Of all of the issues that effect the planet Earth from a Global Change standpoint, one of the most visible and highly publicized is the issue of rainforest destruction. The loss of this emerald on the planet's crown will end life as we know it, if something is not done... * Rain forests are shrinking at a rate of 100 acres per minute... There are primarily three activities which are causing rainforest destruction: agriculture, logging, and mining. Agriculture Agriculture is an absolute necessity for human life on Earth to continue. There are too many people on the planet for existence as hunters and gatherers to work anymore. That said, it must be realized that concessions must be made to allow such food growth and production to occur. But this does not mean that another important element of life on Earth can be destroyed for it. Unfortunately, that is indeed what is occurring, at an alarming rate. The rainforests of the planet are dwindling as the land they belong on is used more and more for agriculture, all over the world. In the Amazon, ,the most commonly detrimental agricultural practice is the technique of land clearing known as Slash and Burn. Slash and Burn This practice is a quick and economically inexpensive method or clearing land for grazing or raising crops. It is accomplished by cutting down all the trees and brush in an area, as fast as possible (Slash) and then setting fire to the area, to get rid of all of the mess (Burn). It has proved to be a quite efficient way to pointlessly destroy the forest, because the land shortly becomes arid and barren without the trees there to maintain it's former richness. This is compounded by the lack of crop-rotation, which only speeds up the process of dry des... ... middle of paper ... ..."scientific yardstick." * Enact a moratorium on new mining and logging concessions until there is a clearly defined policy on environmentally responsible mining, and reclamation standards have been established. * Establish an "early warning" monitoring system to minimize negative environmental and social impacts while increasing governmental capacity for effective oversight of forest extractive activities. * Develop a regional land-use plan in collaboration with local communities, local governments, ministry officials, non-governmental organizations and universities. * Demarcate indigenous territories, in consultation with indigenous peoples, and consider new collaborative arrangements between parks personnel and indigenous communities. * Publicly disclose and discuss government plans, such as environmental impact assessments or forest management plans.
...in Forest and to protect the species who live there must take into account how deforestation occurs.
future generations, it has slowly helped preserve the land. Regulating the land from overgrazing through means of federal land permits and fines. Its goal was to limit the amount of overused land to sustain the land’s productivity, which it has done quite well with the assistance of their Resource Management Plan or RMP. The RMP consist of :
“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.
Farmers are the agents of more Rainforest destruction than any other factor. Farmers in rainforest countries are often po...
The Amazon is a vast region spanning across six South America countries Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela (Walker, & Cesareo 2014). The Amazon is one of the most developed rainforest of anywhere in the world. Over two-thirds of all the fresh water and 20% of the earth’s oxygen are produced in the Amazons (wcupa.edu). Despite the vital role of the Amazons, carless practices continue the rapid deforestation of the ecosystem. (Mainville, et al, 2006). The main causes of deforestation include unsustainable logging, agriculture, invasive species, fire, fuel wood gathering, and livestock grazing (Thompson, et al. 2013). The widespread of this issue is of importance in global policy processes, which deals with biodiversity, climate change, and forest management (Thompson, et al. 2013). The Ecuador has some of the highest rates of deforestation; an estimated 3% of the land is yearly destroyed (Mecham, 2001). “The Ecuador’s interandean basin native vegetation has been practically eliminated since colonial times, replaced by crops, pasture, towns and cities, and exotic tree plantations. This area suffers severe soil erosion problems even today” (Mecham, 2001). The continuum of deforestation issues continues to destroy the ecological habitat of the Amazonian Indians (Mecham, 2001). In the area of Napo River Valley West of the Ecuadorian Amazon, deforestation has resulted in an abrupt end of harmony between man and nature (Mainville, et al., 2006). The desire for economic profits continues to fuel the already alarming rate of the Amazon. According to the Rain Forest foundation, “When Texaco entered the Ecuadorean Oriente in, 1967; the area was considered the most biodiverse place on Earth. Since then, more than 20 billi...
