Environment Essay: The Devastation of Deforestation

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Chlorophyll enriched buds sprouted up from the fallen branches. The massive roots extended great distances from the trunk. The aged monster towered some three hundred feet into sky Many of its kind came before. The first may have originated some 130 million years ago. (7, pg.37) It stood when dinosaurs roamed and reptiles flew. Its vastness was nearly enough to cover the globe. These Species could be found from France and England in Europe. In Japan, America, Canada, and central Asia it thrived. The era of the devastating "Ice Age" brought extinction to many living things. (7, pg.40) But this lofty giant fought back. Although much of its grounds were destroyed, it managed to find refuge in a narrow coast land strip in California. The mighty Sequoia Sempervirens-- "the ever living," overcame with vengeance. (7, pg.43) This species, seemingly, could have tackled any situation of plight and endangerment-- it would reign for eternity. It was invincible!

The Earth was being striped of fifty-one million acres of tropical forest each year. Only forty percent of the original moist forests remain in tropical Africa; thirty-seven left in Asia. The United states has only 737 million acres of forests. Ninety-three percent of Madagascar's trees have been devastated, while only one percent of Brazil's Atlantic coast wilderness survives. Over 140,000 acres of tropical forests are lost each day, 5,800 an hour. If current rates persist, all forests will be lost in 177 years. (1, forest facts)

Certainly those statistics are riveting and extremely frightening! There are several questions which must be posed in order to more clearly understand the significance of the numbers. Where are the locations of the most rapid deforestation?...

... middle of paper ...

...ra Tangley, Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and their Biological Wealth;Beacon Press, 1991.

Annotation 2. Warren Dean, with Broadax and Firebrand: the Destruction of the Brasilian Atlantic forests; University of California Press, 1995.

Annotation 3. Caldwell, lynton Keith, Between two Worlds: Science, the environmental Movement, and Policy choice, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Annotation 4. Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohmann, The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forest; World rainforest Movement, 1993.

Annotation 5. C.F. Jordan, Amazonian Rain Forests; Springer- Verlag, New York, 1987.

Annotation 6. Muir, John, The Last Redwoods and the Parkland of Redwood Creek; Sierra Club, 1970.

Annotation 7. Alston Chase, In a Dark Wood: The Fight over Forests and the Rising Tyranny of Ecology: Houghton Mifflin company, Boston, 1995.

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