Soil Erosion In Madagascar Essay

Deforestation presents in an abundance of ways, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. The foremost reason of deforestation in Latin America is the requirement for food, fuel, shelter, and foreign exchange. Year on year, a space of tropical forest the size of Great Britain is "converted" from an area equal to the size of Europe. Ever since 1950, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), half of the world 's forests have disappeared. “Latin America has lost 37 percent of its tropical forests,” says the FAO. As more and more of Latin American forest are degraded, more and more detrimental effects are being seen. Deforestation is changing a number of resources for tribal groups, altering their way of life, temperatures are increasing at a dangerous rate because of a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, habitats and species such as plants and wildlife are being annexed due to the destructive effects of deforestation. Deforestation is inarguably helpful to supplying money to countries that sell the products from the forest, but huge wealth being generated from the forests comes with large-scale environmental and social costs. The local residences are not benefitting and the funds are being siphoned out of the region.

Years of deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture left just 10 percent of Madagascar’s original vegetation and protecting what remains is an urgent

Deforestation will continue for a long time, due to financial gain and people needing more space for agriculture or clearing out forest due to urbanisation and similar developments. Agriculture is the main cause, as farmers need large spaces for planting crops and keeping animals; however they can do a lot damage to forests at the same time. Forests are obviously abundant in vegetation; however tropical rainforests are often on soil which contains low levels of nutrients in thin layers. The bulk of rock beneath is prone to erosion from the rain and high temperatures of the tropics. Substantial amounts of nutrients which are vital for animal communities are contained

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

It is located off the southeastern coast of Africa. The most amazing thing about Madagascar is out of the 200,000 living species there, 80% of them do not exist anywhere else in the world (CITE). Also, being an island it has a coastal perimeter with the interior of the island being a forested plateau, allowing for a variety of different wildlife . It truly is a beautiful place. However, on the negative aspect of Madagascar’s environment, close to 80% of the forests have been cut down (CITE). Because of the destruction of the forests, the natural soil of the riverbed is eroding resulting in the loss of 400 tons of topsoil a year (CITE). Rice farmers in Madagascar cut and burn down local vegetation to plant rice, which is part of the problem, because after a year or two the nutrients in the ground are completely depleted. Every year fires are set for clearing the land also resulting in about 1/3 of the entire island burning (CITE?). This not only destroys the plants but also disrupts the animals’ environment. Mining for minerals and oil causes destruction of the environment as

In particular, deforestation is the biggest factor to contribute to land degradation, depending upon the region. In "WILL LIMITS OF THE EARTH'S RESOURCES CONTROL HUMAN NUMBERS?” David Pimentel says there are several factors that contribute to land degradation, and the biggest factor is deforestation.

The Rainforests of the Atsinanana is a place like no other. The continent of Madagascar can be found 200 miles off the east coast of Africa and completed full separation from all other land masses more than 60 million years ago (Staff W., 2001). The island of Madagascar has lived in isolation and with isolation gives the Rainforests of Atsinanana an abundance of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. This unique place is made up of six national parks and was approved by UNESCO committee in New Zealand (WWF, n.d.). The Rainforests of Atsinanana is currently on the list of world heritage sites in

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, there are currently approximately 51.2 million involuntarily displaced individuals in the world (IRC, 2014). Many are displaced in some regions of the world more than others. Nearly 1 in 100 people worldwide are now displaced from their homes (Connor, 2016). Thousands of refugees have fled their home country due to the violence, disasters, and persecutions. The UN Refugee Agency defines a refugee as someone outside his or her country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality due to persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. According to

However, per The article “Haiti's Tragedy belongs to the environment” Faris reports that over 98% of the forest is lost. This is due to poverty, overpopulation and lack government leadership. Which also effects the social-economic status of the country. Farmers are cutting tree's in order to trade them for Charcoal. Without the trees the Island is not prepared when tropical storms strike. Trees act as a wind breaker. The roost hold the soil in place during heavy down pours of rain. The lack of tress result in mudslides that destroy villages. There are a lot of causality after the mudslides. The people that survive end up living in the street because their homes have been destroyed. More people on the streets result in an increase in illness, crime and decrease in food

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted that 68.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2016, an increase of more than 3 million from 59.5 million a year earlier. The tally comprises 24.3 million refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million people internally displaced within their own countries. Measured against the world’s population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 1105 people globally is now either a refugee, an asylum-seeker or internally displaced – putting them at a level of risk for which UNHCR knows no precedent. On average, 24 people were forced to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people fled every 60 seconds. Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia produce half the world’s refugees, at 4.9 million, 2.7 million and 1.1 million, respectively. Colombia had the largest numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs), at 6.9 million, followed by Syria’s 6.6 million and Iraq’s 4.4

Monitoring and seeking to influence policies affecting the environment in a refugee situation may be more cost-effective for an environmental agency than direct implementation of field activities. The greatest impacts on the environment in refuge situations may be caused by policy decisions relating to, amongst other things, camp siting, layout and size. National environmental policies are not possible to refer to refugee-affected areas, but can be improved with basic of guidelines to create a supportive policy framework. Most countries have National Environmental Action Plans or similar strategies for environmental

Deforestation on the island of Madagascar, an island off of the coast of Africa, has caused major destruction of habitat for species and a reduction in numbers of plants and trees. The island used to be largely covered in dense forests which were home to many species of lemur and other animals. Now, ⅘ of the island is bare and uninhabitable for these animals. Deforestation on the island progresses at around 150,000 to 200,000 hectares of forests cut down each year. Because of this many plants and animals that only occur in the wild on Madagascar are endangered. The problem has effects on both abiotic factors as well as the biotic factors, which include animals and plants. Some of the abiotic things impacted include lakes and shorelines. One of the main causes for the deforestation is slash-and-burn agriculture. In this technique, small areas of forest are cut down and everything is burned to clear the area and introduce some nutrients into the ground. Then, rice is planted and grown for a few years. After some time, all of the nutrients are depleted from the ground and rice cannot grow well anymore. Because of this, farmers have to continuously cut down more and more forest. The reason that this is such a common thing on Madagascar is because most people are poor and need food, so they resort to this destructive technique that leaves land barren and unable to support growth.

Since the beginning of history, the world has passed through a significant number of conflicts and wars, each defending a position. The reasons are usually religion beliefs, territory acquisition, and the search of the increase of power. During these conflicts, victims that suffered the consequences, losing their shelter as an example, end up leaving that area and are consequently seen as refugees in their new living area. Refugee camps should make them adapt to the new country, supporting them with supplies after such a difficult time, but that is not what has happened during these years. The refugees are treated badly, the camps have poor hygiene and health care, no education programs, neither the minimum acquired in the human

Forests are extremely important to both living and non-living things. Forests contribute to many aspects of life. It is not surprising that the destruction of tropical forests have people in a state of distress. These "forests constitute half of the forests of the world and they nest 70% of all plant and animal species of the planet" (Downing et al. 1992: 115). Erosion is a major problem, especially in mountainous regions. Many farmers who cut into forests on the sides of mountains eventually experience problems with erosion. Forests provide the roots to hold the important top soils in place. The thick canopy allows the falling rain to slowly reach the forest floor, while creating important pools in leaves and small crevices in trees. Most of the time, much of the rain will evaporate before it ever reaches the forest floor

During Monsoon, different loses occurs in storing structures of surfaces because of high evaporation. Evaporation of barren soil along with the combined process involving evaporation, gaseous state transformation and transpiration of the water from the surface of earth into atmosphere increases the exhaustion of soil moisture thereby decreasing the quantity and rate of soil permeation. The overall result is reducing the overflow production potential.