By Liliana Usvat
Blog 292-365
We must lo live the Earth in a better shape that we have found it.
We need to protect the life forms that cannot protect themselves; the life forms that do not have a voice. The forests......
We are interconnected.
EDMONTON - A report based on new satellite imagery says forests on the slopes of Alberta's Rocky Mountains are disappearing more quickly than anywhere else in the province — including the oil sands area.
The Global Forest Watch data, to be released Thursday, suggests industrial development is cutting through forests on the eastern slopes at twice the Canadian average and faster than countries that include the United States, Russia and Brazil.
Blog 292-365
We must lo live the Earth in a better shape that we have found it.
We need to protect the life forms that cannot protect themselves; the life forms that do not have a voice. The forests......
We are interconnected.
The Global Forest Watch data, to be released Thursday, suggests industrial development is cutting through forests on the eastern slopes at twice the Canadian average and faster than countries that include the United States, Russia and Brazil.
In 12 years, the eastern slopes of the Rockies lost 6.8 per cent of their forests that weren't in a protected area. That outpaced the rate of deforestation in the oilsands region, which came in at 5.5 per cent.
The Canadian average was 3.1 per cent. Brazil's average was 4.3 per cent, the U.S. was 2.9 per cent and Russia came in at 2.2 per cent.
Most forest loss in Canada is due to fire.. In Alberta, it's almost entirely due to energy and forestry.
"Ninety-five-plus per cent of forest loss in the eastern slopes is due to industrialization. It's almost exclusively due to industrial uses."
Today the landscape is scarred by Tar Sands extraction which has become known as "the most destructive project on Earth". The scale is so enormous that the wound can be seen from space. The oil embedded in the sand lies under 140,000 km2 of forests, equivalent to the size of England.
The Tar Sands process emits as much as four times more carbon dioxide than conventional drilling. There is rapid deforestation as trees are cut down and the top layer of peat is removed to reveal the oil sands.
Four barrels of water, energy equal to three barrels of oil, and four tons of earth are required to extract one barrel of oil.
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