Deforestation free essay sample

Deforestation refers to the cutting, clearing, and removal of rainforest or related ecosystems into less bio-diverse ecosystems such as pasture, cropland, or plantations. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use. Thus, deforestation is an important issue to be discussed. It has adverse effects on each living beings life. Deforestation has become a huge concern in todays life as there has been a rise in the decline of forests. Trees are cut down in order to manufacture paper products as well as for livestock farming and so on. Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees are cut down to be used or sold as fuel or timber, while cleared land is used as  pasture  for livestock, plantations of commodities and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient  reforestation  has resulted in damage to  habitat,  biodiversity  loss and  aridity. Deforestation has also been used in  war  to deprive an enemy of cover for its forces and also vital resources. The world’s forests and native grasslands are vital to human life and planets ecological well-being, in addition to providing material for housing, paper and fuel, forests serve as carbon dioxide sinks, forests trap most of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and release oxygen for aerobic life, all aerobes benefit from that forests are recreation areas and habitat for countless species of birds other animals and plants. Our economic prosperity and our psychological health, as well as the biodiversity of the planet rest on the preservation, good management sustainability of the earth’s woodland. Deforestation occurs for many reasons. Trees are cut down used as source of energy (charcoal), sold as timber, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock, for subsistence and commercial farming and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. † no other economic and geographical factor has so profoundly affected the development of the country as the forest. it forms the background of our early history it enters into the everyday life of every citizen. Raphel Zon,†The vanishing Heritage. †(Environment an interdisciplinary anthology, 2008). Agriculture and industry pose the biggest threat to rainforests, approximately 800 square kilometers of rainforests are burned daily for these uses more than half of the world’s rain forests have been cut down in the past 50 years nearly 20 % of the Amazon has been slashed and burned the Amazon being such a complex ecosystem, it is said to be lost forever has it has taken billions to form in the first place. It is thought that approximately 50% species per day are becoming extinct due to deforestation. This has led to dramatic decrease in vegetation in the Amazon basin, which obviously has the consequence of reducing the planets carrying capacity of carbon dioxide as well as reducing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere; furthermore this contributes to climate change as there are less photosynthetic reactions taking place to convert CO2 to oxygen. Not only is the reduction of tropical rain forest contributing to climate change, but the actual â€Å"slush and burn† techniques used by farmers releases dangerously large amounts of carbon dioxide, through the combustion of fossil fuels and the burning of the forest itself. Between august 2007 and July 2008 an area of 37000 square kilometers of the amazon was lost through deforestation either by burning or logging. However the burning is less preferred to logging, the technique of logging is detrimental to the environment this method results in the damage of almost twice the volume of trees being harvested, not only by increasing CO2 levels also by increasing susceptibility to fire. This is done by the degradation of the rain forest canopy, which allows the increase in light and wind to penetrate the vegetation below, resulting in dryer conditions which are ideal for fire (either naturally occurring or manmade). Amazon Rainforest destroyed or damaged in 2008: http://news. mongabay. com/2009/0319- brazil_inpe_degrad. html, May 2009. Environmental problems. Soil erosion. In â€Å"Forests and the end of second millennium† in forests in a full world (2001) George M. Woodwell points out that the most successful civilizations have decayed as forests where destroyed and replaced with scrublands. The scrublands were further impoverished by intensive grazing and erosion until the underlying rocks emerged and became the land scape. He goes further giving an example of the ancient Syria, Persia, throughout the Levant, and the Mediterranean basin, also the decline of the state known as Greece today was as a result of loss of forests and the impoverishment of the landscape. The same process happened with respect to Carthage in North Africa. We also have contemporary examples of land degradation from Haiti and Madagascar, now over populated and deforested and degraded to the point where their land scape are dysfunctional, incapable of supporting organized society. The rivers no longer flow in established channels, water from storms in mountains appears as floods in low lands and carries silt to fill harbors and destroy the coastal fisheries, so to restore all these problems, there is need to reforest and stabilize the uplands to regain control of water flows and water quality and to re-establish a potentially infinity source of timber and fuel. To elaborate further on the issue, soil erosion is a problem as a result of deforestation, as essential, life equally depends on soil; ninety seven per cent of human food comes from soil. Unfortunately due to deforestation soils are exposed to a lot of winds which blows away the soils destroying its texture and fertility, wind and water remove disproportionate amounts of organic material. Soil and its erosion are crucial considerations in all terrestrial ecosystems, including forests and uncultivated areas. Alfredo sfeir-younis and Andrew K. Drugan explains that when soil erosion begins it usually proceeds at much faster rate than soil creation, there by leading to a long term net loss of soil, soil erosion is a physical phenomenon of the soil surface which has economic effects both on upstream soil quality(thus on the yields) and on the amount of water way sediment(water and habitat quality). erosion is a process that includes following three steps: 1. The detachment of particles of soil by wind and water from the surface. 2. The transportation of these particles, by wind or water. 3. The deposition of these particles in another place. Humans are an important agent of change, affecting the rate at which soils are being eroded around the world . the most important factors are: deforestation driven most often by demand for wood fuel energy as well as traditional forestry products. Undisturbed forests have a very low rate of soil loss, approximately 2 metric tons per square kilometer (6 short tons per square mile). Deforestation generally increases rates of soil erosion, by increasing the amount of runoff and reducing the protection of the soil from tree litter. This can be an advantage in excessively leached tropical rain forest soils. Forestry operations themselves also increase erosion through the development of roads and the use of mechanized equipment. Chinas Loess Plateau was cleared of forest millennia ago. Since then it has been eroding, creating dramatic incised valleys, and providing the sediment that gives the Yellow River its yellow color and that causes the flooding of the river in the lower reaches (hence the rivers nickname Chinas sorrow). Removal of trees does not always increase erosion rates. In certain regions of southwest US, shrubs and trees have been encroaching on grassland. The trees themselves enhance the loss of grass between