Deforestation and Desertification

PUNIT KHEMANI 28/04/2007

Deforestation

Deforestation is the removal of large numbers of trees, along with the loss of the animals that habitat the area.

Deforestation occurs in many ways. Most of the clearing is done for agricultural purposes-grazing cattle, planting crops. Poor farmers chop down a small area (typically a few acres) and burn the tree trunks-a process called Slash and Burn agriculture. Intensive, or modern, agriculture occurs on a much larger scale, sometimes deforesting several square miles at a time. Large cattle pastures often replace rain forest to grow beef for the world market.

Commercial logging is another common form of deforestation, cutting trees for sale as timber or pulp. Logging can occur selectively-where only the economically valuable species are cut-or by clear cutting, where all the trees are cut. Commercial logging uses heavy machinery, such as bulldozers, road graders, and log skidders, to remove cut trees and build roads, which is just as damaging to a forest overall as the chainsaws are to the individual trees.

The causes of deforestation are very complex. A competitive global economy drives the need for money in economically challenged tropical countries. At the national level, governments sell logging concessions to raise money for projects, to pay international debt, or to develop industry. For example, Brazil had an international debt of $159 billion in 1995, on which it must make payments each year(3). The logging companies seek to harvest the forest and make profit from the sales of pulp and valuable hardwoods such as mahogany.

Deforestation by a peasant farmer is often done to raise crops for self-subsistence, and is driven by the basic human need for food. Most tropical countries are very poor by U.S. standards, and farming is a basic way of life for a large part of the population. In Brazil, for example, the average annual earnings per person are U.S. $5400, compared to $26,980 per person in the United States (World Bank, 1998). In Bolivia, which holds part of the Amazon rain forest, the average earnings per person is $800(3). Farmers in these countries do not have the money to buy necessities and must raise crops for food and to sell. People in these parts of the world have large families and do not have enough land to grow food to feed their families(2). However when they do cut down trees, the soil is very thin and will not last two seasons worth of crop growing, therefore more trees have to be cut down.

There are other reasons for deforestation, such as to construct towns or dams, which flood large areas and using wood for fuel.

As a consequence of deforestation, there are many effects on the environment and the animals. The immediate and long-term consequences of global deforestation are almost certain to jeopardize life on Earth, as we know it. Some of these consequences include: loss of biodiversity; the destruction of forest-based-societies; and climatic disruption.

Deforestation is causing a loss of biological diversity on an unprecedented scale. Although tropical forests cover only six percent of Earth’s land surface, they happen to ...