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NATURAL RESOURCES
Deforesting for the hamburger habit
Consumers do not associate their fast food consumption with deforestation in Central America, yet this is where cheap beef is imported from to the United States. Of all the areas being threatened by deforestation, Central America represents the most severe loss of biological diversity. It is also a case that demonstrates the role of the United States consumer in the deforestation of tropical rainforests.
Two thirds of Central American rainforest have been cleared since 1950, and it is estimated that within 20 years the remaining forest will disappear. Although peasants and Indigenous populations are blamed for tropical deforestation, deforestation happens as a result of multiple causes, and it takes place in stages. This begins with logging companies who go into forests to extract woods, destroying everything else in the process, either directly or indirectly by extracting species upon which others depend on. Loggers construct roads, opening the forests to landless peasants who "clear" the forests through slash and burn in order to plant subsistence crops.
Rather than blaming the colonists, it is important to examine why they have been driven to the rainforest. Inequitable land distribution (in Latin America, 7% of landowners control 93% of arable land) and population growth are the two main reasons. Governments allow colonization since it takes the pressure off them to deal with questions of land redistribution such as land reform. After colonization, land cleared by landless peasants is taken over by companies or large landowners to produce export crops and more commonly to raise cattle for beef. The poverty of the soil and poor yields force peasants to sell their land for pasture land to individual owners or companies. Raising cattle on poor pasture land is inefficient and yields little. Beef production does not benefit local people, it destroys their natural habitat yet it is expanding. For Central American countries, allowing the destruction of rainforests for beef export is a poor use of their natural resources. Consumers need to be aware that when they consume a hamburger, they may be consuming the resources of the rainforest with it.