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Importance of tropical rainforests environmental sciences essay
Saving the rainforest for and against
The importance of rainforest and biodiversity
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1. Destroying the habitat of different plants and animals, they no longer have a place to live. Their food source and nutrients are taken away and have nowhere else to go. These organisms will die out and there will be a loss in the diversity of that ecosystem. That ecosystem can then start to crumble as the habitats are taken away and the plants and animals have no home. With no habitat in which the organisms can live in, there is going to be very little diversity.
2. a) The Daintree rainforest at Cape Tribulation, in far north Queensland is diverse in many ways. It holds 12 of the 19 primitive plant families in the world (Cairns Today, 2007). The forest covers an area of 1100 square kilometres and is approximately eighty kilometres wide. This dense and luxuriant rainforest has the greatest diversity than any other in Australia and many in the world. The Daintree is also the home of rare and threatened of being extinct plant and animal species. The importance of this ecosystem is the very high. This ecosystem contributes to the overall health of this plant in many ways. The diversity contributes in the breakdown of pollution and helps to control the climate to name a few. This rainforest also is a great ‘carbon sink’. It has many photosynthesising plants and this allows the control of carbon dioxide (CO2). The plants take in the CO2 from the atmosphere and return oxygen (O2)
b) Logging has impacted this special ecosystem. There are trees that are hundreds of years old and their timber is being pushed to be sold for high prices. After World War 2 the Australian economy was booming and timber was in demand. A number of timber mills where made near the Daintree for the purpose of cutting down the forest for the use in infra...
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...and are selling their land back to the government. The government has been slow to act and past government parties have been in favour of cutting the rainforest down. I think that the efforts to save the Daintree forest has been good but the government will have to keep buying back that land to make up for what happened to the forest before it was World Heritage listed.
Works Cited
http://www.daintreerainforest.com/location/Daintree/listingResultsView.html?categoryId=233
http://www.daintreevillage.asn.au/daintree_rainforest.html
http://www.sgaonline.org.au/?p=726
http://www.therainforests.info/landscape/daintree.htm
http://www.daintreevillage.asn.au/mangroves.html
http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares
http://www.green.net.au/quoll/forests/daintree.html
http://www.daintreecoast.com/isiospermum.html
...e slowly destroyed, effects would not only be seen at a local level but be noticeable on a global level. Mitigation areas should be established to alleviate any damage already done, and to prevent any further harm. These areas can help support fragile plant and animal life. Biodiversity is essential to our lives and the stewardship worldview should be used in this issue.
The dense levels of vegetation absorb tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and help slow down the rate of climate change that the planet is experiencing. This process also produces high levels of oxygen that help to support life around the world. Coupled with the high levels of rainfall that benefit the water cycle, the rainforests are an integral part of the many systems that exist. These forests contain a wide variety of plants that a source of different chemicals that are used to create medicines. The degradation of these areas could potentially lead to the loss of medicines that could cure some of the deadliest diseases and illnesses that
The Merri Creek catchment and surrounding areas are home to some of the endangered vegetation communities. As with most vegetation that has been cleared for human purposes in other
FAO: State of the World's Forests. Rome: Food and Agriculture Office of the United Nations; 2007. Print.
Land clearing is the process of removing bushland, forest, woodland or grassland, and most commonly occurs in Queensland and New South Wales. Over the last 200 years 70 percent of Australia’s native vegetation was cleared, most occurring in the past 50 years. Approximately 6 million hectares of various ecosystems were removed between 2001 and 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_clearing_in_Australia, 2010). Australia’s land has been utilized over the past century even though it is known as ‘one of the driest and least fertile continents of the world’ (Australian Conservation Foundation, 2000), although land clearing is still an issue due to increased soil salinity and greenhouse gases.
