Missing Charts
Rainforest Depletion: Adverse Effects on the Environment
Introduction The depletion of tropical rainforests by third world countries, as well as by American industry, has been a growing area of concern for many environmental organizations. Animal rights activists are livid at the frightening rate in which species are becoming extinct in these regions. Conservationists argue that the foliage is disappearing at rates that replanting programs will never be able to compete with. Environmentalists and Meteorologists fear that the elimination of enormous quantities of acreage will result in a long list of problems, including global warming, abnormal precipitation patterns, and unpredictable weather systems, just to
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Depletion: Rates and Reasons 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. Due to all of the aforementioned reasons, the quantity of acreage that is being eliminated each year is staggering. Each year, about 20 million hectares are lost. In comparison, Austria covers about 10 million hectares. This translates to roughly 149 acres burned or scavenged every minute.
The table below lists some of the region in which depletion rates are the worst, including the square mileage of rainforest in tact now, and the percentage of it that is lost each year.
Parent Country Square Kilometers % Lost Annually Nigeria
As you are reading this, sixty seconds from now approximately over 100 acres and roughly about 2,000 trees are being destroyed at an alarming rate worldwide. As a result an estimated 140 species of rainforest plants and animals go extinct every day. That is the equivalent of at least 42 million acres of tropical forests in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are lost each year, an area the size of the state of Washington (RFA). Now some may say in a geographical perspective the continents listed above are not in correlation to North America’s natural resources, but it is of vital importance to take swift precautionary methods to help reduce this process before it is too late. Even the most conservative estimates project
Rainforests are being destroyed at a rate of 150 acres a minute. If this fact doesn’t astonish you then understand that that means a total of 78 Million acres a year. While this is in itself a horrible act it is also causing many species to go extinct thanks to loss of habitat. The main culprits of this are large corporations such as McDonald’s and Burger King. The greed of large corporations leads them to mistreat earth’s largest and most inhabited forests, leaving many species struggling for survival.
Rainforests have been declining rapidly over the last few decades. There are various factors responsible for this decline, resulting in serious impacts on the environment and the economy. Critically discuss the causes of deforestation and solutions to it.
The lumber, agriculture, and mining industries are major impacts on the tropical rainforest. They all require large areas of forest to be cleared so that they can take place. In mining, large areas of forest are cleared, and roads are built to access the mines. This greatly affects the diversity in the area because of the loud construction noises as well as pollution. The lumber and agriculture industries also have a very adverse affect on tropical rainforests. This is chiefly due to the fact that the soil fertility is only good enough to grow crops for a few years after it has been cleared. This leads to farmers clearing more and more forest each year to satisfy the needs of
Large forests are destroyed for raising beef, lumbering, and use of wood for clear cutting for crops or profit (Cooney). Wood has been in a huge demand for several centuries to build houses and buildings. However, this is causing other animals losing their shelter and habitat in forest. The topsoil has been wearing off from the soil which is creating soil erosion. Topsoil contains all the healthy nutritions that will make the soil fertile. Plants needs this fertilization and all the proper nutritions in soil to grow. However, water erosion in soil is causing soil erosion. Which is creating the land a desert where no one can live.
Many rainforests are at risk of going extinct. The beautiful rainforests are going extinct because many people and companies are cutting down trees in the rainforests. This can also put the world in danger the world and its temperature. Many people are trying to get people to stop cutting down the trees.
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
We found that worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation website to be reliable and informative. The World Wildlife Fund organization was founded in 1961, and has been one of the top organizations working in the field of the wilderness preservation. The information they display on this website gives a deeper look on the reasons for deforestation, how it is affecting our earth, and how we can help. The information is more cut and dry, and would not be as effective for kids than it is for adults. We found this information valuable in our research in rainforests.
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.
The rainforest that have not been destroyed are being cleared for food crops, tree plantation or for grazing cattle. Due to the cash crop system the soil fertility is even declining in the rainforest. The main reason the cash crops are grown is because it’s an easy way to get money and they have little concern about the environment. The modern machinery sometimes even cattle damage the land to such extent that there is no further use so they keep on transferring to another land of the rainforest and destroying it similar to the farmers.
The rate of deforestation is increasing and the tropical forests are falling at approximately 140,000 acres per day (Miller & Tangley 1991: xvi). The forests are crucial to the environment. They are important in minimizing erosion, providing a stable habitat for many animals, and helping to keep the environment clean. Deforestation has devastating effects, not only on the biological dependents within the depleted forests, but also on the surrounding human-populated communities.
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.
to our world. Statistics show that only 30% of the earth’s rainforests are left and that is an
Likewise, deforestation of the rainforests hinders the once fertile soil and uproots millions of species of flora and fauna. It is estimated that twenty-seven thousand plant and animal species are lost each year. Even more, cutting away
It is now so bad that every minute an area of forest equal to 20 football fields is lost. Rainforests cover less than