The Problem of Deforestation

The Problem of Deforestation

The world’s forests are in grave danger. Over half of the original

forest cover has been destroyed, and things are set to deteriorate

unless the current alarming rate of deforestation is checked. Every

minute an estimated 26 hectares of forest is lost – that’s an area

equivalent to 37 football pitches - and it is not difficult to see

that if this continues we will be left with a planet devoid of

woodland. This would be catastrophic: not only are forests home to

some of the most important species on earth, but they also play a

vital role in regulating the climate and making the planet habitable.

Much of the earth was once covered by trees, but the majority of these

were cleared long ago to make way for an ever expanding human

population. This is particularly true in regions with a temperate

climate such as Britain and other parts of Europe where agriculture

took an early hold of the landscape, and has now reduced the great

forests to tiny pockets strewn throughout the land. However, it is

only in relatively recent times that the tropical forests have come

under severe attack. On a global scale there was twice as much

tropical forest at the turn of the 20th century as there is today, and

only around 700 million of the original 1.5 billion hectares remain.

The rate of deforestation in Africa is a cause for extreme concern:

around four million hectares of forest are destroyed each year, to the

extent that 45 per cent of its original forest cover has disappeared.

Commercial logging, clearance for agriculture, roads and railways,

forest fires, mining and drilling, fuelwood collection and clearance

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...ole of nature is a vast interrelated system which

currently exists in a more or less balanced state. Tampering with such

important factors as the rain forests could bring about irreversible

damage to the world as we know it.

A further consequence of deforestation concerns the scientific

possibilities which would be lost with the demise of the tropical rain

forests. It is estimated that only a small fraction of the plants and

animals living in rain forests have been identified, and some

scientists speculate that many of these may hold the keys to finding

cures for some of the most deadly diseases known to man. For example,

the US National Cancer Institute has catalogued some 3,000 plants with

anti-cancer properties, 70 per cent of which are found in tropical

forests. Who knows what other secrets the rain forests hold?