Every single year humans cut down at least 7.3 million hectares (18 million acres) of forest land. While cutting trees down allows for animals to graze and urbanization, all people should know how deforestation affects them and the world because many species of animals and natural medicines could be gone forever, there would be little to no oxygen filtration, and all rainforests could disappear in less than 100 years. As humans and animals, in general, they all require oxygen which is filtered by trees and plants but if they are being cleared so rapidly and ultimately harming the atmosphere when cut, people should not be slashing and occasionally burning these nonrenewable resources (51 Facts About Deforestation). There are a few ways forests are being removed. but there are two main methods and they both leave the land barren. The first is called clear cutting, the name is somewhat self-explanatory. Essentially the forests are completely cut down and nothing is left behind but the soil which will soon erode. With no roots to keep the soil in place it will blow away and the land will be of no use to anyone. Another method is slash-and-burn. This is similar to the clear cutting option but in this they cut they trees completely and burn them after. With the slash-and-burn method the land is full of nourishment from the fire so most of the time there are new crops planted after but this only last for a few years. When the soil goes back to growing weeds the farmers of the land will find a new patch of land and will slash-and-burn this land. This will repeat until there is no land left fit enough for agricultural purposes. Loggers also cut down th majority of trees so people can have paper products, lumber, and occasionally fuel. Some of these loggers act illegally and build secret roads to access forests that no one knows about (Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects).
Many of the forests being cut are in the amazon which produces about 20% of the Earth’s oxygen and with it so rapidly being destroyed, inhabitants will not have as much oxygen in the world as it once had. Nearly half of the tropical forests have already been cleared out. Along with not having fresh air to breathe there are animals and potentially
Over half of the world’s forests have been destroyed in the last 10,000 years. An extensive fire that destroys a great deal of land or property could be thought to help “benefit” the economic or environmental aspects of daily life, but the society is clueless on the harm it is causing. Nearly half of the Earth's original forest cover has already been lost and each year an additional 32 million acres are destroyed. Our world is facing the greatest extinction crisis since the fall of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. The future of many of Earth's plants and animals will be determined within the next few decades. Hopefully, it comes as no great surprise to you that deforestation is a major problem in many areas of the world, both in terms of
However, forests around the world are under threat from deforestation, jeopardizing these benefits. Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. This impacts people’s livelihoods and threatens a wide range of plant and animal species. Some 46-58 thousand square miles of forest are lost each year, which is equivalent to 36 football fields every minute.
Deforestation is the destruction of a wide area of forest land into a cleared land that is used for a variety of reasons. The impact on the environment from cutting down, burning and damaging forests is very detrimental and there are severe consequences for the environment and future generations because of deforestation. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization approximately 7.3 million hectares of forests are being destroyed per year in the world (Bradford, 2015). In this essay, I will explore the impact that deforestation on the environment and I will also look at the actions that are being taken to prevent deforestation. There are various reasons why deforestation is occurring despite its negative effects on the environment. Deforestation can cause very serious environmental problems such as climate change, flooding, loss of habitats as well as others.
Three to six billion trees are cut down each and every year! Deforestation is a huge problem in the rainforests. Because these forests are home to much of the Earth’s species of life. Covering 30 percent of our land forests provide homes, protection, and oxygen for humans and other wildlife in the forests. There are 7.125 billion people that count on the benefits provided by the forest, which is: food, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter. If something isn 't done soon to reduce our carbon footprint, we will not have forests of any type to soak up the carbon dioxide(CO2) in the atmosphere.
Many forests are dying and that can have a major effect on plants and humans. Forests are dying off because of droughts, deforestation and invasive species. Dying forests can also alter global climate and change how much sunlight is being absorbed in the different hemispheres. Western North American forests are suffering because of the drought while humans are affecting southwestern forests. The removal of forests has different impacts on different parts of the world. In some places, it is a good thing while in other places it is bad. Scientists are trying figure out where and how the surrounding plants are affected negatively and positively.
Since the beginning of time, every single living organism on this planet has come to depend on one important thing, oxygen. One of the main sources of this life necessity is our trees. Trees are known to filter the air of many harmful pollutants and absorb carbon dioxide, making the air we breathe fresh and clear of toxins. But what happens when this source is eliminated from the environment? Deforestation, the removal of forests/trees, is a major ongoing issue that, not only has been happening for centuries, but is very well still occurring today. Although there are some positive aspects of deforestation, including building more communities, there are also many negatives that outweigh the positives. Scientists have estimated that between the years 1990-2015, the Earth lost approximately 129 million hectares of forest. The results have been catastrophic and include increased amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, the impending extinction of various different species, and major changes in the weather.
