Not only has this fallen into the category of agriculture, cash crops and cattle ranching are also a part of it. From a rancher’s point of view, they just want to clear out the rainforest for cattle. 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.
They fail to understand the disadvantages of transferring land to land. Why isn’t this stopped probably because of the government’s point of view, developing the forests for agriculture or logging creates immediate job, prosperity and tax revenues for government; and it temporarily relieves the pressures of need for farm land, jobs, and poverty alleviation. This is the economic aspect of deforestation. Economically people are benefiting, hence they don’t have any reason to stop. They do not realize the long time effect. They don’t think they are going to get effected by the rainforests disappearing; only the next generation might.
However, this is not true! This generation will be effected by the lost of tropical rainforest. Experts predict in less than 40 years of time all the rainforest materials will be consumed. That’s how rapidly everything’s going to change.
Agriculture is one of the reasons why deforestation is taking place. There are other reasons for forest degradation such as logging, mining, fuel wood collection, industrial development and large dams. Tourism is becoming a larger threat to the forests as well.
Logging has one of the hugest impacts on rainforest. This is due to many reasons. We humans use furniture as our everyday live, those who get the opportunity of getting education use papers everyday. We are surrounded by things that are made out of wood. If we look at this situation from a logger’s perspective, they are just interested in cutting commercial timbers to produce wood products.
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Companies cut down mature old trees for their own good. Large areas of rainforest are destroyed in order to remove only a few logs. What people do not understand is when they are cutting down those “few” trees, the trees fall into the soil by heavy machinery which is decreasing the chance for regeneration. Since ecosystems are all connected to each other, if one tree is cut down it tears down climbers, vines, epiphytes and lianas too.
As a result this leaves a large whole in the canopy and completing it takes hundreds more years. Furthermore, when it comes to transferring the tree from the forest it causes even more destruction. When the heavy machinery and the clearing left behind by loggers effect the soil, which begins to erode in the heavy rain. All this is being done because of human and their needs of furniture, door, and other needs.
Logging is an advantage for everyone, not only the loggers and the government. We all benefit from cutting trees, because we are the ones using it. Can’t we gradually start the system of using other materials for the long term effect? Instead of wood, can’t we use plastic or steel chairs? Is it not possible to live with out wood, if other materials are used instead? Humans need those trees to survive. The Amazon rainforest has been described as the lungs of our planet because it provides service of continuously recycling co2 into o2. Humans can obviously stop using wood as furniture, but for some things we just have to use wood. When it comes to logging for paper there is a proper advantage of deforestation. In this case we have no choice but to use paper, no matter how much we try to recycle paper, we are still using paper more and more day by day. A pulpwood project set up one single plant operation 5.600 square miles of Amazon rainforest were burned to the ground and replanted with pulpwood trees. 200 million tons of wood are used each year as a result the paper industry alone will consume 4 billion tons of wood by the year 2020.
From all the reasons deforestation takes place, I think this is the only valid reason why deforestation can take place. However, are the rest of the reasons valid enough to cut down tree which take 80 years to grow?
Apart from the basic impacts, building roads also count as logging. Roads are the route of all problems. What I mean by this is roads are the one who create access to logging and mining sites; they are introducing new land to the landless farmers as well. Let’s look at the roads and see if they are useful enough to cut down so many trees. What are those roads used for? They are used for transport to cut down the trees, for some tourist who will visit the rainforest. If the tourists do want to visit the natural beauty why make it artificial.
From my point of view there are more disadvantage of deforestation than advantage.
This is because if all the rainforests are cut there will be less oxygen which at a point might cause death therefore if humans continue plantation there will be of no use. Moreover, one fifth of the world’s fresh water is in the Amazon Basin. In our everyday life everyone needs water. At least 80% of the developed world’s diets are in the tropical rainforest than why bother destroy rainforest and start plantation. Currently 1230 prescription of drugs are sold worldwide come from plants in the rainforest, if this is all destroyed imagine how diseases will get cured. 25% of the active ingredients in today’s cancer fighting drugs come from organism found in the rainforest.
After looking at all these facts, I don’t think there should be anymore deforestation. People should find possible solution because everything is possible. At some points deforestation has to take place. When the population increases there will be no choice but to cut down trees. When in need of paper they have to cut down trees. But other then that should they still carry out these practices? Science can be applied to solve all this. They can sow a seed every single time they destroy one even little thing like this can count.
