Essay Desertification And Deforestation

Brazil’s rainforests and America’s rainforests are great examples of the negative effect that deforestation has on these specific areas. One of the rising challenges in our rapidly growing world is the destruction of rainforests and how it is slowly ruining the world that we live in. Deforestation has a lot of destructive impacts on the environment that is surrounding us, one of the most important being its effect on the climate. The fast rise in the world’s population, calling for high demand of resources, is only hastening the effects of deforestation, which can hopefully be put an end to through the enforcement of a handful of simple, key, and sustainable solutions.

However, due to more people searching for plots there is greater pressure on the amount of available land. The logging industry is responsible for a relatively small level of deforestation, accounting for 3% in Brazil. Consequently, all these activity contribute together to the rapid loss of what is left of the rainforest and a large proportion of the world’s biodiversity. All of the resources that the rainforest provides could be lost in the next 40 years.

Today, the total percentage of forest cover of the earth is approximately thirty percent (“Deforestation”). That is about nine percent of the world’s total surface. The largest rainforest is the Amazon River Basin, located in South America. The Amazon is home to many species of animals, insects, plants and trees. Many of the trees and plants in the Amazon produce about twenty percent of the oxygen on earth, and absorb carbon. However, the Amazon is decreasing in size every day due to the ongoing deforestation of the land. Deforestation is when the forest of the land are cleared or destroyed, in order to be used for other actions (“Deforestation”). The Amazon is twenty percent less than it was about forty years ago (Wallace). In just about

Deforestation is defined as: “the clearing of virgin forests, or intentional destruction or removal of trees and other vegetation for agricultural, commercial, housing, or firewood use without replanting and without allowing time for the forest to regenerate itself” (SCRIBD). Deforestation has been a problem in Latin America since the early 1900s and the severity of the dilemma is increasing rapidly. Deforestation not only has consequences for the environment, but also, the indigenous people and the national economy. The logging industry in Latin America is often exploited by multinational companies that are not properly regulated. The land that has provided a home and cultivated indigenous development for centuries is being dissipated rapidly. Due to an exponentially growing global population, there is an increased demand for low priced goods--like timber, crops, and meat. Many Latin American countries value revenue from selling these goods over the health of their local ecosystems. The crisis of deforestation and habitat loss is shifting from a local to global problem. As deforestation continues, global warming escalates worldwide, impacting every country and person. About 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation, which is more than from all the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined (Schwartzman). Puerto Rico and Brazil provide contrasting examples of the impact of deforestation. Puerto Rico had an economic and environmental shift

“Since 1996, at least 1000 activists have been murdered in Brazil while facing down the timber industrys chainsaws.” (Greenpeace 2014). The Amazon deforestation protesters believe that the demolishing of the rainforests should be stopped due to the killing of thousands of animals, people, and the crippling effects to the environments occurring daily to produce oil and wood sources to gain money from countries like America and China. Currently thousands of protesters are patrolling the Amazon in

The Amazon Rainforest is a mighty jungle filled with an array of exotic species of wood, like mahogany, and rich natural resources such as gold, copper, tin, and nickel. Naturally, people want to make a profit, but the rainforest’s trees stand in the way. Logging is the main source of deforestation. Every year, millions of trees are cut down to be made into timber. Many times, these logging operations are illegal. These operations will keep exploiting the Amazon for its exotic timber, not caring that many of these species of plants are either rare, or help support rare species and ecosystems. Mining also creates deforestation, but not as severely as logging. Trees are cut down to make way for mining operations that dig for non renewable resources like copper and gold. Trees are also used as charcoal to help produce pig iron. A third cause of deforestation is agriculture. Cattle ranches and soy plantations are created where the Amazon Rainforest once stood. As people expand their farms, they must cut down the areas they now use for farming. Trees are also cut to make space for animal pens. Governments also contribute to the deforestation problem by building roads and creating infrastructure. Although these roads help with communication and navigation, they cut through the rainforest, and often help illegal loggers create new roads from their operations in the jungle to these roads that connect with civilization. All of these factors have helped cut down the Amazon Rainforest. In the past

Deforestation in the Amazon is driven by demographic, political-economic, and socio-economic forces. Demographic reasons include the increase in population size, change in population densities, and migration of people within the country. Political-economic incentives are the result of policies that promote economic development, and the political climate including corruption and the mismanagement of resources. Political-economic factors also include the property rights and several claims to land titling. In addition to these, the development of public services such as roads, railways, water lines, electrical grids and sanitation require large chunks of forest land to be cleared. Oil exploration and mining are supplementary economic incentives that push policy-makers to allow for the deforestation of the Amazon. Socio-economic factors include overall lack of concern about forest and wildlife conservation, individual household behaviors, and agricultural production.

