User:Harmandeepsains/sandbox

The Vanishing Forests: Deforestation

Table of contents

1. Abstract

2. Introduction

3. Causes of deforestation

4. Global Consequences

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

Abstract

The paper starts with the introduction of the topic and defining the title term “Deforestation”. This paper seeks to explain the question: how chopping down of trees leads to climatic changes that may affect the future generations. Further, the paper is divided into four different sections. The introduction section provides an overview and depicts what this paper is about. The next two paragraphs talk about the reasons, why we are cutting these precious rainforests down and what are its consequences. The paper ends with the conclusion stating some measures that might help in controlling the situation. It is hoped that the research done in this paper might be of use to the people.

Introduction As the world pursues to slow the speed of climatic change, preserve wildlife, trees certainly hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass cutting of trees: deforestation continues, forfeiting the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain. Let us start with having a better understanding of what the term “Deforestation” really means: Deforestation can be described as the permanent removal of trees and to make space for man-made creation. This can include clearing up land for agriculture purposes or cropping, or using the wood for fuel, construction of buildings, or manufacturing. An underlying assumption of this paper is to find the causes of tropical deforestation and its negative environmental consequences and hence leave those humans who benefit from the use of forests worse off. It is assumed that deforestation worsens the state of the ecosystem and that other species of this ecosystem are put under stress (Pearce, 1994). These tropical forests are home to millions of species, comprising a rich diversity of flora and fauna. These forests cover 7 percent of the Earth’s surface and contain and 50 percent of all the species (Pearce, 1994). Forests play an important role in easing climate change because they work as a sponge for soaking up carbon dioxide that would otherwise be free in the atmosphere and contribute to ongoing changes in climate patterns (Nunez, 2019). Forests around the world are under threat, jeopardizing these benefits would help in easing up the climatic change. This article would include examples and evidence to support the argument. This paper is just a concise revision of the Wikipedia page “Deforestation”.

Causes of deforestation

The tropical rainforests provide us with variety of benefits: direct use, education, and research purposes and provide us with a variety of materialistic products needed for our survival or benefits which includes timber, nuts, oils, latex, medicines, building materials, meat, and many more products to meet the subsistence needs of forests inhabitants (Pearce, 1994). Different nations cut trees or utilize these forests according to their shape and needs. For instance, in Malaysia and Indonesia, forests are chopped to make way for producing palm oil, which can be found in everything from hair products to eating items like crackers. In the Amazon, farm animals ranching and farms, particularly of soy plantations as their primary culprits (Smolker, the enchanted amazon rain forest: stories from a vanishing world., 1996). These threats reveal themselves in the form of deforestation and forest degradation. One of the main cause of deforestation is agriculture, that is poorly organized infrastructure and the main cause of forest degradation is illegal logging, at this rate, we are losing 18.7 million acres of woodlands each year, equals to 27 soccer fields every minute (Pearce, 1994).

Global Consequence

These benefits accumulate through the continuous and increase usage of forests, which has serious consequences. Besides, deforestation causes the local and global extinction of species due to their lack of living in a natural habitat, some of these species remain unidentified and unrecorded to scientific researchers (Pearce, 1994). The concentration of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which includes carbon dioxide and methane, has increased drastically over the last century and is more likely to affect the global climate negatively through the process called the “greenhouse effect ” (Pearce, 1994). A growing tree can remove carbon, by storing its tissues. Both the degeneration and the burning of wood release much of this stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Although a gathering of wood is generally necessary for carbon insulation, in some forests the network of fungi that surround the trees’ roots store a considerable amount of carbon, storing it underground even if the tree which supplied it dies and decays (Stenberg, 2009).

The article “Receding Forests Edges and Vanishing Reserves” by Gascon provides an excellent pictographic explanation showing the death of a forest at three different stages after isolation. In which Gascon states that during this process the original layer is replaced by scrubby ruderal vegetation, which eventually leads to vanishing of these pristine reserves. To add on, Karl Oedekoven, in his article, “The Vanishing forest”, he provides a diagrammatical description of depletion of the Sao Paulo’s rainforests over the centuries, the world’s richest ecosystem and source of sustenance for millions of people are vanishing at a drastic rate due to powerful pressures by growing populations seeking food, energy, wood, and shelter (OEDEKOVEN, 1980).

Conclusion

It is time that we should understand the importance of these forests and what they had done for us. Step by step all of us need to make sure that we protect our natural habitat, starting at a personal level. Stop littering, throwing garbage into their respectable bins, recycling, and reusing. Schools and colleges must make it mandatory to give seminars and informative classes relating to this issue. The main factor in reducing timber-related tropical deforestation safeguards proper economic incentives for cost-effective and sustainable management of tropical production forests (Smolker, The enchanted amazon rain forest: stories from a vanishing world., 1996). Organizations and activists must work hand in hand to fight the illegal logging and other activities that some evil groups do to make their own profit. The concept of a steady-state in forestry can reasonably be understood in the framework of sustainable forest management practices where harvest levels and regeneration activities are executed to meet the required rate of growth. As a result, a constant flow of these forestry products can be obtained from forest abstraction while at the same time a certain volume of standing timber is left after each harvest (Stenberg, 2009). Everyone can do their part to flatten this curb of deforestation, buying certified and legitimate wood products, going paperless whenever possible, controlling our consumption of products that have palm oil and plant trees when possible. These small steps would make a huge difference.

Bibliography

Gascon, C., Gustavo, A. B. da F., & Williamson, G. B. (2000). Receding forest edges and vanishing reserves. Science, 288(5470), 1356–1358.

Nunez, Christina. Climate101: Deforestation, 7 Feb. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/#close.

OEDEKOVEN, K. (1980). The vanishing forest. Environmental Policy and Law, 6(4), 184–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-777X(80)80100-4

Pearce, D. W., & Brown, K. (1994). The causes of tropical deforestation: the economic and statistical analysis of factors giving rise to the loss of the tropical forests (Ser. Cel - Canadian publishers collection). UBC Press.

Smolker, R. G. (1996). Book review: the enchanted amazon rain forest: stories from a vanishing world. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 71(4), 592–593.

Stenberg, L. C., & Siriwardana, M. (2009). A computable general equilibrium model for environmental policy analysis: the case of deforestation in the Philippines. Nova Science.

Wikipedia contributors. (2020, May 26). Deforestation. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:24, May 27, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deforestation&oldid=958991079