climate disasters such as hurricanes and droughts. These seriously damage the yield of the fields and lead to severe years of world hunger.
This is what the future looks like in 2040, in the scenario of the collapse of the forests. This is not a contextless nightmare, but a future that may actually be realized for humanity. But how did we get to it? What needs to happen to justify such a gloomy picture of the future? In the following we will describe how we arrived at the gloomy world described so far - not to frighten, but to enlighten our eyes and explain what are the great evils that we would like to prevent between 2020 and 2040. If you find that the reading is too difficult for you, you are welcome to skip ahead, to the more optimistic scenario. But if you do that, how will you know what needs to be fixed and what the consequences will be if we don't succeed?
The road to the collapse of forests
Renewable energy sources were not welcomed in the various countries, and especially in developing countries such as Africa and Asia. These countries continued to use mainly fossil fuels, which produced a lot of air pollution that harmed the health of the forests in those areas. At the very same time, the continued demand for charcoal and meat-based products needed to feed and sustain the many people in those areas (whose numbers only continued to grow) accelerated the rate of deforestation in the world.
As forests became a rare and more expensive resource, the profits from burning them increased. Governments tried to squeeze the last dollar out of the forests, by issuing extensive logging permits, and focusing on food production on the new agricultural lands left after deforestation. Most governments tried to limit logging, but failed to coordinate strategies and actions between different government departments and offices, or found that their plans fell victim to rampant corruption at every level. Even in developed countries, outdated methods of monitoring logging have failed to keep out illegal loggers.
The United Nations and other global organizations have tried their best to set international standards for forest conservation. Stricter requirements for obtaining sustainable logging permits have been proposed and even accepted in many countries. However, many governments have realized that it is better for them to ignore illegal logging or the management of degraded forests on their territory, in order to continue enjoy the immediate financial gains.
And so, the deforestation continued without a break, and the progress of the tractors and harvesters did not stop for a moment.
The race to squeeze the value out of the forests continued all the time. Governments provided logging permits [mostly] to the fastest and most efficient companies. Environmental protection organizations defied this dismal state of affairs, and giant corporations joined them and publicly declared their commitment to preserving the environment. However, very few of those corporations proposed measures that would be of real significance in preventing deforestation.
As wood-based products rose in price, so did conflicts over forest ownership. Non-state actors realized that they could make large profits from owning forests, just as non-state actors in the late twentieth century took over oil wells for similar financial purposes. Guerrilla groups are fighting governments in many countries to enjoy ownership of forest areas. In some cases, the governments are forced to set fire to some of those areas, to prevent the rebels from being able to hide in their bases in the forests.
Climate change
The increased rate of deforestation means that forests are no longer able to absorb carbon dioxide from the environment efficiently. When the trees are burned to generate energy and produce charcoal, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming and climate change. The ongoing damage to forests, along with climate change, results in the depletion of biodiversity, which is even more harmful to the health of forests.
The changing climate also makes it difficult for farmers to produce crops from the existing fields. The depletion of biological diversity means that pollinator species, which used to live in forests, disappear. The result is that certain plant varieties, such as coffee, cocoa and others, also begin to disappear. The remaining crops suffer from insect attacks, which no longer need to fear their natural enemies - the bats and the birds.
The changing climate also increases the agricultural potential in some areas - and the result is that governments are trying to burn the forests at an even greater rate, in order to turn the forest lands into profitable farms. But it is not enough. As the world's population grows, along with world hunger, food becomes scarcer and more expensive.
Summary of the forest collapse scenario
The forests in 2040 are rapidly depleting. They can no longer support the Earth. […] Some forests remain under effective government protection, experiencing sustainable and careful logging. Most forests, however, experience logging and exploitation in ways that are not sustainable, and whose consequences cannot be easily reversed. The high costs of wood-based products means that only the rich can enjoy wooden houses, reading books printed on paper, or even toilet paper. The new desert areas contribute to climate change, and the forests - which are no longer able to store carbon dioxide efficiently - cannot stop it.
Even in this bleak future, a glimmer of hope can still be found. There are still seeds in abundance in the world, and even desert soils can be restored with the use of modern fertilizers and means of transporting dirt. It is still possible to stop, at least theoretically, global warming, or at least reduce its effects. In order to do this, a series of urgent measures are needed, which will cost humanity a lot of capital and will be coordinated between many countries. But when countries fight each other for wood and food, when coastal areas begin to sink under the waves of the sea and natural disasters increase in frequency every year, it is not clear whether humanity will be able to mobilize the will and the resources required to save it from itself ahead of time.
But maybe it could be different?
In the optimistic scenario, we will see how things can unfold in a completely different way by 2040.
The optimistic scenario
Imagine a future where forests exist in harmony with humans, in an environment that balances a healthy ecosystem with the changing needs of humanity - including economic growth, social progress and political stability. This is the optimistic scenario - the transformative future - in 2040. In that year - as a result of the decline in unsustainable logging, the forests thrive again. They are also not burned in order to clear areas for agriculture.
