Information from the Human Development Index (HDI) regarding life expectancy, education levels, adult literacy, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were used for comparison of countries with high deforestation rates. A World Bank database was used to obtain deforestation rates, population growth rates and HDI values. The statistical analyses used were t tests and correlation coefficients to examine correlations between different factors. Scatter plots were used to observe how closely the results mirrored the Kuznets curve; an inverted U- shaped curve predicting deforestation to increase, reach an equilibrium, and then decrease.
After two decades Jha and Bawa found that human population growth rate and HDI increased with deforestation rates ranging 1.2% - 3.1%, population growth ranging 0.9% - 3.8%, and HDI 0.34 – 0.80. The increase in HDI correlates with higher education, lower levels of fertility, and a longer life expectancy. A strong correlation (r = 0.53) was found between human population growth rate and deforestation (p<0.001) (CITATION). HDI and deforestation had a p value of 0.02 and a r-value of -0.40, a strongly negative correlation. The Kuznets curve was not supported by results, deforestation continued to increase rather than level off.
Population growth and HDI show correlation with deforestation rates but these correlations weakened over time, Jha and Bawa concluded that population and HDI values influence deforestation. Jha and Bawa’s hypothesis was supported but not as strongly as originally predicted. They concluded that in addition to population and HDI values policy changes and rates of development could be affecting deforestation rates. A generalized conclusion is that increasing population sizes in underdeve...
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Forty years ago, Indonesia was known among scientists of human ecology as a land with exemplary sustainability in its agriculture and industry (Henley 2008: 273). However, a growing and uneven population distribution, large socio-economic inequalities, and a recent history of corrupt governing have led to severe problems in the management of its natural resources (O’Conner 2004: 320). Primarily, this refers to the management of Indonesian rainforests. Globally, tropical rainforests are like carbon sinks, storing 46% of the world’s living terrestrial carbon. Due to this, deforestation causes approximately 25% of the world’s total carbon emissions (Danielson et al. 2008: 349). Indonesia itself has a rapidly depleting supply of rainforests. In the fifty years from 1950 – 2000, Indonesia lost forty-percent of its rainforests, decreasing from 162 million hectares to just 98 million hectares. Current estimates state that from 1996...
Nowadays deforestation is the one of the most important and controversial environmental issues in the world. Deforestation is cutting down, clearing away or burning trees or forests. Particularly tropical rainforests are the most waning type of forests because of its location in developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, central African countries and Brazil. Deforestation rate in those regions is high enough to worry about, because of large economic potential of forest areas. As the result of causes such as agriculture land expansion, logging for timber, fire blazing and settling infrastructure there might be serious impacts in future. For instance, extinction of endemic species of animals and plants which will be feral, increase of greenhouse gas emissions which may lead to global warming and consecutive catastrophes, destruction of home for indigenous residents which is considered as violation of human rights. Some people can argue with these drawbacks telling that deforestation have more valuable benefits such as growth of economics, production of food and providing better opportunities for life for poor families. However, these benefits are quite temporary and government of that countries and world organisations tries to halt deforestation proposing several solutions. Deforestation problem is especially acute in the Brazilian Amazon, where its rate is much high comparing with other regions. This paper will describe world-wide rainforests, causes and effects of deforestation, and evaluate possible solutions of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
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Tropical rainforest can be found near the the equator, the average rainfail is over 110 inches per year and consistently in warm temperature at about 25°C to 27C° and vary little from month to month (Molles, 2005). This warm temperature creates suitable condition for plant growth and variety of animal species to live there. The condition of rainforest made it can harboured higher diversity of organism than any other terrestrial biome. Even it only cover over two percent of earth surface but at least half of plant and animal species has be recorded from all over the world in tropical rainforest (Corlett and Primack, 2008).
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.
Richard Spilsbury. “Deforestation Crisis.” The Impact of Deforestation. Richard Spilsbury. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group Inc., 2010. 48
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
The world’s rain forests could completely vanish with in a hundred years due to the rate of deforestation (Deforestation). Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families. Not all deforestation is intentional. Deforestation can be split up among 4 main factors: 5% caused by cattle ranching, 19% over-logging, 22% from palm oil plantations, and 54% from slash-and-burn farming. They are not the only thing that is causing harm to the rainforest though. There are many other things such as Cash Crops, Shifted Cultivators, Cattle Ranching, Mining Operations, Government interest, and Hydroelectric Projects, and Plam Oil
Deforestation has significantly become a major environmental issue in both Indonesia and Brazil over few years ago. As populations in both countries have impressively increased, the demand of people to exploit the forest by cutting down the trees for their dwelling places and agriculture has also risen up at the same time. Presently, 70 percent of the forests in the world land region have been diminished for human benefits which bring about the adverse impacts to the environment including habitat loss, climate change and wildlife extinction (“Deforestation”, 2013). The objective of this essay is to compare deforestation in Indonesia and Brazil. It looks at the amount and rate of deforestation, the amount of carbon emission, and the governmental policies toward deforestation in both countries.
This article describes the history of deforestation around the world and explaining how deforestation started as part of a civilizing process. Then the article tells that human populations increase causes deforestation because humans need more land for food, water, and for living purposes. Also in the last part of the article it talks about how the future of deforestation is worse than the present, even with our reforestation efforts the environment is being destroyed to fast for us to stop especially in the
These causation factors were narrowed down slightly and separated further into three categories - single-factor causation, chain-logical causation and concomitant occurrence (Geist and Lambin 2002). Single-factor causation looks at the ways in which individual or underlying factors can drive ecological change and spur local deforestation (Geist and Lambin 2002). Chain-logical causation examines the way several interrelated factors work together to propel deforestation (Geist and Lambin 2002). While concomitant occurrences observe how separate operations contribute to deforestation (Geist and Lambin 2002). With the levels of causation separated and categorized, a better understanding of the driving forces of deforestation can be realized and addressed (Geist and Lambin
Deforestation has been a problem in Latin America since the early 1900s and the dilemma is continuing to become more severe. Deforestation does not only have consequences on the environment, but also, the indigenous people and the economy. The logging industry in Latin America is often executed by multi-national companies that are not properly regulated. The land that has been home and cultivated indigenous development for centuries is being dissipated rapidly. Due to exponentially growing global population, there is an increased demand for low priced goods-- like timber, crops, and meat. Many Latin American countries choose to get revenue for selling goods over the health of their local ecosystems. The crisis of deforestation and habitat
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...
People have been deforesting the Earth for thousands of years, primarily to clear land for crops or livestock. Although tropical forests are largely confined to developing countries, they aren’t just meeting local or national needs; economic globalization means that the needs and wants of the global population are bearing down on them as well. Direct causes of deforestation are agricultural expansion, wood extraction (e.g., logging or wood harvest for domestic fuel or charcoal), and infrastructure expansion such as road building and urbanization. Rarely is there a single direct cause for deforestation. Most often, multiple processes work simultaneously or sequentially to cause deforestation.