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The Impact of Deforestation on the Environment
The Impact of Deforestation on the Environment
The Impact of Deforestation on the Environment
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Deforestation affects our generation and if it is not stopped will have a major effect on the generations to come. If deforestation continues many plant and animal species will be wiped off forever. There are many benefactors to deforestation, like housing, logging, agriculture, corruption of governments, and economic situations. Many scientists believe that “at the rate we’re going we won’t have any forests in one hundred years. Not many organizations are helping deforestation.” So many things are affected by deforestation, and we need to do anything we can to keep our world alive.
The main causes of deforestation are agriculture, logging, and over-population. Subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of deforestation; commercial agriculture is responsible for 32% of deforestation; logging is responsible for 14% of deforestation and fuel wood removals make up 5% of deforestation. Millions of hectares of rainforests are being destroyed in by logging. With all of these causes about 12 to 15 million hectares of forest are lost each year. In Central America, 40% of all the rainforest...
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.
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 .
Deforestation is an emerging environmental problem regarding forest depletion and clearing. Many people show great concern for our rainforest and deforestation in general. A lot of people do not agree with the concept of deforestation. Throughout the years many people have protested against deforestation. One person who advocates to end deforestation is Edward Abbey in his essay “Eco Defense” published in 1995. Edward Abbey was an author and environmentalist advocate born in Indiana and lived from 1927-1989 he earned his master 's degree at university of New Mexico. Forests are required for the wellness of the wild animals, human being and the environment. Deforestation is ruining that. Edward Abbey uses strong language and pathos to effectively
“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
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.
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.
As deforestation in the Amazon continues to be an issue, many problems have arised and will continue to arise. Amazonian deforestation is mainly an anthropogenic problem, due to human needs, and consumption, also described by Hardin in stimulus material 5 as having two steps, “The first factor is the increasing demand for natural resources and environmental services, stemming from growth of human population and per capita resource consumption. The second factor is the way in which humans organize themselves to extract resources from the environment. ”(Hardin, 162, 1243). If deforestation continues at this rate, it is predicted that the majority of the Amazon rainforest will be depleted by the end of the century.
The problem deforestation causes are that it destroys plants Environmentalists haven’t discovered yet, only 1300 out of 2000 medicinal plants have been discovered medicinal plants are plants that are used everyday medicine, there are even plants that fight cancer. The
Before talking about the effects of destroying our forests, it is important to know the benefits that around 1.6 billion people receive from forests. Aside from the oxygen trees in forests produce which keeps us as people alive, these 1.6 billion people rely on the forests for “food, fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter” (Deforestation: Causes, Effects and Solutions). There are
Deforestation is a major global problem, it has negative effects on biodiversity, global warming, the water cycle, and soil cohesion. It is the process of cutting down trees in a forested area. Many solutions have been proposed to fix the problems caused by deforestation. Brazil has had the highest deforestation rate in the world. One of the solutions to clearing would be to convert to industrial hemp. Several nations including Norway, have decided to give financial aid to countries that will make efforts in resolving problems related to deforestation.
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...
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.
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.
As previously noted, deforestation directly impacts the climate and wildlife population. Due to these two areas being effected, a chain of events transpires to affect human civilization. For example, consider the basic human need for food. According to Akyena Benjamin in her column Deforestation: A Threat to Human Survival, "the presence of trees help to disperse rainfall over a more even area" (Benjamin). This may not sound like a big deal, but farmers depend on rainfall to grow crops. The increasing droughts due to deforestation mean that there is very little water for crops. In addition to droughts, deforestation not only leads "locally to soil erosion by rain and wind," (Diamond 108) but it creates flooding in areas of no vegetation (Tangley 93). Droughts, erosion, and flooding caused by deforestation have a rippling effect on human civilization. Farmers are affected economically by a loss of income from crops. Furthermore, people are detrimentally impacted by the loss of a food