Deforestation Advantages And Disadvantages

1260 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of deforestation

Deforestation occurs when forestland is cleared, usually to harvest the timber or space for agriculture operations. Forests cover more than 25 percent of the land on Earth, but millions of hectares of this ecosystem are destroyed every year. Forests produce vital oxygen and provide homes for people and wide life. Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber and degradation due to climate change. Carbon dioxide levels have risen due to increases fossil fuel consumption and deforestation.

Trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Cutting down forests will cause a decline in photosynthetic activity, which results in the atmosphere retaining higher levels of carbon dioxide. If there is no deforestation, there is limited oxygen and no photosynthesis. Trees play a big role in the carbon cycle. When they are alive they take in and store carbon, and when they are cut down or they die, they slowly release the stored carbon releasing it into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. Plants need carbon dioxide, water and light energy to make photosynthesis. If all the trees were cut down, no carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere, therefore plants wouldn’t be able to
Another benefit of deforestation is the transformation of forests into paved roads to transport goods to other places to meet demands of consumers. Deforestation results to availability of trees that can be made into timber and be used for construction. Some parts of a tree, such as sap, can be used to make paper, tissue or food. Deforestation offers good work opportunities, as manpower is needed. Lastly, all the trees that are cut down are used for lumber and other types of wood

Show More
Related

  • Deforestation In Canada

    1928 Words  | 4 Pages

    The main reason deforestation happens, is because of farming. They need to clear out land in order to plant crops and vegetables. Another loss from deforestation is that many animals lose their habitat. The loss of animals habitats will lead to migration, or possibly even extinction. And when this happens this will ruin the food chains which will affect even more animals.

    Read More

  • Change And Change: What Is Climate Change?

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    By cutting trees there won’t be enough oxygen available in the atmosphere and there will be high amount of CO2 available which will heat the earth up.

    Read More

  • Deforestation In The Amazon Rainforest

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 .

    Read More

  • Deforestation Essay

    875 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nowadays, earth has been facing a series of severe environmental issues which require urgent attention to make the ecology friendly, and global warming is considered as the most vital one. Although some people doubt and disagree that global warming is happening, climate change is real and it is mainly influenced by human activities through the increased production of green house gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. Global warming has the effect of melting polar ice caps and glaciers, which will lead to sea level to go up. Moreover, due to the rise of sea level, the survival of those people who live in islands and coastal cities can ultimately be threatened. Deforestation has been considered to be one of the most important contributing factors to global climate change. Also, since trees absorb greenhouse gases, reduce carbon emissions, and produce oxygen, without trees, the greenhouse effect can be improved tremendously. As World Resources Institute has pointed out in the data, forest loss contributes between 12 percent and 17 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, what is “deforestation”? Why do people have to deforest? How does it affect environment?

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Deforestation

    765 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling to 46 years, human have been here 4 hours, the industrial revolution began 1 minute ago, and in that time, we’ve destroyed more than half the world’s forests.” - Unknown. One major environmental problem in our world is deforestation - what is that, you ask? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, deforestation is the action or process of clearing of forests. Some consequences of this include a large contribution to global warming and climate change (about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year), loss of biodiversity especially in tropical rainforests, and the extinction of many known or yet to be discovered species. But, through some Debt-for-Nature Swaps, leaving forests

    Read More

  • Tragedy of Deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    Deforestation began with man’s ability to manipulate his environment. Wood has always been a primary source for shelter and has been affected by human expansion. As the worlds population grew, so to did the need for wood to make housing. As cities grew so did the demand for space to accommodate the growing population. Throughout history and even today, man has manipulated the environment affecting it’s resources.

    Read More

  • The Controversy of Deforestation

    2612 Words  | 6 Pages

    Environmental issues affect every life on this planet from the smallest parasite to the human race. There are many resources that humans and animal needs to survive; some of the most obvious resources come from the forests. Forests make up a large percentage of the globe. The forests have global implications not just on life but on the quality of it. Trees improve the quality of the air that species breath, determine rainfall and replenish the atmosphere. The wood from the forests are used everyday form many useful resources. Moreover, thinning the forests increases the amount of available light, nutrients and water for the remaining trees. Deforestation (forest thinning) is one of the most critical issues of environmental problems that are occurring today.

    Read More

  • The Impact of Deforestation

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    Deforestation also has an impact on the climate. “15% of all greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation” (WWL). This is harmful to the climate as this leaves more carbon dioxide in the air. “Almost 200 tons of carbon dioxide can readily be stored on just on acre in a rain forest” (eHow). Imagine how much carbon dioxide we could rid the air of just by saving an acre of trees. Without the forests to protect soil and redistribute water in the air, the lavish forests can easily become barren deserts as time passes by.

    Read More

  • Information on Deforestation

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Deforestation and Biodiversity

    2666 Words  | 6 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Cause Of Deforestation In Nigeria

    1572 Words  | 4 Pages

    Everyone needs to respire in order to live, which includes plants and animals. Trees and plants help to regulate the carbon cycle. When the trees take in the carbon dioxide from the environment, they give back to oxygen. When trees are cut down, there is a break in the carbon cycle, and there is no exchange in both oxygen and carbon dioxide which causes a spike in carbon dioxide levels. When these occur carbon dioxide moves in the atmosphere and stores there as a greenhouse gas. “However, deforestation still remains the second leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions, just behind industrial emissions” (Culas). Greenhouse gases disturb the normal regulation of the weather. When greenhouse captures and stores heat problems occur. When the carbon dioxide levels in the greenhouse gases are increased, then the atmospheric conditions becomes unstable, which causes global warming. Global warming is the increase in the temperature of the earth, which is mostly caused by the greenhouse effects. Global warming present itself by affecting the environment by causing drought, floods, change in ecosystem, less fresh water available and other environmental issues. Trees play a big role not only in keeping the soil rich, regulating the water table, providing a stable anchor for soil to lessen soil erosion and providing nutrient rich soil for agriculture but it also helps in the absorption of carbon emission in the atmosphere.

    Read More

  • Deforestation as a Major Problem

    3202 Words  | 7 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Cause-Effect Essay: Deforestation

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Impact of Deforestation on the Earth

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    Deforestation is the elimination of existing trees from the earth; attributable factors include urbanization, logging, ranching, and farming and to some extent land speculation. Land speculation can be included as cleared land is more valuable than forested land. Deforestation, done in the name of progress, and the long-term, devastating effects of it, is killing our planet.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Trees Essay

    1136 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trees are one of the most important parts of the biosphere. They provide oxygen, which is one of the largest producers of life. Humans live and strive off of oxygen every second of their lives. Not just humans need oxygen to survive and thrive on Earth, but animals, and other creatures on the planet do as well. Trees are a huge part of all life and if they were gone, there would consequently be no form of life. Not only do trees create all forms of life, but they create beautiful surroundings for an area and create a comfortable and shady environment for all surrounding life. Even though trees seem to be everywhere you look, the planet is losing billions upon billions of them a year. Anywhere from three billion to six billion trees are lost every year, ("How Many Trees Are Cut Down Every Year? Rainforest Action Network Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014”). With this fact in thought, it shows that planting one tree can create a bigger difference than you realize.

    Read More

More about Deforestation Advantages And Disadvantages

Open Document