NATURAL forests around the world are disappearing at a rate of about four million hectares per year causing severe damage to the ecosystems including wetlands, mangroves and coral reefs.

Here in Jamaica, the effect of uncontrolled wood and timber extraction is being seen in reduced sources of water and increased soil erosion.

Making a call for the preservation and protection of forests at the recent 16th Commonwealth Forestry Conference in Australia, Marilyn Headley, Jamaica’s conservator of forests, noted that forests are at risk due to the changes in “natural” landscapes resulting from human activities.

She said, as much as 30 per cent of the potential area of temperate subtropical forests is being lost to agriculture with resulting negative impacts.

“Grasslands have been ploughed under, swamps drained, deserts irrigated and forests cleared for fields and pastures,” Headley said.

She told the 400 delegates at the conference hosted by the Commonwealth Foresters Association, based in the United Kingdom, that while the value of agriculture to nations is clear, it should be properly planned and controlled.

“Agricultural land supports far less diversity than natural forests and in recent times, agricultural ecosystem have also become less complex,” Headley said.

Making the point that the human influence affects all ecosystems to some extent, Headley said that over time, “between 40 to 50 per cent of land has been transformed through change in land cover or degraded by human actions.”

She told conference participants that the Jamaica on which Spanish navigator, Christopher Columbus, landed which was “clothed from seashore to mountain top with forest”, no longer exists.

She added: “A significant amount of forest cover has been lost due to farming causing increased sediment yields (siltation of surface water flows) as well as the frequency of increased flooding in low-lying areas.

“In Kingston alone, storage losses due to reduced water storage capacity resulting from siltation in the two main reservoirs have been estimated at approximately 85 million gallons — 22 per cent of the city’s total reservoir capacity.”