
Norway Becomes World’s First Country to Ban Deforestation - DoreenMichele
https://www.ecowatch.com/norway-becomes-worlds-first-country-to-ban-deforestation-1891166989.html?__twitter_impression=true
======
dexen
It may seem ironic that the ecological policy is enabled by riches derived
from extraction of their sizable oil reserves.

Nonetheless this is the pattern we've seen repeat time and time again through
history: the more surplus (energy, power, human effort, etc.) is available,
the more people can improve their living conditions. And people indeed show
strong preference to have nature in healthy, beautiful state. It's all matter
of having strong, efficient economy.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Norway's Sovereign fund is very much the exception from surplus. Most
countries have achieved far less future proofing. The pattern we see again and
again is using a surplus in a very short-term, short-sighted manner.

Round about the same time as Norway was setting up their fund, the UK was
deciding not to. UK's dividend from similarly sized oil reserves was
_nothing._ It was all given away in tax cuts, realistically not much noticed.
Effectively all spent on people buying a 26" CRT TV, a holiday, maybe a Sony
Walkman etc.

~~~
dogma1138
The population of the UK is considerably larger while they had less oil
reserves and their oil is more costly to extract.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
We'd have potentially ended up with a similarly sized fund but around a tenth
per-capita. That would have been around $20k or $30k for every man woman and
child - hardly trivial.

Certainly not a reason not to bother or feel we got anything resembling a
benefit from the resource dividend.

~~~
dogma1138
Hindsight is always 20/20, the Norwegian fund was setup because the country
went bankrupt and needed to save its pensions a similar fund in the UK
would’ve been about half of the total endowment the Norwegians had with 12
times the population it’s not that clear if it would’ve made any difference in
the long term.

------
mjul
This is about a Norwegian government policy to not procure the products of
deforestation.

Some countries limit the actual deforestation directly: for example, Article 5
of the Bhutanese constitution from 2008 provides broad environmental
protection and mandates that at least 60% of the country shall be forest at
all times.

~~~
mrep
Clickbait titles...

Limmiting procurement should incentivize non-deforistation where as a simple
ban would likely just shift deforestation to other countries. But alas, the
current title is more sensational.

~~~
evasote
[https://qz.com/504370/norway-rewards-brazil-
with-1-billion-f...](https://qz.com/504370/norway-rewards-brazil-
with-1-billion-for-keeping-the-amazon-full-of-trees/)

Like giving them a billion dollars, too?

------
clydethefrog
Good for them. Currently in my country they are actively cutting trees thanks
to a EU renewable energy policy that counts biomass as renewable energy,
resulting in a lot of "sick" and "dangerous" trees getting cut.

[https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/09/12/europes-policy-
tre...](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/09/12/europes-policy-treat-wood-
low-carbon-fuel-poised-harm-global-forests)

------
tyfon
Hopefully this will also apply to fodder for the farmed fish that is produced
with soy from the rain forest but I highly doubt it. The farmed fish lobby
here is strong.

Edit: Yeah I see this is from 2016. They are indeed still using soy from the
rain forest while the government pumps out billions to "protect" the rain
forest.

~~~
strainer
Soybean production can potentially continue without rainforest destruction,
and fish farms are far from being the largest consumers of soya.

Legislation and expenditure to protect forest directly targets the heart of
the matter while indirectly stifling all of its causal factors.

------
MindTooth
Need to put (2016) in the title. This is an old article.

None the less, good for us. Even though our valleys are becoming more filled
with trees now that there is no livestock to keep it down.

------
polskibus
Did they also ban buying timber from abroad, or did they only ban
deforestation within their own borders? I hope it's not like US recycling that
ended up sending most of the garbage abroad.

~~~
sasasassy
I'd think that timber planted for that purpose would not be counted as
deforestation. Just like paper is made from Eucalypti which is rare to grow
naturally or with other species.

------
bigbaguette
China is paying big bucks right now for timber and buys more European wood
since the trade conflict with the US. There are forests to protect.

------
algaeontoast
The idea of banning logging of any kind to the average American might seem
stupid, their thought process being "well, what else are we going to get wood
to build new houses??". However, steel / aluminum construction is dropping in
price every year and although concrete isn't much better, buildings
constructed from it last one hell of a lot longer. IMO forests are far too
precious to humanity to just cut down for housing materials. DISCLAIMER - I'm
going to come off as some hippie-dippie tree hugger here, but I am NOT. Just
your average developer with some weird hobbies, maybe I happen to like plants
a bit more than some since I got into plant science / algae while doing
research at UT Austin's plant science dept. in high school? I digress...

My biggest reason to support this kind of legislation comes from an experience
I had while taking time off from college to work in the Bay Area. One weekend
I decided to take a day trip to Big Basin National Park. This was in 2017
after almost two weeks of heavy rain, I was lucky I didn't get my shrimpy VW
Jetta stuck in a washed out part of the road during the drive over the
foothills on my way to the park.

When I arrived, the forest floor was surging with life, trees had fallen but
new rivers had formed. I saw endangered species of mushroom, salamander and
all kinds of other life that otherwise wouldn't have emerged from the duff
covering the forest floor. I spent 7 hours in that park, eventually realizing
a deer had been silently following me. For a while I was actually lost and
although I'm not a religious person consider this three hour period taking in
the forest as the closest thing to a "religious experience" I've ever had.

In simply terms I though, "how on earth could anyone experience this
incredible place, trees higher than I could see, life surging from every
orifice and think 'we should cut this down to build housing complexes'??"

I had a long reflective drive back, feeling refreshed in a way I'd never
experienced going to any other national park. It killed me to pass logging
trucks and signs for "active logging" as I made my way back over the foothills
and actually almost ran out of gas because my expected route had washed out
while I was hiking that day.

Forests are sacred. Why we cut them down is beyond me, if you're in the Bay
Area please join a reforestation cause!

I'm going to get back to programming now...

~~~
longerthoughts
>steel / aluminum construction is dropping in price every year

I'm not sure this is any better. Steel and aluminum production are both
incredibly stressful on the environment. Brazil, for example, mines massive
amounts of iron ore (for steel) and bauxite (for aluminum) in the Amazon,
contributing significantly to the deforestation there. I don't know much about
the process for steel production, but aluminum smelting is incredibly energy
intensive. The result is large energy projects which themselves impact the
environment. Hydroelectric dams are commonly used to supply the energy needs
and can result in massive environmental side effects in places like Brazil. A
common alternative to smelting near mining operations is shipping to countries
like Iceland, which has exceptional energy production capacity thanks to its
many renewable sources (like hydro) and offers cheap energy. While dams in
Iceland have significantly less flora and fauna to disrupt, you're adding the
emissions cost of shipping.

