As the basic material for buildings, transportation, and fuel, wood was a necessity for the growth and development of the ancient civilizations. Wood was the key resource used in the construction of houses and ships and it was the primary fuel source for light and heat in households and public facilities. As a result of the many needs the resource satisfied, the word wood in the Greek and Latin languages was synonymous with substance or matter (Hughes P. 74). The constant use and growing demand of lumber generated negative externalities on the environment. Overtime deforestation became a growing concern for the Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. With the use of wood playing such a major role in the economy, governments offered privileges, tax incentives, and leases to the timber industry to provide greater incentive to cut down the trees. The growth of agriculture also contributed to the deforestation issue. It was common practice for farmers to clear woodlots to establish their farms on areas of fertile soil. In combination with grazing cattle, the forest was unable to regenerate after being cleared away. …show more content…
As the population increased and the civilization expanded and developed, larger amounts of trees were cleared to accommodate the increased demand for space. During times of war, large amounts of trees were cut down in order to construct siege equipment and war ships. As demonstrated by the Spartan victory during the Peloponnesian war, a powerful well established navy could potentially determine which side is victorious. This is the reason why the destruction of forests became a common war tactic. It is evident that the timber supply acts as a powerful weapon that influences the outcomes of wars. For this reason, warfare was a major cause of deforestation (Hughes P.
Written by Edward Ward and published in 1706, the Wooden World Dissected explains the inside of a ship that most people do not get to see. The ship and the people in it are supposed to represent the makeup of the Royal Navy. He begins the book with a letter explaining how he wants to inform the reader with more information than they could get from looking at a picture. This leads the reader to believe that he is going to write a book full of dull facts, however he writes a satire. He describes everyone, from the Sea Captain all the way down the ladder to the common sailor. He uses comparisons, descriptions of relationships and character, and his own voice to paint a picture of a life aboard a ship in the mid fifteenth to early sixteenth century.
Due to Chagnon’s unparalleled body of work in terms of quantity and, as many argue, quality, Marvin Harris draws heavily on his research to support his point, which is that the origin of war is ecological and reproductive pressure. One should question Harris’s theories (and all theories), especially in the light of the aforementioned article, but I do not believe his arguments are, or should be, adversely affected by the information presented in this article.
Once forests began to be viewed as beneficial, it opened up a whole new lifestyle. The forests and nature might have been an evil and scary place, but it was a place filled with resources and opportunity. Settlers began using trees and wood in a plethora of ways. Not only was it used for families own use, many began logging forests as a business; a very profitable business at that. Once wood started being used for beneficial purposes, a snowball effect occurred by the settlers to cut down every tree in sight and turn it into a profit.
Ancient civilizations were positioned where they were for a reason, to make use of the resources that were in those places. You may notice that most ancient civilizations didn’t settle in the desert or in the middle of nowhere they settled in places where they had resources natural, capital and human. Ancient civilizations mainly looked for a lot of natural resources when looking for a place to settle. If you look at maps showing where ancient civilizations settled you will see that it was mainly around a big body of water. Water is a natural resource that is vital to all life so settling near water gave these civilizations many necessary things such as hydration, transportation, and cleanliness.
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.
Szalay, Jessie. "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 06 Mar. 2013. Web. 01 Mar. 2014. .
Deforestation began with man’s ability to manipulate his environment. Wood has always been a primary source for shelter and has been affected by human expansion. As the worlds population grew, so to did the need for wood to make housing. As cities grew so did the demand for space to accommodate the growing population. Throughout history and even today, man has manipulated the environment affecting it’s resources.
Revington, John. The causes of Tropical Deforestation". New Renaissance Magazine. Vol. 3, No. 2.
“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
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
War is controversial, unfortunate, and certainly misunderstood; it is a transforming agent, a catalyst for change. Nonetheless, many people focus on war's negative consequences, while positive effects are downplayed. War is a necessary evil in the sense that it stabilizes population, encourages technological advances, and has a very high economic value. Without war, the overpopulation of the human race is inevitable. It is this reason that war is a useful tool by not only Mother Nature, but also humans themselves to institute population control.
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.
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 repeated accidental fires from adjacent farms or pastures.
Deforestation is the elimination of existing trees from the earth; attributable factors include urbanization, logging, ranching, and farming and to some extent land speculation. Land speculation can be included as cleared land is more valuable than forested land. Deforestation, done in the name of progress, and the long-term, devastating effects of it, is killing our planet.
centuries. Today with an increasing population the amount of wood available has declined seriously in recent decades. People have been harvesting wood to cultivate land, burn, and for the use of raw materials for industry (Urquhart 2014). The estimated amount of deforestation taking place is twenty million hectares per year (Urquhart 2014). Climate change and global warming are just a few of the problems associated with the degradation of our forests.