The Destruction of the Earth’s Rain Forests
“In the time you can read this sentence, eight acres of tropical rain forest will have been bulldozed and burned out of existence” (Bloyd 49). However, this destruction has been neglected and overlooked for years. Many people do not understand the long-term consequences of losing the earth’s rain forests. The rain forests have provided people with many natural resources and medicines. The benefits that rain forests provide to people will be destroyed if the depletion continues to be disregarded.
No matter where a person lives, even if it is not near a rain forest, the complete destruction of rain forests will affect living conditions. For years rain forests have provided countries around the word with valuable resources, minerals, lumber, and energy. In Brazil alone the rain forests contains 45% of Brazil’s hydroelectric power. The minerals found in the rain forests of Brazil are estimated to value 1.6 trillion dollars, while the lumber that the rain forests can provide total 1.7 trillion dollars (“In the Forest” 1). Nutrients from decomposing organisms can be found throughout rain forests, including in soil and in trees. To continue destroying forests also destroys the important materials that they are providing to humans.
The rain forests also provide important exports such as oil, nuts, and rubber. Brazilian nuts have become an important export and coffee has been South America’s main source of money. After Charles Goodyear learned how to use rubber to benefit humans the demand for it increased. The Amazon began to provide rubber for tires made around the world. Today the Amazon still provides the world with a large supply of rubber. Deforestation of rain forests decreases the amount of rubber South America supplies, and businesses will soon have to find a new supply of this resource.
The plants found in the rain forests can be useful to everyone around the world. The Kayapo, a people of the Amazon, are dependent upon plants in the Amazon. A research team came into the area that the Kayapo people inhabit. A team of scientists researched 1,200 plants in the area. Their results have shown that 98% of these plants are used in the Kayapo society. Of all the plants 45% of them were never known to...
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There exist in certain areas of rainforest in Indonesia timber barons who employ what are commonly referred to as logging gangsters. The victims of this social problem are not only the rare species that inhabit the rainforests, such as the Sumatran Tiger and Orangutan, but also those people who wish to do something to stop this depletion. Environmental activists and journalists attempting to document or protest the atrocities are often killed or severely beaten by the criminals. Like all illegal trafficking, the illegal rainforest wood trade exists only because there is an outside force demanding it. In this case, the force is that of high-income countries.
Rainforests once covered 14% of the worlds land surface, however now it only covers a mere 6%. It is estimated that all rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Trees are becoming more needed and used everyday. We need them cut down for many reasons such as paper and timber, while also needing them ‘untouched’ for other reasons like oxygen, we have to ask ourselves, which is more important? At the current rate, most of the rainforests are being cut down for resources like paper and timber, but less importance is being placed on main resources like oxygen.
...e reformed to produce more efficient and less harmful means of using resources in the Amazon while also producing new industries to help stimulate these developing countries’ economies.
Destroying Our Rainforests Every day, an average of two football field sizes of precious rainforest are torn down, killing millions of animals and destroying valuable pharmaceutical plants. A huge amount of these animals and plants have never, and will never be discovered. Experts say, "Close to eighty percent of the terrestrial species of animals and plants are to be found there [in the rainforest]. " As people tear down the rainforests, they are affecting the ozone layer, and disrupting the process that lets plants fight the deadly amount of pollution the world produces every day. Over three thousand plants found to help the fight against cancer.
The social and moral implications of diminishing rainforest biodiversity are great. From a human welfare perspective, the livelihoods of tens of millions of indigenous peoples depend on the forests, but thousands are being pushed out of their homes because they lack the shelter and support that the forest once gave them (Salim 3). These groups have "developed knowledge and cultures in accordance with their environment through thousands of years, and even physically they are adapted to the life in the forest" (Nyborg). For many of the people living in these areas, the forest is the only resource they have providing them with food, shelter and cultural ties. With the invasion and destruction of their homeland, rainforest peoples are also disappearing.
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The Amazon rainforest is a nonrenewable resource. This means that it is being used up, or in this case, cleared, faster than it can be replaced. Humans clear the trees for lumber and wood. They use the wood to generate electricity for or from their power plants and other industries. Trees are being cut down and wasted every day due to the undying needs of humans for lumber and wood.
The Amazonia is referred to “the lungs of the world,” supplying around 20% of Earth’s oxygen and taking in harmful greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. The problem is, the Amazon forest is being destroyed, often my burning trees, to make space for cattle ranchers and soy farmers. According to an investigation, one acre of the rainforest land is lost every eight seconds. A key part to stop the deforestation of the Amazon is education. Scientists collect data and publish it in journals but never learned to communicate or educate anyone except their colleagues.
Without this, there is no hope for survival. The devastation of the rain forest is currently taking
In recent years, a lot of attention has been drawn to the undeniable fact that we are rapidly depleting our natural resources, and destroying the environment around us. More and more people are coming to the realization that we must work to preserve our Earth's natural beauty and resources for future generations. One of the biggest issues that our world, as a whole, faces, is the destruction and deforestation of our rainforests. These very same rainforests that we are chopping, and burning down, are home to the most wildly diverse populations of plant and animal species, many of which cannot be found anywhere else on Earth! Three centuries ago, 14% of our planet was covered in rainforests.
“In little as 100 years, we predict that if current deforestation levels proceed, the world's rainforests may be completely gone.” (NASA) Deforestation is the human act of permanently removing large areas of trees by clear cutting or burning them for the purpose of farming large cattle pastures, urbanization, commercial and illegal logging.. It is true that accidental fires and partial lodging are able to dramatically change the structure of a forest (Stuart L. Pimm) however, these casualties do not profoundly impact forests as the damage being done by eradicating entire tree areas for profit. There is an estimated yearly loss of “18 million acres of forest” (as big as the country of Panama) according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.
In Tanzania alone, a country in which over 1/3 of its area is forested, it is estimated that 1% of its forests are destroyed annually (FAO, 2013). Of particular concern is the continual des...