| Dear
EarthTalk: Is it true that bananas are taboo
for anyone who is concerned about rainforest destruction?
Even if I seek out “fair trade” or organic bananas,
am I feeding the demand which is causing rainforest to be
cleared?
-- Laura Barnard, Hillsboro, OH
| |
Banana
production has long been known for its environmental
and human rights abuses, which have included the use
of dangerous pesticides, water pollution, deforestation
and poor working conditions. But that is slowly changing
thanks to the work of The Rainforest Alliance, the
Sustainable Agriculture Network and other nonprofit
groups.
© Ian Ransley Design, courtesy Flickr |
Sadly,
the short answers to these questions may be yes and yes
for now, but that may change as the $5 billion banana industry
slowly comes to terms with greener forms of production.
Historically, growing the world’s most popular fruit
has caused massive degradation of rainforest land across
the tropics, spread noxious chemicals throughout formerly
pristine watersheds, and poisoned and exploited farm workers.
“Banana
plantations were infamous for their environmental and social
abuses, which included the use of dangerous pesticides,
poor working conditions, water pollution and deforestation,”
reports the Rainforest Alliance, a New York-based non-profit
that has been working to improve worker and environmental
conditions in the industry since 1990. “Pesticide-impregnated
plastic bags, which protect bananas as they grow, often
littered riverbanks and beaches near banana farms, while
agrochemical runoff and erosion killed fish, clogged rivers
and choked coral reefs.” Also, the proximity of housing
to banana fields, coupled with lax regulations for pesticide
handling, led to frequent illness among workers and people
living near the plantations.
But
help is on the way, largely thanks to the pioneering work
of the Rainforest Alliance, which certifies as sustainable
those banana farms and plantations that meet certain criteria
for responsible farm management set by the Sustainable Agriculture
Network, a coalition of non-profits striving to improve
commodity production in the tropics. As a result of the
program, some 15 percent of all bananas sold internationally
now come from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. The group
is especially proud of its agreements with two of the largest
growers, Favorita and Chiquita. All of Favorita’s
farms in Ecuador and all of Chiquita’s farms in Guatemala,
Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama are certified sustainable
under the program.
While
the Rainforest Alliance’s success is certainly a step
in the right direction, other groups bemoan the fact that
even certified plantations are on land that was once tropical
rainforest. According to Rainforest Relief, Americans should
still avoid purchasing bananas altogether and instead opt
for fruit grown locally, such as apples, peaches, cherries
or pears. The group is hopeful, though, that its work with
farm cooperatives growing organic bananas under the shade
of a diverse forest canopy in Costa Rica can eventually
drive the larger international banana market toward better
land use and worker safety standards.
“These
growers are for the most part farming only small portions
of the land they own or control, the rest being left as
montaña—undisturbed forest—to keep their
flowing water fresh and keep healthy the wildlife that ‘works’
their farms with them,” reports Rainforest Relief.
The group has been working to develop secondary markets
for bananas that may have been bruised during harvest or
transport but which can still be used for baby food, vinegar
and other applications that don’t require unblemished
peels. Some of these products are marketed to tourists in
Costa Rica while others are sold in the U.S.—look
for the Rainforest Farms brand, among others—at Whole
Foods and other natural foods retailers.
CONTACTS:
The
Rainforest Alliance; Chiquita;
Favorita;
Rainforest
Relief.
Dear
EarthTalk: Is there any link between increased
volcanic activity—such as the recent eruptions in
Iceland, Alaska and elsewhere—and global warming?
-- Ellen McAndrew, via e-mail
| |
The
amount of greenhouse gases emitted by even a large
and ongoing volcanic eruption is miniscule compared
to industrial and automotive carbon emissions caused
by human activity. Global warming can, however, help
trigger volcanic eruptions by melting the ice that
keeps rock from turning to magma. Pictured: The Arenal
Volcano in Costa Rica, one of the 10 most active volcanoes
in the world.
© Frank Kehren, courtesy Flickr |
It’s impossible
to pin isolated natural phenomena—like an individual
volcanic eruption—on global warming, but some researchers
insist that there is a correlation between the two in some
instances.
“Global
warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems,”
reports Freysteinn Sigmundsson of the Nordic Volcanological
Centre at the University of Iceland. Her research with Carolina
Pagli of the University of Leeds in England suggests that
rocks cannot expand to turn into magma—the primary
“feedstock” for volcanic eruptions—when
they are under the pressure of a big ice cap pushing down
on them. As the theory goes, melting ice caps relieve that
pressure and allow the rocks to become magma. This in turn
increases the chances of larger and/or more frequent eruptions
in affected regions, from Iceland to Alaska to Patagonia
to Antarctica.
As for Iceland
specifically, the eruption of Mt. Ejyafjallajökull
that shut down some air travel for weeks this past spring
cannot be blamed on changing climate: That volcano lies
under a relatively small icecap which would not exert enough
pressure to affect the creation of magma. But Sigmundsson
and Pagli found that the melting of about a tenth of Iceland’s
biggest icecap, Vatnajokull, over the last century caused
the land to rise an inch or so per year and led to the growth
of an underground mass of magma measuring a third of a cubic
mile. Similar processes, they say, led to a surge in volcanic
eruptions in Iceland at the end of the last ice age, and
similarly increased volcanic activity is expected to occur
there in the future.
On the flip side,
volcanic eruptions can exacerbate the ongoing effects of
climate change: Already retreating glaciers can lose all
their ice when something below them blows. Of course, many
volcanoes around the world are not subject to pressure from
ice caps, and scientists stress that there is little if
any evidence linking global warming to eruptions in such
situations.
Some have theorized
that large volcanic eruptions contribute to global warming
by spewing large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases into the stratosphere. But the amount of greenhouse
gases emitted by even a large and ongoing volcanic eruption
is but a drop in the bucket in comparison to our annual
output of industrial and automotive carbon emissions.
According to
the U.S. Geological Survey, greenhouse gas emissions from
volcanoes make up less than one percent of those generated
by human endeavors. Also, ash clouds and sulfur dioxide
released from volcanoes shield some sunlight from reaching
the Earth and as such can have a cooling effect on the planet.
The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines—a
much larger eruption than what occurred recently in Iceland—caused
an average cooling of half a degree centigrade worldwide
during the following year. Regardless, single volcanic eruptions,
even if they last for weeks or months, are unlikely to send
enough gas or ash up into the skies to have any long term
effect on the planet’s climate.
CONTACTS:
Nordic
Volcanological Centre at the University of Iceland;
U.S. Geological
Survey. |
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