The Yasuni National Park possesses very diverse rainforest which significantly impact how the ecosystem functions; yet the the processes of disturbance and succession greatly affect them ("Yasuni National Park, Ecuador", "Ecuador Yasuni ITT Trust Fund" ). Just one hectare of the park contains more species of trees and bushes than all of North America ("Foreseeable Impacts of Oil Industry Activity in Yasuní")! There are a staggering 1762 species of trees and shrubs that have been identified in Yasuni, and approximately 400 of them are inherent to the region (“Foreseeable”). Hundreds of the plants in the previously untouchable zones have not even been classified or studied in depth (“Foreseeable”). The park is also paradise to a multitude of animal...
Environmental issues affect every life on this planet from the smallest parasite to the human race. There are many resources that humans and animal needs to survive; some of the most obvious resources come from the forests. Forests make up a large percentage of the globe. The forests have global implications not just on life but on the quality of it. Trees improve the quality of the air that species breath, determine rainfall and replenish the atmosphere. The wood from the forests are used everyday form many useful resources. Moreover, thinning the forests increases the amount of available light, nutrients and water for the remaining trees. Deforestation (forest thinning) is one of the most critical issues of environmental problems that are occurring today.
Thesis: Forests provide the earth with a regulated climate, strong biodiversity, and good nutrient rich soil for plants to strive on.
Simply speaking, rainforests are basically the foundation of the earth. The most important role that rainforests play is ‘the lungs of the earth’. This is extremely vital to the earth’s survival as the trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide which they use to help grow and let out oxygen which we need to live. This system is known as the carbon-oxygen cycle and with numbers of rainforests declining, it is highly threatened. The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, alone is known to produce half of the world’s oxygen. A break down in the carbon-oxygen cycle means that we will not only have less oxygen, but an increase in carbon dioxide which eventually leads to global warming. This occurs as carbon dioxide traps heat which actually keeps the earth warm, with the right amount of carbon dioxide that is. This is called the greenhouse effect and occurs naturally however due to decreasing number of trees, there is more carbon dioxide than needed which traps extra heat making the earth hotter than needed, this is known as global warming which also causes a rise in sea level.
According to World WildLife Fund, many ecosystems around the world are being destroyed, eliminating many plant and animal species that inhabit them (“Pollution”). 2. And acid rain, which is created when water in the atmosphere mixes with chemicals, ravage through rain forests and can even kill fish. 3.
Though deforestation has increased at an alarming rate throughout the past fifty years, deforestation has been performed during the course of history. According to the World Resources Institute, a majority of the world’s enduring naturally occurring forests are found in Alaska, Canada, Russia and the Northwestern Amazon. Research has demonstrated forests are more likely to be destroyed and repurposed where economic revenues tied to agriculture and pasture are prominent, typically attributed to advantageous weather conditions, or lower expenses of demolishing the forest and delivering merchandises to the global
Biodiversity loss can occur in many ways and this cause is very bad for the human , and the other species and the environment. These can lead down the surviving environment and mostly everyone living in that environment will suffer. There will be global warming, causing the earth to get warm and hot.
The Australian Rainforest Memorandum, which recognizes the rights of traditional land owners is endorsed by over 40 NGO’s. Working Towards an end to foreign debt is yet another crucial role to ending deforestation. The condition imposed by the International Monetary Fund often forces heavily indebted countries to sell their national resources far in excess of sustainable exploitation.
Salim, Emil and Ullsten, Ola. Our Forests, Our Future. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Biodiversity is so important that if any chain or link is disturbed then the whole system will come to a halt. Biodiversity also boosts ecosystem productivity and if it declines automatically our ecosystem also declines as both are interdependent upon each other, where all the species play an essential role in the way ecosystem functions, so local and global species loss could threaten the stability of the ecosystem services on which humans depend. This is an interesting topic as well as a global issue concerning the whole human civilization and their existence. . The said issue as well as many other issues regarding our natural processes cannot be neglected as our present and future depends entirely on the sustainability and growth of this ecosystem and biodiversity. Our ecosystem completely depends on the way biodiversity functions. This is the reason I have chosen this topic and gathered information about how it e...