The Dangers Of Rainforests

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.

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

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.

The biodiversity of the tropical rainforest is so immense that less than 1 percent of its millions of species have been studied by scientists for their active constituents and their possible uses. When an acre of tropical rainforest is lost, the impact on the number of plant and animal species lost and their possible uses is staggering. Scientists estimate that we are losing more than 137 species of plants and animals every single day because of rainforest deforestation.

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

The Earth is losing “upwards of 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest daily.” To put this into perspective this is 1/9 of the size of the state of Rhode Island that is being destroyed daily. Not only is the destruction of the rain forest causing problems for only the organisms living within the rainforest but also for people and industries worldwide. We need to save our rainforests so that we can continue to survive and also help the animals that live within the areas being destroyed. People are cutting these areas down for more development and empty land but causing more harm than good in the long run.

“According to the United Nations, at least 37.5 million acres of rainforest is harvested annually. Despite the relatively small areas of land the rainforests cover, they are home to nearly-half of the 5-10 million plant and animal species on the planet Earth (Brown, 1998).” Many of these are indigenous species that scientists feel may be the key to the development of new medicines which may ultimately lead to cures for some of the world’s most terrible diseases. Furthermore the rainforests are the lungs of our planet, without which life would not be possible, and while it’s true that younger trees do in fact produce more net oxygen than do mature trees, much of the rainforest is not being replanted, and therefore the destruction taking place there is permanent. For this reason; it is no longer acceptable to stand idly by, while large corporations; such as Weyerhaeuser, destroy what remains of the world’s oldest living ecosystems with no regard for the well being of the Earth or the potential wealth of information and/or sheer joy of experience for future generations.

Climate change is such a prevalent topic of concern in modern day that it is important to understand the contributions to it, deforestation being one of them. Deforestation exacerbates the already negative consequences of climate change. Forests play a fundamental role in many different aspects of earth systems and deforestation is decreasing the benefits of forests. Forests cover approximately thirty-one percent of the land cover in the world; however, 46-56 square miles of forestlands are lost each year (World Wildlife Fund). As technology continues to advance and the world increasingly becomes more industrialized, deforestation has the potential to get so extreme it will be difficult to go back and fix the negative effects.

First, many wonderful and innocent animals lose their homes due to humans cutting down their habitats. By cutting down the rainforest we lose known and unknown animals and plants (“Effects of Deforestation”). “Seventy percent of Earth’s animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes” (“Effects of Deforestation”). Cutting down these animals homes can lead to their extinction (Bradford). Also, by losing these animals and plants medical research tends to lack. “Has a negative consequences for medical

In all rainforest regions in the world, deforestation has become a major problem. The rainforest is arguably the most complicated and largely interwoven ecosystem on land. However, this treasure is being lost and demolished day by day, the land being cleared away for the pure interest of money making, in the process of deforestation. Not only are thousands of species of organisms being driven to extinction, but we are also effectively eliminating any chance of studying many of the species. Also, deforestation has a major impact on the atmospheric balance of the world, and if it continues at the rate it is now, then soon the world's entire way of living will be forced to change, and not for the good. If the people of the world do not

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.

Another alarming issue is the rate with which we are losing our rain forests. At the current rate of deforestation, rain forests could be nonexistant in one hundred years. We need to preserve rainforests because they act as protectors of biodiversity. Even though they cover only 2% of the Earth’s surface area, they are home to over 50% of our species. Furthermore, rainforests play many other critical roles by keeping our environment balanced. Trees protect soil against erosion, perpetuate the water cycle, and act as “carbon sinks” for the atmosphere (Slattery 2012). Cutting down trees means releasing that stored CO2 and speeding up climate change. Still, behind 80% of deforestation is modern commercial agriculture (Kissinger et al. 2012). Sensitive rain forests are cleared to make land for crops, with devastating results on the stability of the ecosystem. Consequently, deforestation and other activities related to food production, such as fertilizer application, account for almost all of our land CO2 emissions,

4.1 billion acres of land or, 30% of the world's surface area is covered with forests. Yet, millions of acres of forests - around 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees - are removed for humanity’s benefit each year. Deforestation is the act of clearing out wide ranges of forests and trees and to many, deforestation is seen as completely necessary and vital for the development and advancement of the human species. But, the amount of benefits humanity collects from the mass removal of trees will never outweigh the terrible negative effects caused by deforestation. If no action is taken soon to decrease deforestation rates, the human population of 7.4 billion will quickly use up every resource trees have to offer leaving millions of species extinct and may cause many more underlying issues. Around two thirds of the planet has been destructed by the human species. In fact, the world’s rain forests could completely vanish in 100 years at the current rate of deforestation, writes National Geographic. The world will become a worse place in 100 years due to deforestation. Deforestation will worsen global warming or the release of greenhouse gases, remove animals from their habitats, and cause erosion and flooding.

Imagine life without trees. Life without trees seems unfathomable. Trees provide us with paper, timber, oxygen for us to breath, etc. Without trees, life on Earth may probably cease to exist. Trees, specifically forests, make up for thirty percent of the Earth’s land (National Geographic, 2017), while water covers seventy percent (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, 2017). Out of that thirty percent, only a mere six percent is what tropical rainforests cover (Butler, 2008). According to Butler (2008), tropical rainforests once covered over sixteen percent of the Earth, but since then, the numbers began decreasing. Tropical rainforests, precisely the Amazon rainforest, are decreasing at such alarming rates due to deforestation (Laurence, 1998). If the Amazon rainforest were to be lost, the implications imposed are its effect on local matters such as wildlife, the environment, and human life (Foley, Asner, Costa, Coe, DeFries, Gibbs,… Snyder, 2007). Although these implications are dire consequences, some actions are being taken to prevent these measures from happening.

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.