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Review of literature on the topic deforestation and its effects
The impacts of deforestation on the land
Deforestation and its impact
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Deforestation is a serious issue in today’s world. What once was a green Earth is now becoming a desolate land mold that is losing one of its main attributes: forests. Similar to Rachel Carson’s perception, the Earth was once full of lavish forests and is slowly deteriorating into empty, unappealing land. Centuries ago, Earth was covered in forests. “…The whole country, full of woods and thickets...” (Bradford) was the average for settlers in the 1800s. They had grown accustomed to the full lush trees. Even in the 1900s there were the “…same beautiful trees…” (Fuller) and nature was a sight to see as people relished “passing through one of the fine, park-like woods, almost clear from underbrush and carpeted with thick grasses and flowers” (Fuller). However, as time has passed the ecosystem has changed. No longer are there “laurel, viburnum [a type of tree] and alder, great ferns…” (Carson). Instead, the once breathtaking forests are now sights to avert from. “The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation…” (Carson). The roadsides used to be lined with green forests, but as deforestation has taken its impact, the roadsides now have become barren and lacked the greenery. Deforestation has caused a harmful influence on the once beautiful Earth. Deforestation can be caused by “fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable bagging for timber, and degradation… (WWL). Today, many organizations are working to find ways to resolve the issues established by it. Although the forests provide human benefits such as paper, too much of the forests are being cut down to satisfy human needs. “Some 46-58 million square miles of forest are lost each year- equivalent to 36 f... ... middle of paper ... ... away the sense of protection those many woods provide animals with. It is as if their homes are being ripped away from them for the selfish use of humans. Deforestation also has an impact on the climate. “15% of all greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation” (WWL). This is harmful to the climate as this leaves more carbon dioxide in the air. “Almost 200 tons of carbon dioxide can readily be stored on just on acre in a rain forest” (eHow). Imagine how much carbon dioxide we could rid the air of just by saving an acre of trees. Without the forests to protect soil and redistribute water in the air, the lavish forests can easily become barren deserts as time passes by. Deforestation is just a negative action that should be stopped. If not, our future of animals and climate is in trouble. Deforestation should cease to happen as it is ruining our Earth.
Deforestation has always been a part of what people do. When people came from England, they had to make room for themselves to live. People cannot completely stop deforestation. The main effects of deforestation is the loss of species and animal habitats. To try to deter from this, people can respect wildlife conservation projects. This means that people can stop trying to tear down forests that have endangered plants or animals in them. People should see to detrimental effects that deforestation can have. Most of all, people need to have a understanding of what global warming is. These ways can help to slow down
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.
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.
Ever since then the deforestation for resources has dramatically increased to an alarming rate. Every second we lose an area of two football fields and every week an area twice as big as Rhode Island. The Rainforests once covered fourteen percent of the Earth compared to the two percent now. In the...
“The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling to 46 years, human have been here 4 hours, the industrial revolution began 1 minute ago, and in that time, we’ve destroyed more than half the world’s forests.” - Unknown. One major environmental problem in our world is deforestation - what is that, you ask? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, deforestation is the action or process of clearing of forests. Some consequences of this include a large contribution to global warming and climate change (about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year), loss of biodiversity especially in tropical rainforests, and the extinction of many known or yet to be discovered species. But, through some Debt-for-Nature Swaps, leaving forests
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
“Scientists say one day’s deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York” (Howden 1). Human activities around the world are causing more damage to the environment than people can imagine. Deforestation is among one of the environmental issues that are relevant in our society as a result of ignorance. Deforestation, along with air pollution is also seen in various trails, such as the Appalachian Trail. A nonfiction book, A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson, reveals the true nature of humans. People always want more, and their greed is having negative impacts on the environment. An article, “Deforestation and Its Extreme Effects on Global Warming” by Scientific American highlights the issue of how cutting down trees is
People are deforesting the planet for thousands of years, primarily to clear land for crops or stock. though tropical forests square measure for the most part confined to developing countries, they square measuren’t simply meeting native or national needs; economic economic process means the wants and desires of the worldwide population are bearing down on them also. Direct causes of deforestation square measure agricultural growth, wood extraction (e.g., work or wood harvest for domestic fuel or charcoal), and infrastructure growth like road building and urbanization. seldom is there one direct cause for deforestation. Most often, multiple processes work at the same time or consecutive to cause deforestation.The single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture, mostly for subsistence, which is growing crops or raising livestock to meet daily needs. The conversion to agricultural land usually results from multiple direct factors. For example, countries build roads into remote areas to improve overland transportation of goods. The road development itself causes a limited amount of deforestation. But roads also provide entry to previously inaccessible—and often unclaimed—land. Logging, both legal and illegal, often follows road expansion (and in some cases is the reason for the road expansion). When loggers have harvested an area’s valuable timber, they move on. The roads and the logged areas become a magnet for settlers—farmers and ranchers who slash and burn the remaining forest for cropland or cattle pasture, completing the deforestation chain that began with road building. In other cases, forests that have been degraded by logging become fire-prone and are eventually deforested by repea...
