Deforestation - The worlds forests are in grave danger.

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Ashleigh MacDonald

Deforestation

The world’s forests are in grave danger. Over half of the original forest cover has been destroyed, and things are set to deteriorate unless the current alarming rate of deforestation is checked. Every minute an estimated 26 hectares of forest is lost – that’s an area equivalent to 37 football pitches - and it is not difficult to see that if this continues we will be left with a planet devoid of woodland. This would be catastrophic: not only are forests home to some of the most important species on earth, but they also play a vital role in regulating the climate and making the planet habitable.

Much of the earth was once covered by trees, but the majority of these were cleared long ago to make way for an ever expanding human population. This is particularly true in regions with a temperate climate such as Britain and other parts of Europe where agriculture took an early hold of the landscape, and has now reduced the great forests to tiny pockets strewn throughout the land. However, it is only in relatively recent times that the tropical forests have come under severe attack. On a global scale there was twice as much tropical forest at the turn of the 20th century as there is today, and only around 700 million of the original 1.5 billion hectares remain.

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The rate of deforestation in Africa is a cause for extreme concern: around four million hectares of forest are destroyed each year, to the extent that 45 per cent of its original forest cover has disappeared.

Commercial logging, clearance for agriculture, roads and railways, forest fires, mining and drilling, fuelwood collection and clearance for living space are all intimately connected with deforestation, but it is far from obvious as to which is the worst culprit.

People have been living in and around tropical rain forests for tens of thousands of years, taking what they needed from the wealth of natural resources ...

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