Importance Of Forest Conservation Essay

INTRODUCTION

Every form of life on earth is unique and warrants respect regardless of its worth to human beings. Every organism has an inherent right to exist regardless of whether it’s valuable to human beings or not. Humankind is a part of nature and the natural world has a value for human heritage. The well being of all future generations is a social responsibility of the present generations, hence the existence of an organism warrants conservation of the organism. Despite the benefits from nature, today’s threats to species and ecosystems are the greatest recorded in recent history and virtually all of them are caused by human mismanagement of biological resources often stimulated by misguided economic policies, pollution and faulty institutions in-addition to climate change. To ensure intra and intergenerational equity, it is important to conserve our biodiversity (Mutia, 2009).

Definition of Forests

The Oxford English Dictionary defines forests as an extensive tract of land covered with trees and undergrowth sometimes intermingled with pasture historically, an area, typically owned by the sovereign and having its own laws.

The Encyclopedia Britannica considers a forest to be a complex ecological system in which trees are the dominant life form a more ecological definition can be seen in a more modern source. In the Indian context, the highest authority for tenable definitions, the Supreme Court of India, ruling in the context of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, chose the following words: The word ‘forest’ must be understood according to its dictionary meaning. This description covers all statutorily recognized forests, whether designated as reserved, protected or otherwise for the purpose of section 2 (1) of the Forest (Conservation) Act. The term ‘Forest Land’, occurring in section (2), will not only include ‘forest’ as understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in the Government record irrespective of