Throughout the blog, it is evident that the main proprietors for the massive deforestation are the profit maximisation firms. However, before we start pointing fingers, I personally feel that the ones that are most to blame are…
Us, the consumers.
It’s precisely because of our increasing needs and unlimited wants, for more timber and palm products, that drive these firms to obtaining more and more resources, legal or illegal, in order to increase their output level to meet the increasing demand.
It can also be argued to be a case of tragedy of the commons. This idea was first proposed by Hardin (Hardin, 1968) and it is defined as the consumption of a natural resource by each of many individuals who have unrestricted access to the resource, which eventually leads to the destruction of the resource (Gardner and Stern, 2002). The farmers and firms have the mindset that the number of trees they burn down is only a small portion of the large tree population and hence, would not impact on the environment would be minimal. In addition, they also recognise that even if they do not burn the trees, the same trees would also be burnt by others. Hence, farmers and firms are driven to burn down as much forests as possible, contributing to the deforestation devastations.