Causes for Deforestation
The Rainforests are being destroyed, daily at alarming rates. The deforestation is caused by three main factors: Commercial Logging, Non-commercial Farming Operations and Commercial Agricultural Development, there are also many minor factors, but the biggest of these is Cocaine production.
Many sources pinpoint commercial logging as the primary culprit in tropical rainforest destruction. Logging damages the rainforest directly through the removal of commercially valuable timber species such as mahogany, rosewood, meranti, kapok and teak. Indirect damage occurs in several ways. As the desired trees fall, they pull down surrounding lianas and epiphytic growth (vines); a single tree and its epiphytes may harbor as many ant species as the British Isles. Injury to nearby trees also occurs. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that for every tree intently cut down, another 50 are fatally damaged. Another major indirect effect of logging is the increased access to the forest that logging roads provide for people. Influx of landless farmers then results in more forest degradation due to their shifting agricultural efforts.
Non-Commercial farming operations are the another cause for deforestation. These exist in two forms. One called slash and burn agriculture, which occurs when people cut, burn, and farm a small patch of forest. Generally, the farming is successful for two or three years. Then, if the farm is on nutrient poor soil, the area must be abandoned and process repeated in another area of forest. Originally, many indigenous rainforest tribes in various regions of the world practice slash and burn agriculture without long-term damage to the forest; their numbers were small and this allow...
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...on acres of rainforest (10% of the total destruction) have been lost to make room for the coca plants from which cocaine is produced. In Columbia, the income from cocaine production outpaces that provided by coffee exports. An offshoot of this problem is water pollution caused by the dumping of caustic chemicals used in drug productions into streams.
These are certainly not the only factors involved in tropical rainforest destruction. Other important causes are demand for fuel wood (cooking and charcoal production), colonization projects which involve moving people from overcrowded cities into forest areas, mining projects (such as hydraulic gold mining in Amozonia), and oil exploration and development. Destruction is not done for fun, it has a purpose; however there are other ways to use the rainforest, without causing damage, to receive the results desired.
The coca cultivation that goes on in the Andean jungle is damaging the health of the environment in the region. The main threats to the environment are deforestation caused by clearing the fields for cultivation, soil erosion caused by several factors, and chemical pollution from insecticides and fertilizers. The process of mixing coca and poppy into cocaine and heroine has devastating effects on the environment as well. These environmental issues are difficult to
The term "deforestation" refers to the clear-cutting of large sections of primary or original-growth forest, which causes the loss of native species of plant and animal life. This clearing of land is mainly due to agricultural needs, such as farming and cattle ranching, but also occurs to support logging and mining companies. The effect of the loss of forest is most obvious in the loss of native species. Eugene Ng, of the Hong Kong Technical Institute, explains that the "destruction of habitat forces species out of areas, or causes them to die." Other factors, according to Ng, "further restrict their range, exposing them to disease and predators."
Another cause of deforestation is known as shifting cultivating. Indigenous people have farmed the rain forest, cutting down trees to allow cultivation of crops and grazing space for animals, and moving on when the soil becomes less fertile. This is no threat to the forests; provided that used areas are left to regenerate for long periods before repeating the process.
The Amazon Rain Forest Is in Danger of Being Destroyed" by Devadas Vittal. Rain Forests. HaiSong Harvey, Ed. At Issue Series. Greenhaven Press, 2002. Reprinted from Devadas Vittal, Introduction: What Is the Amazon Rainforest? Internet: http://www.homepages.go.com/homepages/d/v/i/dvittal/amazon/intro.html, November 1999, by permission of the author. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010021212&mode=view
Have you ever wondered how life would be if you barely had any air to breathe, if there were no forest, or if the most common animals became extinct? This is eventually going to happen if deforestation continues. In "The Sumatran Rainforest Will Mostly Disappear within 20 Years," the author, John Vidal, describes areas that are going through deforestation because of giant logging, palm and mining companies. It explains how the animals, land, and people are affected during this process. Deforestation kills our animals and their habitants and destroys the lives of villagers nearby.
