critically evaluate the role of caste system in social discrimination
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Every year, industrial agriculture is contributing to deforestation in over five million hectares of forest lands, a new analysis has shown. Despite attempts made to reduce deforestation, the amount of forest land taken over by industrially valuable crops, like palm oil trees, has remained steady from 2001 to 2015.
The real players behind the deforestation pattern are the corporates. Destruction of forests for plantation of selective crops that are profitable lies at the core of the issue. Although corporate commitments on reducing deforestation have had some positive effect in the Amazon basin, the current trend hints towards its inadequacy.
Philip Curtis, the geospatial analyst currently working with the sustainability consortium based in Arkansas, developed a computer analysis method to find out major causes of the deforestation pattern. He and his team identified five possible causes of deforestation- wildfire, large-scale agriculture, small-scale agriculture, urbanisation and logging of trees. According to their analysis published in the Science magazine, about 27% of the total deforestation during the period 2001 to 2015 was due to large- scale farming and ranching.
Large-scale farming, as found by Curtis and his team, included industrial plantation of palm oil trees. Palm oil tree is a major source of bio-fuel and also is an important ingredient of food and cosmetics. The problem lies in the fact that the forests cleared for these kinds of plantations are gone forever. Whereas, in the case of small-scale farming, the forest growing back to its previous stage is still possible. Their analysis also marks urbanisation as a factor behind permanent forest destruction, but as a weaker contributor, the percentage being 1% of the total deforestation.