tree canopies. The bare inter canopy areas become highly erodible. The US Forest Service, in Bandelier National Monument for example, is studying how to restore the former ecosystem, and reduce erosion, by removing the trees. Tree roots bind soil together, and if the soil is sufficiently shallow they act to keep the soil in place by also binding with underlying bedrock. Tree removal on steep slopes with shallow soil thus increases the risk of landslides, which can threaten people living nearby. However most deforestation only affects the trunks of trees, allowing for the roots to stay rooted, negating the landslide. As a result of deforestation soil erosion is a problem which brings about an economical problem too; soil conservation projects are not cost free as they require resources which can be allocated to other economic activities, planners have to balance the current costs of soil conservation practices with the future values resulting from those practices. in assessing these trade-offs there are several complicating factors. First most of the off-site effects are not considered in the farmer’s decision making process and the amount of erosion produced by one rational individual may be much greater than what society would find optimal. Secondly, planning occurs under extreme uncertainty with regard to the value of agricultural productivity in the future, coupled with high probability of irreversible damages. Thirdly the process to combat soil erosion has long term returns that farmers may regard as far beyond their planning horizon. Agriculture. Forests are thought to have covered at one time 6 000000000 hectares of the approximately 13, 5000000000 hectares of land, more than 44 per cent of land area. The forests effect the earths great cycles of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. Furthermore they affect the color of the earth and therefore its reflectivity and its temperature. They also affect local and regional water supplies, they are the major reservoir of plants and animals, they are homes of million living organisms, their plants and soil contain enough carbon so that they can change in the area of stature of forests affects the composition of the atmosphere. The expansion of agriculture into forested regions and the impoverishment of forests from intensive harvests, fires, grazing and toxification have reduced the forested area of the earth substantially. Current estimates of this transition are uncertain. In November 2011, FAO (Food and published a report based on satellite technology and statistics from 1990-2005, which gives a precise picture of the situation concerning global deforestation, the report concludes that the earth has lost 4. 9 million hectares annually, the largest reduction was between 2000 and 2005. The report further concludes that deforestation largely occurred in tropical areas in order to create agricultural land. Deforestation for farm land represents a growing trend to serve the ever increasing world population meeting the demand for subsistence with new agriculture land. However this tendency has unforeseen results on tropical rainforest ecosystems, disturbs the bacteriology life cycles, which are vital towards the breaking down and production of necessary biological materials that support life. Thus deforestation by agriculture affects the globe. Rainforest removal through destructive methods degrades the land and increases carbon emissions into the atmosphere Effects of human actions are not being adequately considered: with biodiversity disappearing and unsustainable farming being practiced for economic gain. The scale is global, influencing citizens to corporations to governments, there is a need to prevent future forest loss and reduce prior impact. This will not happen overnight, not enough emphasis is being placed on the Earth’s landscape, as people instead are looking towards how to better the economy. Deforestation for farmland reduces land quality and production output over time. Alternatives are available, though not often considered by the famers primarily deforesting as a means of survival. Landscape change affects the biodiversity rainforest ecosystems, and though human subsistence needs are met, unknown effects are guaranteed to impact larger areas than the ones slashed and burned. Converting land by removing vegetation degrades soil quality, nutrients and moisture content of the area: factors necessary for sustainable agriculture. The situation is in particular worrying on the South American continent as 37 percent of the world’s 2 billion hectares of tropical forests are contained in South America, and more and more areas are being reduced to farmland and pasture (Benhin). Deforestation in this part of the world is on the rise; its full effects on its agriculture replacement are unknown but anticipated. Alternatives are always available, though not always realized, and with technological advancements to food production, better methods towards the use of land become available. Balance is required: between forest and farmland, human populations and biodiversity, and the Earth’s population needs versus the Earth’s geographical requirements. Atmosphere (CO2 Emissions) Deforestation is one of the hidden cause of global warming and one of the factors contributing to the greenhouse effect,(Daniel Howden,2007-05-14). deforestation accounts for up to 25% of global emissions of heat trapping gases. Global warming is the rising average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century the temperatures are on the rise. A greenhouse gas (sometimes abbreviated GHG) is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earths atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane nitrous oxide and ozone. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, and Titan also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth without them; Earths surface would be on average about 33  °C (59  °F) colder than at present. According to the intergovernmental panel on climate change deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, could account for up to one-third of total anthropogenic carbon emissions. But recent calculations suggest that carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (excluding peat lands emissions) contribute about 12% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions with a range from 6 to 17%. Deforestation causes carbon dioxide to linger in the atmosphere. As carbon dioxide accrues, it produces a layer in the atmosphere that traps radiation from the sun. The radiation converts to heat which causes global warming, which is better known as the greenhouse effect. Other plants remove carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis and release oxygen back into the atmosphere during normal respiration. Only when actively growing can a tree or forest remove carbon over an annual or longer timeframe. Both the decay and burning of wood releases much of this stored carbon back to the atmosphere. In order for forests to take up carbon, the wood must be harvested and turned into long-lived products and trees must be re-planted. Deforestation may cause carbon stores held in soil to be released. Forests are stores of carbon and can be either sinks or sources depending upon environmental circumstances. Mature forests alternate between being net sinks and net sources of carbon dioxide. In deforested areas, the land heats up faster and reach a higher temperature, leading to localized upward motions that enhance the formation of clouds and ultimately produce more rainfall. However, according to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the models used to investigate remote responses to tropical deforestation showed a broad but mild temperature increase all through the tropical atmosphere.