Soil Conservation
Soil is highly useful to us. We grow plants and trees in it. It holds the trees in place and supply nutrients and water to the plants to grow. The top soil is very healthy for plants to grow, and therefore, farmers take good care of the top soil for better yield.
However, a strong wind or heavy rains can easily remove the fertile top soil. The removal of soil by water or wind is called soil erosion. A forest is a great collector and storeroom of water. The root structure of a tree holds together the soil and stops soil erosion.
Soil erosion brings less fertile soil on the earth’s surface, if this process is not stopped well within time, the land may soon turn into a barren land or a desert. The crops will no longer grow in such an unfertile soil, and soon there will be food scarcity. Now who wants to go hungry to bed? We can prevent soil erosion by preserving the forests, and planting more trees.
How can we Conserve Soil?
When a piece of land is not being used for agriculture, it is a good idea to grow grass, plant, flowers and trees on it. Doing so, would keep the top soil firmly in place and prevent the soil erosion. Another good method is terrace farming. Farm lands on hill slopes are cut out into steps or terraces, so that when water runs down the slope, the top soil does not get washed away, and is absorbed in the same area.
Deforestation
The need to construct buildings, dams, shopping malls, extraction of ore, oil and natural gas has led to a reduction in forests. Deforestation refers to removing of trees from a forest area for the purpose of commercial use. It is a process that involves cutting down of trees and clearing a big forest patch for smaller bio-diverse ecosystems, such as, plantations,...
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Planting trees in semi-arid areas attracts rainfall and prevents such areas from becoming deserts. Aforestation prevents soil erosion and conserves the fertile top soil for agricultural use.
Employment through Afforesttaion
Governments on the globe have devised several tree-planting programs that engage people to sow seed and plant saplings. Thus, it provides job opportunities for people. Even ecotourism, help people to earn their livelihood.
Activity 2: Give Your Opinion!
On an A4 size paper, write your opinion on any one topic given below.
• Write a letter on Plants – Forest as A Resource that informs people about its importance and how they can make their contribution.
• Write a letter to the local newspaper to educate them on the importance of recycling, reusing, and reducing the use of paper products to prevent deforestation and global warming.
The gathering of a lot of fuel wood had contributed greatly to deforestation, desertification and other soil erosions. One area that has been decertified is the Sahara desert. Over many years of deforestation and taking of fuel wood, this once a rain forest has become an arid land for heat. When people gather the wood or cut down the tress this leads to soil erosion. The roots from the trees help soil stay in place when there are floods and heavy rain falls. Also trees can help decrease wind speed and not cause sandstorms. In many cases through out Africa, which has low fuel, wood resources there are a lot of sandstorms. The greatly reduce these problems, people should start planting more trees to take the place of all the trees that have been cut down. Trees help us in many ways. With more trees air qualities can be much better. Also by using other resources for fuel can be a good idea to lessen the amount of trees used and cut down.
Traditional agriculture requires massive forest and grassland removal to obtain land necessary to farm on. Deforestation and overgrazing has caused erosion flooding, and enabled the expansion of deserts. But with drainage systems, leveling, and irrigation provided by the Green Rev, all this terra deforming will unlikely happen again. We can retain clean air and lessen the global warming effect caused by deforestation.Many people argue that a revamp in agriculture will be way too expensive and unrealistic especially for those poor farmers in third world countries. However many times, they exaggerate the price.
What is soil? “Soil is a complex mixture of eroded rock, mineral nutrients, decaying organic matter, water, air, and billions of living organisms, most of them microscopic decomposers.” (Miller and Spoolman, 211). As stated, soil is made when a mixture of items such as eroded rock and mineral nutrients come together. Soil is used in a plethora of ways. Soil is where many of the nutrients plants need to grow comes from, soil purifies water, and even absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be stored as carbon compounds (Miller and Spoolman, 211). Scientists study soil to develop a better understanding how this crucial factor in human’s survival functions and how to make sure humans don’t waste this precious resource (Miller and Spoolman, 211).
Take, for example, that livestock agriculture and the plant-based agriculture specifically used for feeding that livestock utilizes 30 percent of land on Earth. With crops in high demand to feed the many animals that are slaughtered or otherwise used by humans, it's been found that the soil has lost a great deal of its nutritional value and has eroded to the point that, in the United States, nearly 33 percent of topsoil is diminished.
