Land use changes have deemed to play a significant role in societies throughout the majority of the Earth’s surface that often at times goes overlooked. With a large amount of land use changes occurring amongst different regions, they all in turn have all had some sort of altering effect upon societies. These land use changes have caused many cases of reformation amongst communities, which have also changed the livelihoods of many. One of the greatest and most widely debated topics in land use change is deforestation, and has played a key role in many indigenous societies, both as forms of exportation measures, but also a form of employment to many indigenous peoples.
This is a relevant topic to many researchers as deforestation is used as a process to clear land of space for the extraction of natural resources, but is is also contributing negatively by adding incremental amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. “Each year, an estimated 13 million ha of tropical forest are destroyed, leading 14 000–40 000 species to extinction and emitting 2.1 Gt of carbon, that is 17% of total anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gas.” (Bellasen and Gitz). I prepare in my studies to conclude with evidence from peer reviewed literature, primary resources, interviews, and even data implied charts given the articulation for the effects deforestation and how it is dominating the impacts in the Southern region of Cameroon. My research question I plan to tackle is; with the alarming rates of deforestation in this region, how does this impact the interconnections on a global scale from the different communities? I will emphasize the importance of this measure on a global scale, and measure the means by which are needed to correlate in helping to reduce leve...
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...lready by the REDD+ program (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) (Hubert)
Works Cited
Afrol News - Forests and deforestation in Africa- the wasting of an immense resource. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.afrol.com/features/10278
Bellassen, V., & Gitz, V. (2008). Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Cameroon — Assessing costs and benefits. Ecological Economics, 68(1-2), 336-344. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.03.015
Tropical deforestation for palm oil in Cameroon. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.save- wildlife.com/en/our-work/save-the-forests/rainforest-deforestation-for-palm-oil-in- Cameroon
Hubert, T. (n.d.). Reducing deforestation emissions in Cameroon demands variety of expertise. Retrieved from http://blog.cifor.org/15357/reducing-deforestation- emissions-in- Cameroon-demands-variety-of-expertise-study
“Clearing a rain forest to plant annuals is like stripping an animal first of its fur, then its skin. The land howls. Annual crops fly on a wing and a prayer. And even if you manage to get a harvest, why, you need roads to take it out! Take one trip overland here and you'll know forever that a road in the jungle is a sweet, flat, impossible dream. The soil falls apart. The earth melts into red gashes like the mouths of whales. Fungi and vines throw a blanket over the face of the dead land. It's simple, really. Central Africa is a rowdy society of flora and fauna that have managed to balance together on a trembling geologic plate for ten million years: when you clear off part of the plate, the whole slides into ruin… To be here without doing everything wrong requires a new agriculture, a new sort of planning, a new religion” (524-525).
The Brazilian Rainforest is one of the most unique, vast, and diverse regions of the world. To get a general idea of the diversity of the Rainforest, it makes up a total of one-third of the world forests (more than four million square kilometers), it contains half of the total number of named species in the world (eighty-thousand plant species, 1,500 fish species, and one-forth of the 8,600 bird species), and is the world largest holder of genes (Library 138-139). To say the least, the Brazilian Rainforest is one of the most important natural resources we, as humans, know. It would seem that this knowledge, alone, would also make the Brazilian Rainforest one of the most protected land areas on Earth as well. However, the situation is quite the opposite. The Brazilian Rainforest has been greatly degraded by deforestation since the 1960 , which has led to numerous negative effects both environmentally and socially. This paper introduces the events that opened the door to deforestation, the most immediate causes and effects of deforestation in the Brazilian Rainforest, and my two-part solution to the problem of deforestation.
Deforestation is the clearing of a forest and/or cutting down of trees for human benefits such as agriculture, wood exports, etc. Deforestation is the cause of numerous environmental impacts such as habitat loss, flooding and soil erosion. It can also cause climate change, by reducing the amount of rainfall and changing the amount of sunlight reflected from Earth’s surface and increases the risk of forest . Tree growth is important for biodiversity because they absorb carbon dioxide which is a harmful greenhouse gas . However, since deforestation reduces natural carbon sinks, it disrupts the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to increase. This poses a serious threat since carbon dioxide traps the sun’s heat and radiated light inside the earth’s atmosphere. So, with the increase in carbon dioxide more heat is trapped and thus adding to the effects of global warming. Among the many places where deforestation takes place, Amazon seems to be one of the most affected ones. More than 20 percent of it is already gone, and much more of it is severely threatened due to deforestation . It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year .
Philip, M., & William F. 2004, ‘Tropical Deforestation and Greenhouse-gas Emissions’, Ecological Applications, (no publication information), Volume 14, Issue 4, pp. 982–986, viewed 23 April 2010,
Therefore, a large amount of trees were cut down and led to forest destruction. People have done these kinds of activities for many years and these deforestation activities have brought about a lot of permanent and long term issues. Although the society has started to consider the problem of deforestation, it is not easy to solve the issues completely. Land desertification can be a huge area and it almost cannot be controlled. In addition, it is not only threatening the people and animals in the Amazon, the world is also threatened by deforestation.
“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.
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
Deforestation is fast becoming one of the world’s worst environmental/geographical occurring disasters known to mankind, and is due to humankind’s greed, ignorance and carelessness when considering the future of our environment.
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.
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.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Nigeria has one of the world’s highest deforestation rates of primary forests. Deforestation is the process of cutting down and removing all or most of the trees in a forested area. Nigeria is a country located in the western part of Africa; it is a country that has diversity in forests and wildlife, including several species of both plants and animals. What are the causes of deforestation? Trees are being cut down and used for different purposes, but cutting the trees is resulting to different negative factors affecting our society and also affecting the atmosphere. It can also erode soils, contribute to desertification and the pollution of waterways, and decrease
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 single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture, mostly for subsistence, which is growing crops or raising livestock to meet daily needs. The conversion to agricultural land usually results from multiple direct factors. For example, countries build roads into remote areas to improve overland transportation of goods. The road development itself causes a limited amount of deforestation. But roads also provide entry to previously inaccessible—and often unclaimed—land. Logging, both legal and illegal, often follows road expansion (and in some cases is the reason for the road expansion). When loggers have harvested an area’s valuable timber, they move on. The roads and the logged areas become a magnet for settlers—farmers and ranchers who slash and burn the remaining forest for cropland or cattle pasture, completing the deforestation chain that began with road building. In other cases, forests that have been degraded by logging become fire-prone and are eventually deforested by repeated accidental fires from adjacent farms or pastures.
Deforestation is the amputation of trees from forest areas more swiftly than they can be replanted or regenerate naturally. The fact that trees play an incredibly momentous part in stabilising climate, atmospheric composition and soil structure, removing trees rapidly becomes a major problem. There are numerous reasons behind the felling of trees by mankind. The Amazon basin is a prime example of humans exploiting rainforests. Within this tropical rainforest lie a vast variety of tree species, with many uses, giving humans even more reason to exploit this area.
The social and moral implications of diminishing rainforest biodiversity are great. From a human welfare perspective, the livelihoods of tens of millions of indigenous peoples depend on the forests, but thousands are being pushed out of their homes because they lack the shelter and support that the forest once gave them (Salim 3). These groups have "developed knowledge and cultures in accordance with their environment through thousands of years, and even physically they are adapted to the life in the forest" (Nyborg). For many of the people living in these areas, the forest is the only resource they have providing them with food, shelter and cultural ties. With the invasion and destruction of their homeland, rainforest peoples are also disappearing.