Deforestation, defined by biologist Charles Southwick as "the destruction of forests; may involve clear-cutting or selective logging" (p. 365), is a predominantly human-driven process that is dramatically altering ecosystems worldwide. "Clear-cutting" involves the indiscriminant removal of every single plant and tree species from within a selected area. The other major process of deforestation, "selective logging," focuses removal efforts on only specific, predetermined tree species within a chosen area. The statistics gathered about human deforestation over time are considerable, and they can be somewhat controversial. Depending on the source and the location selected, the magnitude of deforestation varies. Southwick estimates that, approximately 10,000 years ago, 6.2 billion hectares (23.9 million square miles) of forest existed on earth (p. 117). That figure is equivalent to 45.5% of the earth's total land. He further estimates that, by 1990, this amount had declined 30%, with only 4.3 billion hectares of forest remaining (p. 117). Southwick also acknowledges other estimates that place the total amount of deforestation between 50% and 75% (p. 117). NASA has similar deforestation statistics that confirm these trends. According to their website, 16.5% of the Brazilian Amazon forests have been destroyed. They also note similar magnitudes of deforestation in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam), despite the significantly smaller total area of forest within these countries. These grim figures are somewhat tempered by the NASA finding that, over the past ten years, the deforestation rate has declined from 6,200 square miles per year to 4,800 square miles per year. Though this trend is n...
What is also becoming increasingly clear is the effect that forests have on the climate and the climate has on forests, and how changes in one system will affect the other. Losing forest makes it worse. Clearing forests also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. Worldwide deforestation means we don’t have as many trees to absorb the extra CO2. This means more of it stays in the atmosphere, trapping more heat. Forest are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families. The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forest to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in process known as “ slash and burn” agriculture. Therefore, not all deforestations is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees. Deforestations has many negative effects on the environment. The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for million of species. So seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forest, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroy their homes. A more workable solution is to carefully manage
According to National Geographic 2014, Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Deforestation occurs all around the world and tropical rainforests are primarily targeted. Our world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. Currently or in the recent past countries with significant deforestation include Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, parts of Africa and Eastern Europe. Deforestation affects our planet and everyone in many ways. According to LiveScience 2013, seventy percent of the world’s plants and animals live in forests and are losing their habitats to deforestation. Loss of habitat can lead to species extinction. Our world has lost so many species of plants and animals in last couple of decades. This has negative consequences for medicinal research and local populations who rely on the animals and plants in the forests for hunting and medicine. In some regions of the world deforestation can cause floods, when it rains trees absorb and store large amount of water with the help of its roots. But when they are cut down the flow of water is disrupted w...
There are many reasons why forests are cut down the main reason is money or the demand of people’s needs for them and their family. The main reason for deforestation is agriculture. The farmers cut the forests down so that they have a lot of land to farm on including moist soil and etc. Sometimes farmers only cut or burn a little bit of trees so they could plant and feed their families. Also a lot of trees are cut each year for paper. Sometimes loggers do illegal things like building roads to access forests which leads to more and more deforestation. The forests are also cut as an outcome of growing urban sprawl. Not all deforestation is planned on purpose, some just occur because of wildfires and overgrazing which prevents young trees to grow. The biggest effect of deforestation is the impact on the habitat for many species. More than half of the earth animals and plants live in the forests so if the forests are gone they are too. Deforestation also causes global warming. The soil in forests is moist, but if there are no tall trees to cover the sun then they dry out very quickly.
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...
Today deforestation is all over the world and it is increasing. Our forests are disappearing at a very fast rate. Most people, when they think of deforestation, think of the Amazon Rain Forest. However, this is not the only place that deforestation occurs. Deforestation also occurs in East Asia, Indonesia and the Congo. China has only 2% of its forests left. Some of the last of the world’s rainforests are in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Amazon. Deforestation is a big problem. It not only affects the world around us, bu...
We have known that deforestation can lead to decline in biodiversity and land degradation. As John Donne has said, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”, not only governments are supposed to be responsible for deforestation, individuals should also take responsibilities. There are some things that we can do to help better the situation. For instance, we can refuse to use throwaway chopsticks and purchase wooden furniture, reduce the usage of papers by printing less, and educate others to cherish the forest resources.