Now is a critical time to address the issue of deforestation. Around the world forests are logged for timber and paper pulp. South America contains a large amount of mahogany and rosewood—highly coveted types of wood—within the Amazon basin. Forests are also cleared to make room for the planting of cash crops, such as coffee and soy, as well as livestock farms. After only a few years, overuse of these lands for crops typically causes soil erosion that quickly turns deforested regions into wastelands. Deforestation is responsible for 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all emissions all motorized transportation added together. The destruction of forests does not just threaten our climate; it threatens the livelihoods of billions of people that rely on forests for food and economic activities. The modern world relies on rainforests more than for the well-known reason. People receive many of their fruits and medicines from plant species that survive solely within the heart of a rainforest. Let’s not forget that forests also serve as habitats to wildlife a...
In order to fight the problem of illegal logging and trade, I propose the following package of policy actions. First, to change US government procurement policy to prefer timber from sustainably managed forests; second, to provide technical assistance to help developing countries with forestry management; and third, to promote a national eco-certification system for sustainably managed forestry products.
...cted. A lot of kilometers are being cleared for no reason at all. People may think that by using the land where deforestation has happened could help in other cases they are wrong. Like Crittenden mentioned many of that land could be contaminated by the job of the miners
In South America lies the largest and most wondrous rainforest in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. This 1.4 billion acre forest represents over half of the planets remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most bio-diverse tract of rainforest in the world. Ten percent of all known species on the planet are found in this rain forest, most of which have yet to be discovered. For the past century, the Amazon has been gradually decreasing in size due to agricultural expansion, ranching, infrastructure projects, energy exploration and illegal logging. At its current state, the Amazon is losing land equal to the size of the state of Delaware every year. The destruction of this forest releases 340 million tons of carbon per year according to the World Wildlife Foundation, or WWF, which in turn cause climate changes everywhere around the world. Undiscovered species can hold the key to curing a plethora of diseases, but if those species become extinct those keys are lost forever. If nothing is done to prevent this, the world’s treasure trove of bio-diversity will cease to exist, creating irreversible damage to not only the South American people but also the rest of the world.
Stop the Destruction. 25 million hectares of rainforest trees are cut down each year, which is 250 billion square meters of rainforest trees lost per year. This dramatically threatens all three of the world's major rainforests, so should rainforest destruction really be allowed? By researching why rainforest destruction is important to humans, how rainforest destruction affects animals, and how rainforest destruction affects the environment, it is clear that rainforest destruction should be prohibited. First of all, rainforests are very important to humans.
One reason that people should stop cutting down the rainforest is because many plants and animals are being harmed and losing their homes. The Amazon is home to many more than half of the world’s specimen of plants and animals. Over 70% of the rainforest’s animals and plants live on the subcanopy, or the second highest level of the trees. When you destroy even one tree, many plants and animals, either die or have to find new homes. Many of these tropical plants also have medicinal values such as curing malaria. Sadly, according to Michael Greenwell, the deforestation of the Amazon has led to 26 species of plants and animals and 644 species to be on the brink of endangerment. According to UNEP, about 857,666 square kilometers of land has been lost in one year. The area lost is approximately the size of Venezuela. To keep cutting down trees in the rainforest would be dooming 38 species to extinction. It may seem that the Amazon is vast in recourses and cutting down one tree will not harm much, but if we ...
In Brazil, more than 60 % of cleared land ends up as pasture, which has low productivity and does not support more than one head per hectare. Industrial agricultural production plays another big role in the acts of deforestation. In Brazil, Soy farm has been an important driver of deforestation since the early 1990s. Starting from 2006, the Brazil soy industry has had a moratorium on new forest clearing for soy. The moratorium was a result of a Greenpeace campaign which halted the production of soy for forest preservation. Mining, subsistence agriculture, dams, urban expansion, agricultural fires, and timber plantations also result in significant forest loss in the Amazon along with the reasons
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.
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...
They destroy a piece of forests in one year to have some places to grow their food and let the cattle and horses have grass to graze. People use this area for about half or one entire decade. And then, they move to another place with forest and repeat the whole process. During this period, the area which has been abounded will grow new trees again themselves. Since the ash after burning the forest can be considered as a type of useful fertilize, native are willing to practice this kind of easy lifestyle. When the tribe come back to the place they begin with, it has been covered by woods again. However, as the rapid growth on population in the recent two centuries, the Rainforest in Amazon has felt high pressure to hold the traditional steps of agriculture. We should control the farm land wisely in the special situation right