THE EFFECT OF DEFORESTATION
Oredugba Olawale Olakunle,
Mogilna Nataliya, Kostyuchenko Nadiya
Sumy State University, Ukraine
Nowadays many countries are facing the problem of deforestation.
Deforestation is the permanent destruction of indigenous forests and woodlands. Deforestation has resulted in the
reduction of indigenous forests to four-fifths of their pre-agricultural area. Indigenous forests now cover 21% of the Earth's
land surface.
Deforestation occurs for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their
families. The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper
products, also cut countless trees each year. But not all deforestation is inten tional. Some is caused by a combination of
human and natural factors like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees.
The top five causes of deforestation are: logging (both legal and illegal), industrialization, agri culture, oil exploitation
and human disasters.
Deforestation has many negative effects on the environment:
The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species.
It also often results in damage to the quality of the land as it causes soil erosion.
As a result of soil erosion silting of water courses occurs.
Deforestation is one of the reasons of desertification.
Deforestation also drives climate change and causes global warming. Trees absorb CO2, helping to reduce the amount
of carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon is one of the key causes of global warming and reducing these gases will help to slow and
stop the greenhouse effect. The other issue is that trees are often cleared and burned. The burning of the wood releases carbon
into the atmosphere, giving the double whammy of releasing harmful greenhouse gases, yet reducing the number of trees that
would have helped to remove this from the atmosphere.
In Nigeria as in most tropical regions of the world, deforestation constitutes a major health, environmental, ecological
and socio-economic challenge. The research methodology stresses a mix scale approach involving social research in areas of
active and non-active deforestation in Ebony state Nigeria and the descriptive assessment and analysis of t he forest resource
exploitation issues, as well as the implication for sustainable forest resource management. Findings indicate that the income
status of individuals residing in the areas of active deforestation was lower than those of areas of non -active deforestation.
Higher yearly episodes of malaria and the tendency to spend less amount of money for malaria treatment characterized the
areas of active deforestation and the inhabitants had higher preference for use of wood fuel and use of forest medicina l herbs
for malaria treatment. In the areas of active deforestation, the mosquito night biting/landing rates were considerably higher
than those of areas of non-active deforestation. Conservation policies aimed at slowing deforestation will impact malaria and
would reduce the increasing incidence of deforestation-dependent malaria epidemics.
There are many steps to stop deforestation. The quickest solution to deforestation would be to simply stop cutting
down trees. Though deforestation rates have slowed a bit in recent years, financial realities make this unlikely to occur. A
more workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear -cutting to make sure that forest
environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be b alanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace
the older ones felled in any given forest. To plant indigenous trees will be also one of the ways out. Joining one of the man y
campaign groups is a positive step that can be taken, however there are other practical things that we can do. Ensuring that all
paper is recycled and that paper purchased is recycled means that the demand for virgin material is reduced. We need to use
wood sparingly.
Many differing groups such as environmental and political parties, governments, consumers, corporations and also
those who actually work in the forests should work together to stop deforestation. We need to raise awareness about the
potential hazards that will accrue if deforestation continues unabated.
If there is nobody to alert the people of the climatic change and prevent deforestation then none would be able to save
the planet Earth.