Ashley Christensen
English 2010
7-7-12
Deforestation
Trees are one of the most important resources found on our planet. Trees help our climate
by filtering carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Trees provide habitats for many animals and
different species of insects. They provide shade, shelter, and food for people throughout the
world. Also our Forest cover improves and regulates our climate by equalizing the amount of
precipitation within an area.
Deforestation is the cutting, clearing, and removal of the
rainforest or related ecosystems into less bio-diverse
ecosystems such as pasture, cropland, or plantations.
Deforestation dates back to pre-historic times. As tribal
populations lived long the edge of forests they cut down
trees to build their communities. Since then deforestation
has assumed alarming proportions. Today we are losing
trees at rapid rates- 2.4 acres per second, 149 acres per minute, 214,000 acres per day, 78 million
acres per year. Worldwide our ecosystems are being threatened (Algee, 2005).
Causes of Deforestation
1. Urban Destruction: The cutting down of trees for
lumber that is used for furniture, general
construction, and paper products this has a major
impact on the forest life. Forests are cleared to
accommodate expanding urban areas.
2. Mining: Is a main cause of deforestation. Trees and vegetation are burned away and then
large scale mining operations use bulldozers and excavators to extract minerals and
metals from the soil.
3. Logging: Illegal or legal logging, logging companies cut trees to meet the demands of the
wood market (Borade, 2011).
4. Cattle Ranching: Forests are cut down to create land for cattle grazing. Cattle and other
grazing animals require extensive land for food. Clearing the forests increases pastures
for cattle to graze.
5. Commercial Purposes: other causes include clearing forests to make roads and highways,
slash and burn farming techniques, and wildfires (Borade, 2011).
Globalization
As the world trade becomes more globally connected, the threats to many rainforests are
increasing. In the Amazon, clearing land for cattle pastures is the largest single driver of
rainforest destruction. Brazil was the world’s largest source of exported beef in 2003. Most the
beef is bred in the former rainforest regions of the Amazon. Brazilian deforestation rates are
skyrocketing (Greenpeace, 2012).
In Indonesia, their forest land is being converted to palm-oil production. The oil palm is
used to make biscuits, ice cream, cooking oil, soap and cosmetics. About one third of all foods
on supermarkets shelves contain palm oil (Olfield, 2002).
In Malaysia, loggers harvest ramin, a tropical hardwood that grows in the swamp forests
of Borneo and Sarawak. Ramin is extremely tough, has a light color and straight grain. It is used
in picture frames and furniture. Most of the timber is exported to Europe or to China. According
to statistics, all the lowland rainforest of Sulawesi is now gone, and will be followed by the giant
rainforests in Sumatra and Kalimantan (Oldfield, 2002).
Effects of Deforestation
The damage that is occurring to the forest causes several obvious effects.
1A. Diseases: Deforestation is being increasingly linked to the emergence of deadly new
diseases. The first European expeditions in 1816, found not only the rainforests and new animals
and insects they had never encountered before, but they also contracted malaria and dysentery,
these diseases killed far more explorers than the spears and poison darts of the natives. Modern
technology had almost eliminated any cases of malaria, but as the rainforests disappear, more
humans are coming into contact with jungle diseases. Reasons are varied, but include an increase
of people from developing countries who eat the bush meat, joining logging or mining gangs, or
routinely pass through the rainforest roads (NationalGeographic, 2012).
B. As the rainforests disappear, their shade is lost and environmental changes, such as a
rise in temperature occur. Mosquitos, tsetse flies, and other disease carrying insects increase in
number. Malarial mosquitos thrive in open, moist and well-vegetated places that people create as
they tear down the forests and begin to farm. Statistics show that for every one percent loss of
forest cover, there is an 8 percent increase in the number of malarial mosquitos.
C. In 2004, a mysterious outbreak of rabies killed dozens of people around the mouth of
the Amazon River. Scientists blamed these attacks on deforestation, which forced the bats to
leave the forests, and also increased the amount of livestock farming in the area, which gave an
available food source to the bats (National Geographic, 2012).
D. The Ebola virus comes from the Central African jungle. The virus kills about 90
percent of all the people who catch it. There is no cure or vaccine. Forest apes transmit the virus
to humans. It is easily transmitted through ingesting ape meat, which is a popular activity in
Central Africa. The only thing that seems to stop the virus from becoming a major epidemic is
the fact that the victims die so quickly they scarcely have time to pass transmit it to more than a
few close individuals (Oldfield 2002).
E. The most deadly disease to cross from jungle animals to humans has been HIV, the
virus that causes AIDS. Scientists believe the virus jumped the species barrier from monkeys,
who suffer a simian form of AIDS, to us (National Geographic, 2012).
2. Climate Change: Deforestation results in many climate changes. Plants
absorb carbon dioxide and use it to grow, but when they decay or burn carbon dioxide is
released again. Decaying plants also produce methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon
dioxide. Greenhouse gases are trapped and act as a barrier for heat that would normally be
released into space; as a result, temperatures across the globe rise and rainfall patterns change,
polar ice melts and sea levels increase.
3. Water cycle: Deforestation affects the water cycle. Trees absorb groundwater and
release the same into the atmosphere during transpiration. With the loss of medium for this
release, the climate automatically changes to a drier one and reduction in not only the
atmospheric moisture, but also the water table. Without trees to cycle the water back into the air,
the former forest land will become a barren waste land.
The absence of trees leads to increase salinity in the soil cover and thus, affects the
agricultural activity that is carried on in such regions. Trees roots not only bind fertile soil, but
also the underlying bedrock. Deforestation results in an increased risk of landslides that not only
claims the alluvial soil, but also threatens the lives of people inhabiting the cleared region
(Borade, 2011).
4. Wildlife: As the rainforests are replaced by plantations and pastures, roads, pipelines,
Mines, and logging camps, the jungle is being broken up into fragments. These fragments are
home to many animal species. The fragments cannot support large groups of wildlife. Statistics
prove that fragments of 100 acres lost half of their species in less than fifteen years. Bigger
fragments will lose 5 percent of their species in fifteen years. The wild populations of Asia’s
only great ape the orangutan, lives only in the forests of Borneo and Sumatra, their numbers have
been halved in the last decade. Many animal species face extinction if deforestation rates
continue ungoverned
(NationalGeographic, 2012).
Conclusion
Deforestation is having damaging effects on our world, but there are ways we can help
stop and prevent the damage from getting worse. Education is one of the most effective ways we
can use for prevention. A lot of farmers and local tribal areas around the forest don’t understand
the impact deforestation is having on our world. The more we educate people the more we can
stop the illegal logging, use what land we have now for cattle grazing, and govern the
ungoverned rates of deforestation.
Works Cited
Algee, Lisa M. "What Is Deforestation?" What Are Rainforests? Kids.monagay.com, 2005. Web.
7 July 2012. <http://kids.mongabay.com/lesson_plans/lisa_algee/deforestation.html>.
Borade, Gaynor. "Facts about Deforestation." Buzzle.com. Buzzle.com, 27 Dec. 2011. Web. 7
July 2012. <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/facts-about-deforestation.html>.
GreenPeace. "Deforestation." Greenpeace International. Green Peace USA, 2012. Web. 7 July
2012. <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climatechange/science/deforestation/>.
Nationalgeographic.com. "Modern-Day Plague." National Geographic. National Geographic,
2008. Web. 7 July 2012.
<http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestationoverview/>.
Oldfield, Sara. "A Vanishing Habitat." Rainforest. Ed. Fauna and Flora International. 1st ed. Vol.
1. UK: New Holland, 2002. 18-22. Print. Ser. 1.