A Message to Political Leaders in Paris: Stop the Burning!

Slash-and-burn industrial agriculture is a huge source of carbon emissions. Ending deforestation is the simplest, quickest, most cost effective way to help solve the climate crisis. We must let those assembled in Paris know that now is the time for them to say, "Stop the burning!"
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Every year, it happens like clockwork. Raging fires are deliberately set in rainforests from Sumatra to the Congo Basin. They call it the "burning season," as if it were a normal cyclical change in our global weather pattern. Instead it's a tragically short-sighted effort to create cheap agricultural land at the expense of our planet and future generations. We've already burned and razed half of the world's forests; at this rate, they will disappear by the end of the century.

And it's getting worse. This year's "burning season" in Indonesia resulted in over 100,000 fires that erased significant wildlife habitats, sent toxic pollution -- upwards of 1.7 billion tons of carbon -- into the air, drove half a million people across southeast Asia to hospital, and brought species including the orangutan closer to extinction. These fires tripled Indonesia's annual emissions and put this country in the unenviable position of being the world's fourth largest polluter. Even more appalling, it caused millions of acres of centuries-old rainforests to go up in smoke -- mostly for yet more oil palm plantations. We are not exaggerating when we say it is the largest manmade environmental disaster of our lifetime!

But there is hope. First, many groups both in and outside tropical forest countries have been working tirelessly to develop and promote sustainable, deforestation-free practices as an alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture. Global Forest Watch, one of our partners, has been critical to these efforts, enabling access to real-time information about the status of forest landscapes worldwide.

Second, we already know the solutions. Ending deforestation is entirely possible if business, civil society and government leaders work together to readjust everything from supply chains to government policies. This is critical to fighting the deep-seated corruption within both the public and private sectors.

Lastly, the developed world must step up and help to put real incentives in place to ensure that environmental considerations as well as economic growth are parts of a unified management of our planet, for the future of all life on earth.

But we are not working fast enough. Country leaders, both north and south, need to close the gap between promise and performance. Deforestation must be viewed as both a local and global problem. We need our leaders to take decisive action to end this barbaric practice that creates so much pain and suffering.

This is the moment! At the U.N. summit in Paris, global leaders will discuss how they will tackle climate change, and our threatened rainforests are an important topic. It must be very clear to them that we expect them to act! They must produce a collective agreement for a robust plan that will protect our forests so that we may protect our planet.

Slash-and-burn industrial agriculture is a huge source of carbon emissions. Ending deforestation is the simplest, quickest, most cost effective way to help solve the climate crisis. We must let those assembled in Paris know that now is the time for them to say, "Stop the burning!"

In the short film below, listen to what 30 global leaders say about why ending deforestation is so important. And then spread the word.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post, in conjunction with the U.N.'s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris (Nov. 30-Dec. 11), aka the climate-change conference. The series will put a spotlight on climate-change issues and the conference itself. To view the entire series, visit here.

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