Many forests have become interconnected so that wildlife can move freely between them. Roads crossing the forests have been built so as not to disturb the wild animals - as much as possible - and aerial bridges are stretched between treetops on both sides of the road to allow animals to pass from side to side.
The healthy forests have helped delay climate change and minimize some of its indirect effects such as floods. However, forests are not only seen as tools to deal with climate change. People are beginning to value forests for their cultural and spiritual properties, and the forest tourism market is booming worldwide.
Logging is carried out in a sustainable manner. Many wood-based products have been abandoned in favor of wood substitutes, such as planks created by bacteria without the need to actually cut down trees.
Biodiversity in the forests was preserved and even increased, so that the forests became more resistant to unexpected changes.
To reach the optimistic scenario, a number of political, economic and technological breakthroughs were realized at the same time, and each of them helped in dealing with different challenges in different ways.
Climate change: a distant threat
Systems for harvesting renewable energy have spread all over the globe, in urban areas and in rural areas alike. Humanity has reduced the use of fossil fuels, and as a result there has been a significant decrease in air pollution and the health of the forests has improved. Local communities in the forest areas also switched to using renewable energy instead of relying on burning wood and charcoal, and as a result did not have to cut down the surrounding trees.
By 2040, the transportation sector has moved to rely almost entirely on electric cars and trucks that do not pollute the environment to the same extent. Autonomous cars, in particular, have had a great impact: these vehicles are more efficient on the roads, and consume less energy during the journey. As a result of these developments, the need to cut down trees to produce charcoal decreased, and fewer polluting gases were released into the atmosphere.
Personal cars and even trucks became electric, but certain means of transportation - such as massive transport ships and giant airplanes - still needed fossil fuels to operate. However, in 2040 fossil fuels are no longer extracted from the remains of long-dead organisms. Instead, algae are grown in urban farms, where they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it in their cells into 'fuel' for ships and planes. The amount of carbon released as a result of burning this fuel is the same as the amount absorbed by the algae from the atmosphere in the process of their growth. These urban farms are compact and efficient, so they can be built up - floor by floor - to reduce land use.
The use of advanced carbon adsorption technologies have resulted in a decrease in excess carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The excess greenhouse gas has become a common ingredient in concrete, food products and even trees and new forests.
abundance of food
In 2040, farms all over the world produce more than enough food to feed everyone. This food is produced in a sustainable way that is easily scalable. Two different technologies were responsible for this change: genetic engineering and vertical farming. Since these two were successfully demonstrated, they have spread to every corner of the globe.
Advanced genetic engineering techniques help farms, vineyards and orchards produce much larger crops each season. Agricultural plants have been engineered to be more resistant to droughts, diseases and insect attacks - and to produce a larger crop. Initial concerns regarding the unintended transfer of genes from transgenic plants to other organisms have been addressed through the use of safer methods of genetic engineering, which do not allow this type of gene transfer.
Between 2020 and 2040, the world population continued to grow along with the global economy. Residents of developing countries began to demand sophisticated food products, and moved to rely more and more on meat-based diets, similar to the Western world. In order to preserve the environment, most of the meat in 2040 is produced in vertical farms: tall buildings where the meat is grown in giant cultures, and plants are grown efficiently and in large quantities. These vertical farms release very little waste and do not compete with forest areas. Since they do not take up a lot of space, they can be placed in urban areas, thus reducing the time required to transport food products to consumers - and also the pollution created by such long-distance transport.
A large part of the deforestation in the twentieth century was carried out in order to turn the forest land into agricultural land. However, the dramatic progress in these two technologies - genetic engineering and vertical farms - has resulted in a significant decrease in the need for new land for food production. The widespread transition to relying on laboratory meat also reduced the levels of air, water and soil pollution released by the animal farms - and thus the effects of desertification and the damage to biological diversity were reduced.
Reduced need for wood products
By 2040, sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives to wood products have become the new status quo. In some cases, there are alternatives that simulate wood: for example, cellulose produced by bacteria, or hemicellulose and lignin arranged in a way that simulates natural wood. In other cases, the alternatives are quite different from wood. Paper books, for example, will almost no longer exist by 2040, and have been replaced by digital books. Paper-based books continue to exist as valuable gifts, but the paper industry is almost no longer reliant on forests.
Reforestation
As people moved to cities, and the means of growing food moved there with them, less land is needed to grow food and provide housing. The agricultural and residential areas that were vacated in the areas of the book were converted into new forests. The existing forests underwent reconstruction and support processes in order to return them to their original greatness. Most of the work in the field is done by robots, such as drones that drop seeds from the air, and automatic machines that patrol the forests and get rid of dead trees and branches to help the health of the forest. The mechanized forest guards also help in dealing with the invasive and harmful species, thus reducing their negative effects on the forests.