Now is a critical time to address the issue of deforestation. Around the world forests are logged for timber and paper pulp. South America contains a large amount of mahogany and rosewood—highly coveted types of wood—within the Amazon basin. Forests are also cleared to make room for the planting of cash crops, such as coffee and soy, as well as livestock farms. After only a few years, overuse of these lands for crops typically causes soil erosion that quickly turns deforested regions into wastelands. Deforestation is responsible for 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all emissions all motorized transportation added together. The destruction of forests does not just threaten our climate; it threatens the livelihoods of billions of people that rely on forests for food and economic activities. The modern world relies on rainforests more than for the well-known reason. People receive many of their fruits and medicines from plant species that survive solely within the heart of a rainforest. Let’s not forget that forests also serve as habitats to wildlife a...
The rainforest is one of the most diverse places on our planet, containing over half or the world’s animal and plant species. Furthermore, it produces 40% of the world’s oxygen. We humans are cutting down trees, killing all the animals and plant living there, and reducing the size of rainforest.
Thesis statement: rainforest are being destroyed because the value of forest land which is consider as the best sources of timber for export by government and help to economic of country and logging companies and land owners.
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.
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.
General Information: First off, deforestation is the clearing of forests or areas with trees to be converted into something else after. There are a few different ways forests are cleared. Clear cutting is simply removing everything in sight. Patch cutting is the removal of trees in specified patches. Strip cutting is removing trees in selected strips. The most environmentally friendly method is known as selective cutting. This is the removal of only selected trees, leaving the others un-harmed. The technique used most during deforestation is the slash and burn technique. This uses the basic cutting method of clear cutting, but afterwards everything that remains is burned to ash.
Although subsistence activities have dominated agriculture-driven deforestation in the tropics to date, large-scale commercial activities are playing an increasingly significant role. In the Amazon, industrial-scale cattle ranching and soybean production for world markets are increasingly important causes of deforestation, and in Indonesia, the conversion of tropical forest to commercial palm tree plantations to produce bio-fuels for export is a major cause of deforestation on Borneo and Sumatra.
My final paper is going to be discussing the effects of deforestation on indigenous people in Indonesia, Australia and Brazil. The factors that contribute to deforestation are: lack of available arable land due to the increase in agricultural needs; illegal logging to produce timber products; and forest fires that could be due to natural causes or intentional (WWF,2013). All these activities have a negative impact on not only the biodiversity of these regions but also on the forest-dwelling communities that rely on them for their livelihoods. Green peace (2013) has proposed some key solutions that must be implemented to control the rate of deforestation worldwide. First, the multinational corporations that are behind these destructive activities also have the power to reduce their impact and should start acting more responsibly. Second consumers need to become more aware of how and where their products are coming from by buying sustainable options. Lastly, politics plays a crucial role in the management of forest activities and governments need to implement strict policies to achieve ambitious targets like zero deforestation by 2020.
Scientists themselves are just beginning to understand the serious problems caused by deforestation. Deforestation occurs all over the world by all types of people. Peasant farmers even add to the problem because in most tropical countries the farmers are very poor only making between eight hundred and fifty four hundred dollars annually (NASA Facts). Therefore, they do not have enough money to buy what they need to live therefore they must farm to raise crops for food and to sell. In these poor countries the majority of people are peasant farmers this farming adds up to a great deal of deforestation. These farmers chop down a small area of trees for there plot to farm on and burn the tree trunks (NASA Facts). The combined number of farmers maintaining this process creates a great deal of clearing and burning of the land they need to cultivate, which results in land being treeless. Commercial logging is also another common form of deforestation. This commercial logging wipes out massive amounts of land sometimes deforesting several miles at...
Allen, Julia C., and Douglas F. Barnes. "The Cause of Deforestation in Developing Countries." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 1985: 163-184. Print.