Along with the loggers come miners seeking gold and other minerals found in the forest. Miners come in after the loggers to further strip the land of valuable resources. Mining also carries with it it's own ecological problems. For example, while mining, many of the deposits are returned to the river, which normally don't go there, like mercury for example. These rivers have become poisoned and polluted in some parts, killing fish and exposing those that live on and live off the river to diseases which they have no immunity to.

After spending a few hours reading webpages and finding numerous sources, reliable information about deforestation in the Amazon was found. The World Wildlife Fund had very reliable information as there were sources and statistics which could support their statements (World Wildlife fund, 2015). The organisation is very credible as they always publish true information with supporting sources. At times it was difficult to find exact information so narrowing the search made it easier to find information which I was looking for. Webpages are not the best for research but there were a few webpages which were useful when they had sources to support the statements.

During the past 30 years, deforestation in the Amazon has been a huge problem. The Amazon Rainforest is home to an estimated one-third of all known animal species and makes up about half of the world’s rainforests. The reasons for the deforestation is to expand pastures for cattle production, and fields to grow soybeans. ("Brazil Geography-Introduction." N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2016.)

When the majority of the population is exposed to the words, “the Amazon”, through some form of written or spoken communications, most likely their initial, instinctive response is to visualize the Amazon rainforest as it is portrayed by a staggering amount of both past and present media outlets. This portrayal tends to be one consisting of a vibrantly colored rainforest, brimming with an abundance of diverse and exotic flora and fauna, and, a thriving and well-balanced collection of ecosystems which is, frankly, not even remotely accurate to the actual Amazon rainforest. Behind its deceptive facade endorsed by television, books, and occasionally even news, the Amazon rainforest occupies many dark truths relevant to degradation of the state of the earth’s various ecosystems and environments. Over the last several decades the Amazon has undergone numerous dramatic and, in fact, damaging changes all of which have been attributed to the area’s extensive deforestation.

Since the start of the 1970s, an area of the rainforest the size of California has been lost. In the Brazilian Amazon three million acres were lost between 2007 and 2008 (Amazon Rainforest). This is due to the illegal logging, soy plantations, cattle ranching, and other human actives. The forest is being threatened and so is everything that depends on it.

Since the year 1970, 758,092 square kilometers of the Amazon rainforest have been lost due to deforestation (“Changing Deforestation 1”). Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses and has been extremely prevalent in the Amazon rainforest in recent years. Many argue that the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is wrongful because of its negative impact on the environment while others argue that it is necessary to keep the Brazilian economy strong. Although it is beneficial to humanity for many reasons, the deforestation of the Amazon should be put to an end at once because of its serious issues and long lasting impacts in the atmosphere, in nature, in human health and in

When it comes to deforestation, the paving of the Trans-Amazonian highway is a two-sided coin. While the increased accessibility could lead to more effective environmental protection, it may also permit more illegal logging. When the highway was first constructed, spells of deforestation lead to 25,000 square kilometers of forest clear cut per year (that’s the size of New Jersey, every year). 95% of this deforestation happened within 7 kilometers of a road (Frasier 2014). In Madre de Dios, before the road was paved, tall trees used to line the highway. Now, the forest is cut back half a kilometer on both sides. Tree damage in the Xingu region were 4 times higher than average in 2007 (Frasier 2014). Once road paving

The Amazon contains nearly half of the tropical rain forests of the world and a large area of ​​tropical savannah, constituting a major source of natural resources. The vast expanse of the Amazon and its position in the humid tropics gives the region a significant potential to influence the global