It is important to note that the forests still provide humanity with their resources. In many forests it is possible to get a permit to cut down trees in a sustainable manner. The wood obtained in this way is often used to create luxury objects with emotional value - figurines, jewelry, prestigious books and others - that their owners are proud of and display.
In this scenario, living in cities has become the norm. Precisely in this situation, and perhaps because of it, people come back to recognize the spiritual value of the forest. Many visit urban parks every weekend. The natural forests attract tourists from all over the world. This tourism development has helped to convince decision makers of the value of forests - especially now that there is no real need for the wood they provide, or the agricultural land that would replace them. As a result, many governments They have developed advanced policy plans that ensure that the forests in their territory remain intact and pulsating.
Global cooperation and compliance with the law
Illegal loggers found themselves in serious trouble in this scenario. Two types of technologies have undermined their work: monitoring technologies, and trustless technologies.
Monitoring technologies have found their way to the whole world by 2040. Drones and even flying vehicles buzz incessantly in the air, transporting objects and people, while also recording everything that happens on the ground. This development, along with the increase in the number and capabilities of the cheap and effective sensors that can be spread in large numbers in any forest, has resulted in the fact that any attempt at illegal logging is immediately detected. Now that governments understand the value of forests, they are acting immediately to stop such illegal logging operations.
The second technological breakthrough is the creation of a transparent platform that is not under government control. This platform - which will probably be blockchain-based - tracks all existing information regarding forests, in high resolution. Each piece of wood obtained from individual trees is identifiable by its DNA and epigenetic signatures, and thus its origin and its passage through the supply chain can be tracked. Thanks to the transparent monitoring platform, it is much more difficult for governments to cheat the existing system of international agreements, which is supposed to ensure sustainable logging. As a result As a result, illegal logging disappears almost completely, and plans to mark wood products as sustainably produced getting more power.
Summary of the optimistic scenario
This future may seem like a utopian fantasy, but many of the technologies described in it are on the verge of realization and implementation. If the technologies behind urban farms and solar panels are realized within a decade from now, for example, then these tools could be widely adopted by 2040.
The main assumption underlying this future is that the technology will not continue to develop gradually, but will undergo an exponential (exponential) jump in its capabilities, and will be adopted quickly and enthusiastically by users of all levels, all over the world. Humanity must find a way to work with technology and machines, and not ignore them or deny their beneficial qualities. As the history of genetically modified plants reveals, even the most effective tool cannot help if people refuse to use it, or to purchase the products produced with it.
Summary of the scenarios
These are the two most extreme scenarios - for better or for worse - described in the Express report on the future of forests. The first scenario assumes that there will be no significant technological progress, or that the new technologies will not be adopted quickly and on a large scale. The second scenario goes to the second extreme, in which new technologies are developed that are very effective More than those that exist today, and they are being adopted very quickly all over the world (and lead to only positive results).
Obviously, both of these scenarios are unlikely in themselves, and neither of them will materialize exactly as described. However, they can help us understand the possibilities for the future of forests - where it is possible to change and in what way, and what the consequences of the change might be.
I will end with a question: which of these scenarios, in your opinion, is more likely? In which direction on the spectrum - between the complete collapse of the forests (and human civilization alongside them) and environmental utopia - are we moving forward today?
More of the topic in Hayadan:
5 תגובות
In my opinion, the end of summer is already upon us.
What scares me no less than the destruction of the forests is a situation where all humans live in urban ghettos controlled and technologically monitored all the time, without privacy, without setting foot in the forests, completely torn and separated from nature. Is this what you call a utopian world? I would call it a prison, maybe ecological but still a prison.
You need a balance between preserving nature and preserving human freedom and privacy along with learning a healthy relationship with it. The solution is not to separate man from nature.
It's so sad that people are so busy with themselves and the monstrous progress that threatens to destroy the good in our world. Without mercy on trees, animals, climate and survival. Only a big slap will help here!!!!!
Roy Hello and welcome back to "Hidan",
Thank you for an exhaustive, interesting and sad article,
Sad because the chance for the "best case scenario" is slim to zero,
In the best case there will be a combination of the scenarios
Which will lead to negative results or the least bad,
The problem is that in our case evil in its minority is a disaster,
Environmental disaster, climate disaster and consequent disaster
On a "biblical" scale for humanity,
Skepticism is an important measure for anyone involved in science
In this case, skepticism becomes a grim reality,
In 1984, following the horse culture in the cities, a study was published in the Times that predicted that within 50 years the streets of London would be buried under 5 meters of horse manure and all human urban life would cease.
People will leave the cities and they will become extinct.
In 1898, a world conference was held in New York on the subject of urban planning and no solution was found to the problem of horse manure, it seemed that life in the city was destined to extinction.