Who's to blame?

It’s hard to distinguish exactly who’s to blame for this rapid increase in deforestation. Immediately when you think about it, it seems like it’s an obvious answer. It must be the logging groups and the businesses that need the land for the production of their goods? Right? Maybe not. Unfortunately there is one group of individuals that seem to be completely forgotten about in this whole argument, and that would be consumers. Consumers play a huge role in the cutting down of trees, after all, we are the ones that demand the goods and the companies and businesses produce and supply them. So many things are made out of trees; wood for houses, furniture, boats, bridges, floors, toothpicks, picture frames, tissues, toilet paper, blankets, magazines, newspapers, books, pencils and the list could go on for days. We demand these products and so the supply of them has to increase. Our population is constantly increasing and so there is more of a need for those products to be provided to everyone. There is no defending the logging groups and businesses that steal the habitat of so many creatures in the forests and there is no defending them taking away our oxygen, but what other solutions are there. Until more solutions and substitutes become available, this will continue to happen.      

(BBC. 2012)