QUESTION
1. Malaysia had the world’s highest percentage rate of forest loss between 2000 and 2012 (Hansen et al. 2013). What are the likely consequences of this forest loss for people living in Malaysia?
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Effective ecosystem management will maintain the continuation of species of plants and animals as well as variation of genetics. Malaysia positioned in the humid tropical landscape making it covered with extraordinary variety of flora and fauna. This landscape is known as the tropical rainforest had evolved over million years ago comprises from the smallest microscopic organism like bacteria to large species as such mammals, reptiles and birds (Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia, 2013). Other than that, forest plays a vital role in controlling the humidity, temperature and precipitation on earth. They absorb carbon dioxide and thus maintaining the purity of air and controlling atmospheric pollution. In addition, forest host major reservoirs of minerals, metal, biomass and land for agriculture expansion. However, conflicts over these resources had contributed to massive deforestation with improper management (Wolvekamp et al. 1999). Since the agricultural and industrial era began, the rate of ecological destruction had far exceeded the rate of ecological repair. If limitless greediness towards clearance of tropical forest is continuing in Malaysia, it is possible that in a blink of eye humans will lose their forest. Moreover, deforestation provokes irreversible damage and doing reforestation will not entirely reverse the effect. Despite the different ecological, political and economic circumstances, it is easy to justify the common causes of forest destruction, the lost of livelihood and culture. However,...
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2.4 Biodiversity
Other than that, it is believed that by losing rainforest, we are losing the ancient way of life. Hunting tribes such as the Penan people inhibit these forests. They live on the Borneo Island in the State of Sarawak. These people live in small huts extending a few feet above the ground and live by collecting herbs, fruits and edible plants from the jungle. Furthermore, they hunt for animal especially during special events. However, due to deforestation and globalization, they are forced from this peaceful life to live in dirty government shacks filled with diseases they never encounter before. When they went out for hunting or gathering tribes, they could not resist confronting with the logging companies. Moreover, as forest, being tremendously cut down, wild animals will find new shelter and foraging deep into human settlement areas.
Forty years ago, Indonesia was known among scientists of human ecology as a land with exemplary sustainability in its agriculture and industry (Henley 2008: 273). However, a growing and uneven population distribution, large socio-economic inequalities, and a recent history of corrupt governing have led to severe problems in the management of its natural resources (O’Conner 2004: 320). Primarily, this refers to the management of Indonesian rainforests. Globally, tropical rainforests are like carbon sinks, storing 46% of the world’s living terrestrial carbon. Due to this, deforestation causes approximately 25% of the world’s total carbon emissions (Danielson et al. 2008: 349). Indonesia itself has a rapidly depleting supply of rainforests. In the fifty years from 1950 – 2000, Indonesia lost forty-percent of its rainforests, decreasing from 162 million hectares to just 98 million hectares. Current estimates state that from 1996...
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.
“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.
In Indonesia, 8.828 million hectares of forests have been destroyed (see appendix 2). Around fifty acres of forests are removed every minute, not o...
Management In Malaysia Issues And Initiatives Related To Conservation Of Biodiversity And Critical Habitats.pdf [Accessed 9 Aug. 2014].
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.
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...
Though there are some forests that were cleared completely by nature, but now it is practically impossible to find no connection to humans.5 Most of the time, when clearing a forest for plantations or cattle ranches, people will purposefully start a forest fire for a quick and easy solution. This not only ruins the soil, but attracts invasive species, decreases biodiversity, among many others. If not for humans, the earth would most likely be covered in rich forests, full of diverse vegetation and animals.3 It is obvious how urban cities affect deforestation, demanding for more products that shouldn’t be supplied, but no forests also affects urban
It has been suggested that 300 football fields worth of palm trees are removed every hour just for manufacturers to get their grubby hands on Palm Oil. The United Nations Environment Programme {UNEP} acknowledges that Malaysia and Indonesia are the main cause for this destruction is the development of palm oil plantations. The burning of these plantations is causing major air pollution in Southeast Asia. It releases Carbon Dioxide into the air and atmosphere that contribute to global warming. Research shows that 20% of all global carbon emissions comes burning fossil fuels come from rainforest destruction. Deforestation of palm oil plantations is alone responsible for the habitat loss of threatened and endangered species. Superiorly clearing of the forests impacted the Asian Elephant, Tiger, Sumatran Rhinoceros and the Orangutans. The Asian elephant and Bornean Orangutans are endangered and t...
In many communities worldwide, people depend on forests, for fuel wood-gathering, harvesting of wood and non-wood forest products, for larger-scale commercial purposes, habitat for more than half the world’s terrestrial species, clean water, and other important ecosystem services (De Groot et al., 2002, Santangeli et al., 2013, Chhatre and Agrawal, 2009). However, the forest biodiversity is continuously undergoing loss which directly or indirectly contributes to forest ecosystems being transformed and in some cases irreversibly degraded. A large number of species have gone extinction or have been threatened to extinctions and reduction in population (Morris, 2010, Kuussaari et al., 2009). The main causes of biodiversity lose are a complex combination of social, economic and natural process, which includes continued growth of human population and per capita consumption, climate change, ocean acidification and other anthropogenic environmental impacts (Butchart et al., 2010, Geist and Lambin, 2002). Currently, the changes in forest biodiversity are more drastic than at any time in human history.
Globally, it is estimated that between 1.095 billion and 1.745 billion people depend to varying degrees on forests for their livelihoods and about 200 million native communities are almost fully dependent on forests (D. K. Langat 2015). According to the World Bank, more than 1.6 billion people around the world depend to varying degrees on forests for their livelihoods. Of these, about 350 million people live inside or close to dense forests, largely dependent on these areas for subsistence and income (Chao 2012). The importance of the forest in the survival life of the rural people in the developing countries is enormous. Moreover, forests are very important to local people for livelihoods and they depend on forests resources for various products such as fuel wood, construction materials, medicine, and food in most developing
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
According to the World Wildlife Fund, tropical rain forests hold about 80 percent of the known species on Earth, which is where a majority of deforestation is taking place. Endangered species that live in forests, such as bonobos, giant pandas, and Asian elephants, are especially at risk of extinction because of deforestation. When one certain species is wiped out of an area, it impacts the whole food chain in that ecosystem. This is known as the domino effect. If a certain plant is removed from an ecosystem, the insect that relied on that plant will die out from a lack of food. The snake that ate said insect will also have no food. Deforestation can have a disastrous effect on nearly every species living in the forest.
Palm oil plantations have sadly cleared some of the world’s most precious, carbon capturing forests. Since rain forests are the largest carbon sinks, when destroyed they release massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Leveling forests not only impacts the climate, but releasing carbon into the atmosphere drives global warming, and tragically deforestation is the second largest manmade, human source of atmospheric carbon dioxide, after fossil fuel burning. Interrupting forests too poses a very immediate threat to some species that live in these tropical areas. The habitats are shrinking for a multitude of these species, (some of which are endangered), and sadly there are over 300,000 different animals which have been found throughout the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra, many of which are injured, killed and displaced during the process of deforestation. Scientists estimate that the fragile orangutan population too could become extinct and non-existent within our lifetime if we continue to destroy their home and natural habitats for palm oil plantations. They have also found that only about 400 tigers are left on the island of Sumatra, these figures are confronting! In 1978, there were estimated to be 1000. Soil erosion and soil and water pollution are also issues that have become apparent as a result of creating unsustainable palm
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.