Deforestation occurs everywhere in the world but the most heavily affected areas are in South America from destroying the Amazon Rainforest, and South East Asia. These are particularly bad cases as they are places that are wrought with extreme poverty, and farmers have no choice but to cut down trees to make space for extra farmland where they can grow more crops, so that they can then in turn yield more and make enough money to survive.
What are the impacts that this has on the environment?
The main effect of deforestation is that biodiversity is seriously reduced. It is estimated that 50-70% of all biodiversity on the planet is in the rainforests, and they make up only 2% of the biosphere. So by destroying the forest, we are destroying their home and they will die.
Some forestry is being destroyed so fast that with the rate we are destroying the forests in South East Asia, we expect it to be completely destroyed by 2010.
Plants and trees are our only form of oxygen production, and they are also carbon dioxide consumers. Without them carbon dioxide will not be consumed, there will be a rapid increase in the rate of global warming, and oxygen concentration will decrease too.
If deforestation is not controlled we could be making plants extinct that may contain medicines for us, or plants that contain chemicals used to fight cancer. Etc.
This would also majorly affect the hydrological cycle. The amount of water in soil or in the atmosphere will change drastically. Flash floods will become more common in low-land areas of the world. And even Tsunami’s will happen more often as a result of this.
What can we do to resolve these problems?
New methods are being discovered every day on how to farm more crops in a smaller area. Hydroponic technology is becoming increasing popular among farmers that can afford it, as their land : yield ratio is far better than in past-times.
Forest Management is another method of reducing deforestation, this is basically a control over the amount of wood that is used over a certain period of time, which is designed to slow or even reduce deforestation completely.
The final method used is known as Afforestation, which is a government planned set-up where everybody between specific ages must plant a certain number of trees each year, to help replace any trees used for that year.
References
Pg 455, AS Level Biology, by Phil Bradfield, John Dodds, Judy Dodds and Norma Taylor, Published by Longman
Pg 737, Biology, by Martin Rowland, Published by Nelson.
Pg 51, Biology: Principles and Processes, by Michael Roberts, Michael Reiss and Grace Monger, Published by Nelson.
