When trees are removed, particularly from mountainous areas, topsoil is exposed and may be washed away by rain. The resulting erosion can clog streams with silt, harm fish populations and degrade water quality. The use of terracing and the planting of ground cover crops can reduce this problem. Deforestation is a major contributor to the habitat loss that continues to threaten endangered species across the planet. For example, the rate of destruction of the Amazonian rainforest increased by 40% between 2001 and 2002. More than 25,000 sq km were cleared in a year, mainly for farming. That represents an area of land larger than Belgium. The Amazon is home to up to 30% of the world's animal and plant life. Trees also convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, thereby playing a major part in reducing pollution and controlling climate change caused by excess greenhouse gases.
The tropical rainforest of the Amazon Basin is the largest area of tropical rainforest in the world. Different countries exploit the forest for different uses and we shall go into these causes now.
One of the major purposes for the clearing of the forest is for housing. These happens in countries where the population is growing rapidly, e.g. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In addition, more houses are built in deforested areas to resettle people from crowded and heavily urbanised and densely populated cities in Brazil such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Extensive areas of the tropical rainforest have been cleared to grow pasture for cattle rearing and to cultivate crops for subsistence and commercial agriculture. Cattle ranching is an important source of farming activity in many Amazonian countries like Brazil, Colombia and Peru just to name a few. The export to beef to developed countries such as USA, Canada and Japan is extremely profitable and brings in valuable revenue to poor South American countries. As a result, the Amazonian governments encourage cattle ranching by offering financial aid and tax rebates to cattle ranchers. This has resulted in extensive areas of the tropical rainforest being burnt and cut down so that grass and pasture can be grown for cattle. In Colombia, Bolivia, Surinam and French Guiana, shifting cultivators clear the rainforest to grow crops like maize and potatoes to feed their families. In Brazil, peasants are given plots of land to clear for subsistence farming. The government hopes that they will grow food and become self-sufficient. The tropical rainforest has also been cleared in Ecuador, Peru and Brazil for plantation agriculture. Crops such as sugar cane, bananas and coffee are grown for sale. The building of roads and the 3300 km east - west Trans-Amazonia Highway have resulted in the extensive deforestation of the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest. The building of the highway has also made much of the interior of the tropical rainforest of the Amazon Basin more accessible to people. As a result, more areas of the rainforest have been cleared and developed for other land uses. The tropical rainforest of the Amazon Basin offers many valuable natural resources such as timber, mineral ores and oil. Extensive deforestation has resulted when these natural resources are extracted. The rising demand in Japan, Germany, France, Italy and the USA and Canada for hardwoods has contributed to the extensive damage. In addition, the use of modern, efficient equipment such as chain-saws, bulldozers, trucks and tractors means that large areas of rainforest can be cleared rapidly in a fairly short time. There are large deposits of gold, bauxite, iron ore, tin ore and diamonds in the Amazon Basin. In order to extract these minerals, large areas of the forest have been cleared. For instance, about one-sixth of Brazil's tropical rainforest (900,000 km²) has been leered to mine the high quality iron ore found there. Oil is being extracted from the Ecuador's tropical rainforest. More then 10,000 km² of the tropical rainforest have been cleared for this purpose as well as to build roads and refineries for processing the crude oil. Through the deforestation of the rainforests some flora and fauna are now becoming extinct and plants that could have been possibly used in the treatments of life threatening illnesses and diseases. As well as threats to the flora and fauna that inhabit the rainforests there are also the indigenous people that lose their traditional way of living and possibly there life if they uproar, they have no choice but to fit in with the governments.
Many of the factors that are mentioned above are all negative impacts to the deforestation of the tropical rainforests but we seem to forget about the people that are working for the logging firms, timber merchants, peasants and homeless people that are benefiting from the destruction of the rainforest. Without the work or the land that has been acquired through the deforestation they would be out of jobs and have no money to support their families. The logging industry alone employs 700’000 people directly and without the rainforest their jobs would be gone automatically. The governments and particularly the logging companies see the deforestation as a development of the rainforest and are in complete support of it as it means that there is increased employment between the local people therefore there are incomes for them. As well as providing jobs for the local people they can be offered land as there is a growing population so more land is needed to house people that are living in the country. Many of the LEDCs have huge debts to other countries and by tearing down the rainforest gives the government money from the exports of the timber and also money from possible tourism that may occur from the ‘development’ of the rainforest.
It is impossible to stop deforestation in the foreseeable future, but there are many opportunities for bringing it under control and minimising its negative impacts. Residual forests can be preserved, logged areas replanted and new laws can be introduced to limit the amount of land that can be deforested each year. People can also explore the use of alternative materials and recycled materials. The situation of deforestation is in a realistic sense will never be fully be resolved as by the time that anything will go into practice there will be no rainforests left.