In cases of a lack of vegetation soil is exposed to erosion. Wind erosion blows the top soil off especially in the sandier areas where there are finer particles. Animals or cultivation of the soil can also break down soil particles into sizes that are more susceptible to wind erosion. This can cause a build up of soils in other places. Water washing over the loose, exposed soil can also result in large volumes of soil being lost. Most Australian soils are very shallow and have most of the nutrients in the top few centimeters. Erosion that carries away these top few centimeters of soil is particularly damaging. The remaining soil is unproductive, often unable to be re–taken over by native vegetation and susceptible to further
... on tropical rainforests may include: educating the general public and future generations about human impact on tropical rainforests and how they can help to save them, Restoring damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down, Encouraging people to live in a way that doesn't hurt the environment, Establishing parks to protect rainforests and wildlife and Supporting companies that operate in ways that minimize damage to the environment. Small, simple actions may involve following the famous environmental slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, Eating organic foods, purchasing products that use "CERTIFIED" wood (wood that was legally cut down), Wearing jewellery that has not been mined (such as glass), turning of any electrical appliances, reducing water usage and using a reusable canvas bag instead of taking the plastic bags at the store.
Deforestation is a widely used term, but one with different meanings. Disturbance deforestation refers to all man made disturbances that alter a forest, these are the most common. This argumentative essay discusses the positive and negative aspects of deforestation. In the first part of the essay the pro arguments of deforestation will be discussed. For example, the issue of Global population and how forests are being used, land use and the ways forests contribute, wood use, forest growth, destruction and the reasons for cutting down the trees. The second half of the essay will cover the issues that are harmful to the environment because of deforestation. Many environmental issues take place everyday; a big question that arises, is if the global economy will ever finds middle on the issue of forest thinning. If deforestation was used only in the most crucial of times, the world might become a better place.
General Information: First off, deforestation is the clearing of forests or areas with trees to be converted into something else after. There are a few different ways forests are cleared. Clear cutting is simply removing everything in sight. Patch cutting is the removal of trees in specified patches. Strip cutting is removing trees in selected strips. The most environmentally friendly method is known as selective cutting. This is the removal of only selected trees, leaving the others un-harmed. The technique used most during deforestation is the slash and burn technique. This uses the basic cutting method of clear cutting, but afterwards everything that remains is burned to ash.
The forests around the world a supply a plethora of community amenities and commercial goods , nevertheless forested terrain progressively is becoming transformed to accommodate other uses, including cropland, pasture, mining, and urban areas, which can produce superior private financial returns. The wide array of benefits the forest provides that vanish directly tied to deforestation have resulted in several policies drafted with the sole intention to reduce the frequency of deforestation. This paper has two primary objectives. First, this paper will review and summarize both the preceding and current research on deforestation. Second, it will emphasize the significance of future research and development, as well as other solutions needed
Agriculture also leads to soil erosion, both through rainfall and wind. This soil can damage the aquatic ecosystems it ends up in, an...
Deforestation happens in many ways; fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching, development, logging, and degradation due to climate change, impacting lives and posing a horrific threat to a wide range of species (WWF, 2017). The reoccurring issue of rapid forest clearing is continuing to progress. Some direct causes are the incredibly high demand and extensive dependency of resources that rainforests provide, land expansion, logging, agriculture and infrastructure. This critical matter must be taken seriously and re-evaluated with extreme consideration. Global involvement of governments and an abrupt interference of forests clearing needs a redirected approach of an implemented mandatory reforestation in these areas. This will create a decrease in the major dilemma that is compromising the planets future sustainability. Primarily, causing the extinction and endangerment of millions of plants and animals from
Scientists themselves are just beginning to understand the serious problems caused by deforestation. Deforestation occurs all over the world by all types of people. Peasant farmers even add to the problem because in most tropical countries the farmers are very poor only making between eight hundred and fifty four hundred dollars annually (NASA Facts). Therefore, they do not have enough money to buy what they need to live therefore they must farm to raise crops for food and to sell. In these poor countries the majority of people are peasant farmers this farming adds up to a great deal of deforestation. These farmers chop down a small area of trees for there plot to farm on and burn the tree trunks (NASA Facts). The combined number of farmers maintaining this process creates a great deal of clearing and burning of the land they need to cultivate, which results in land being treeless. Commercial logging is also another common form of deforestation. This commercial logging wipes out massive amounts of land sometimes deforesting several miles at...
home farm. Reducing soil erosion is one of the most important practices on my home farm.
Saline soil is also vulnerable to erosion due to the death of vegetation that held the soil together. Soil that is eroded can ‘pollute’ water too.
Trees are one of the most important parts of the biosphere. They provide oxygen, which is one of the largest producers of life. Humans live and strive off of oxygen every second of their lives. Not just humans need oxygen to survive and thrive on Earth, but animals, and other creatures on the planet do as well. Trees are a huge part of all life and if they were gone, there would consequently be no form of life. Not only do trees create all forms of life, but they create beautiful surroundings for an area and create a comfortable and shady environment for all surrounding life. Even though trees seem to be everywhere you look, the planet is losing billions upon billions of them a year. Anywhere from three billion to six billion trees are lost every year, ("How Many Trees Are Cut Down Every Year? Rainforest Action Network Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014”). With this fact in thought, it shows that planting one tree can create a bigger difference than you realize.