Causes for Deforestation
The Rainforests are being destroyed, daily at alarming rates. The deforestation is caused by three main factors: Commercial Logging, Non-commercial Farming Operations and Commercial Agricultural Development, there are also many minor factors, but the biggest of these is Cocaine production.
Many sources pinpoint commercial logging as the primary culprit in tropical rainforest destruction. Logging damages the rainforest directly through the removal of commercially valuable timber species such as mahogany, rosewood, meranti, kapok and teak. Indirect damage occurs in several ways. As the desired trees fall, they pull down surrounding lianas and epiphytic growth (vines); a single tree and its epiphytes may harbor as many ant species as the British Isles. Injury to nearby trees also occurs. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that for every tree intently cut down, another 50 are fatally damaged. Another major indirect effect of logging is the increased access to the forest that logging roads provide for people. Influx of landless farmers then results in more forest degradation due to their shifting agricultural efforts.
Non-Commercial farming operations are the another cause for deforestation. These exist in two forms. One called slash and burn agriculture, which occurs when people cut, burn, and farm a small patch of forest. Generally, the farming is successful for two or three years. Then, if the farm is on nutrient poor soil, the area must be abandoned and process repeated in another area of forest. Originally, many indigenous rainforest tribes in various regions of the world practice slash and burn agriculture without long-term damage to the forest; their numbers were small and this allow...
... middle of paper ...
...on acres of rainforest (10% of the total destruction) have been lost to make room for the coca plants from which cocaine is produced. In Columbia, the income from cocaine production outpaces that provided by coffee exports. An offshoot of this problem is water pollution caused by the dumping of caustic chemicals used in drug productions into streams.
These are certainly not the only factors involved in tropical rainforest destruction. Other important causes are demand for fuel wood (cooking and charcoal production), colonization projects which involve moving people from overcrowded cities into forest areas, mining projects (such as hydraulic gold mining in Amozonia), and oil exploration and development. Destruction is not done for fun, it has a purpose; however there are other ways to use the rainforest, without causing damage, to receive the results desired.
The taxes actually became the main source of support for the Roman Catholic Church in the region. In 1999, Colombia remained the world's leading producer of cocaine. Three quarters of the world's annual yield of cocaine is produced there. In the year 2000, Columbia still remains the world's leading producer of the drug. The coca cultivation that goes on in the Andean jungle is damaging the health of the environment in the region.
The Amazon Rain Forest Is in Danger of Being Destroyed" by Devadas Vittal. Rain Forests. HaiSong Harvey, Ed. At Issue Series. Greenhaven Press, 2002. Reprinted from Devadas Vittal, Introduction: What Is the Amazon Rainforest? Internet: http://www.homepages.go.com/homepages/d/v/i/dvittal/amazon/intro.html, November 1999, by permission of the author. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010021212&mode=view
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.
Therefore, the consequences of destroying it will be very harsh on us humans. If we take the resources such as wood from the rainforest, for our everyday use now, we will be the ones suffering in long term. Rainforest use to cover 14% of our earth, and now its left with only 6%. From looking at the rainforest from different perspective actually tells us a lot.
Deforestation is fast becoming one of the world’s worst environmental/geographical occurring disasters known to mankind, and is due to humankind’s greed, ignorance and carelessness when considering the future of our environment.
The Disappearing Rainforests Conserving the rainforest is a global issue of great importance. Tropical rainforests provide a habitat for animals, a unique ecosystem for vegetation, and an abundance of resources for humans, yet they are being destroyed at an astonishing rate. Experts estimate that if these endangered territories continue to be consumed in this manner, no more will be standing in forty years (Rainforest). Examining the social, environmental, and economic costs of the continued destruction of the Earth's tropical rainforests will prove that deforestation for short-term profit is ultimately not viable.
John Muir once said "God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools." This quote is too true when describing the predicament the Amazon rainforest is facing at the very moment. By the time you finish reading this essay, a portion of Brazil’s rainforest, which is larger than 200 football fields, will have been destroyed. Humans must stop cutting down the trees in the amazon rainforest because it leads to many plants and animals being harmed and losing their homes, many people being harmed, and environment of the Amazon being destroyed.
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
Slash and Burn Agriculture is a widely used method of cultivating crops in usually temperate or tropical regions. It is the process which forested land is clear cut and any remaining vegetation is burned, the ash remains contain a nutrient rich top soil that helps fertilize crops. After years of cultivation the fertility of the soil decline and weeds increase, causing the farmers to shift to a new plot. Traditionally the old plot was left uncultivated, reverting itself into a secondary forest of bush and within a decade it could be reused. By the early 21st century the plot is usually maintained in a permanent deforested state, causing farmers to move to new plots and aiding to the destruction of Earth’s resources.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Nigeria has one of the world’s highest deforestation rates of primary forests. Deforestation is the process of cutting down and removing all or most of the trees in a forested area. Nigeria is a country located in the western part of Africa; it is a country that has diversity in forests and wildlife, including several species of both plants and animals. What are the causes of deforestation? Trees are being cut down and used for different purposes, but cutting the trees is resulting to different negative factors affecting our society and also affecting the atmosphere. It can also erode soils, contribute to desertification and the pollution of waterways, and decrease
Timber and especially hardwoods like mahogany and ebony are being felled at an alarming rate to satisfy the needs of the swiftly developing world. Another problem for the forest areas of the world is the type of agriculture used by some peasant farmers known as "slash & burn". This method of farming involves the burning of trees to add to the initial supply of nutrients in the soil. Over time this supply slowly wares down and so the farmer once again moves onto another plot of trees to slash and burn.
Although subsistence activities have dominated agriculture-driven deforestation in the tropics to date, large-scale commercial activities are playing an increasingly significant role. In the Amazon, industrial-scale cattle ranching and soybean production for world markets are increasingly important causes of deforestation, and in Indonesia, the conversion of tropical forest to commercial palm tree plantations to produce bio-fuels for export is a major cause of deforestation on Borneo and Sumatra.
Allen, Julia C., and Douglas F. Barnes. "The Cause of Deforestation in Developing Countries." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 1985: 163-184. Print.
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...