When forests are cut down it disturbs the climate and weather pattern on earth and threatens millions of organism and plants already living there. There's consequences to these actions; human are forgetting about the lives that lives in these forest. Animals are either left to die or having to move away and find another place to live, leaving the place they once called home. Human activities has also caused climate change. This has huge effects on the rainforest. According to the FAO's Global Forest Resource Assessment in 2015, forest destruction are happening frequently. This causes damages to the quality of the forest decreasing the chances of goods that are able to be produced. Human activities not only cause harm to the animals and creatures that live there but also to their own health is in danger. 250 different species of animals are found in the United states and Canada but their population are slowly decreasing due to forest depletion. The world resources institution guessed that around 1990 and 2020 that deforestation would cause 5-15% of the species in the world to be
Humans are having a negative effect on the environment by destroying the rainforests. By destroying the rainforests, they are destroying the source of over sixty percent of the earth's precious oxygen8. This may surprise some people because we are still breathing but if the destruction continues we will be breathing in a lot less oxygen and a lot more impurities like excess carbon dioxide and other pollutants9.
The earth is losing its forests. Presently, trees cover about 30 percent of the earth's surface, but they are being destroyed at an alarming rate, especially in the tropics.
Our world has had deforestation for a while and worldwide, 32 million acres of forests are cleared each year (“Docksai, 45-51”). While we have trees being cut down, especially in the Amazon in Brazil is also a home to tropical rainforests plants with cancer-fighting compounds (“Balaguer, 14-21”). During the time of October and November of 2013 scientists have found that there has been a 136% increase in deforestation (“Balaguer, 14-21”). The reason why I care so much about deforestation is that trees on earth carry oxygen for us and if there are no more trees and we have an overpopulated world we probably won’t be alive. Another reason why is that the Amazon forests are homes to beautiful animals such as the birds there.
Rainforest are being depleted at alarming rates for a number of reasons. A number of raw materials can be obtained from these regions, including oil, rubber, spices, and hardwoods, just to name a few. Industry from all over the world is obtaining these resources without regard for the adverse effects to the environment that will result. Vast areas are being burned and used as farm land. The remaining ash serves as a good fertilizer for the crops for two or three years, and then another patch must be cleared. As populations increase in some regions, rainforest is burned or cleared for development. Trees are cleared by cattle farmers for pasture. The grass is eliminated , the soil is washed away, and only a hard crust remains, leaving an area that probably won’t flourish again for many years.
Entire ecosystems are filled with unique species, and the frightening reality is deforestation takes the habitat out from underneath its inhabitants (Bradford 2015). Forests have been cleared at a rate so astonishingly fast, that over half of all known forests have been compromised. If this type of behavior continues, the natural world will have to be given a new name, because nothing left will be "natural". Rainforests clearly have an outward benefits, from cleaning the air we breathe, to different diversity among the species who inhabit this Earth. Organismal density around the equator is exceptionally high, yet humans feel the need to clear much of that land for different use. Urbanization and the need for more agricultural space play a critical role in how much land humans clear. What we as a species forget is how all of these trees and biomes impact the world on a grander scale. Water vapor is needed to complete the water cycle, but without trees constantly humidifying the air, the cycle becomes less fluid. Sturdy trees like the ones in much of the rainforest hold the soil and anchor it from eroding. Because deforestation completely removes all the
Have you ever wondered why when you travel somewhere It’s sometimes harder to breath there? Well over the past 40 years almost 25% of our Amazon rainforest has been destroyed due to deforestation. Deforestation is the term used to describe the permanent destruction of forests in order to make land available for other uses. The expansion of deforestation in the United States has long lasting and extremely detrimental effects consequences that affect the environment in catastrophic ways of causing poor air quality and ozone layer depletion.
Since people cut down the forests for more land they should know by doing this it actually hurts them more than it helps them. “Without trees, the soil is free to wash or blow away, which can lead to vegetation growth problems” (Bradford). Also, by cutting down the trees it can increase the temperature changes towards the plants, animals, and soil because they have nothing blocking the sun. “This disruption leads to more extreme temperature swings that can be harmful to plants and animals” (“Deforestation”). Trees help with the water atmosphere to get to the soil. Without trees the water will have no way to get back to the soil. “In turn, this causes dryer soil and the inability to grow crops, an ironic twist when considered against that fact that 80% of deforestation comes from small-scale agriculture” (“Effects of
Ninety percent of the earth’s trees between three and four hundred years old have been cut down. The remaining ten percent is all we will ever have (Gallant, 97). The definition of deforestation by the Random House Dictionary of the English Language is "to divest or clear of forests or trees.” Deforestation is one of the most significant issues of our time; considerable measures must be taken to prevent further pillaging of our unique forest resource.