Deforestation
Help stop this big problem
Main issues with deforestation
What Deforestation Effects
Owls are loosing their homes.
Bears have no more homes.
Birds will have to migrate becasue of deforestation.
People are affected by Deforestation
Solutions
Articles
Modern-Day Plague
Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year.
The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation.
Forests are cut down 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. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture.
Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl.
Not all deforestation is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees.
Deforestation has many negative effects on the environment. The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes. "Deforestation." National Geographic. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.
Causes
There are many causes of deforestation. The WWF reports that half of the trees illegally removed from forests are used as fuel.
Some other common reasons are:
- To make more land available for housing and urbanization
- To harvest timber to create commercial items such as paper, furniture and homes
- To create ingredients that are highly prized consumer items, such as the oil from palm trees
- To create room for cattle ranching
Common methods of deforestation are burning trees and clear cutting. These tactics leave the land completely barren and are controversial practices.
Clear cutting is when large swaths of land are cut down all at once. A forestry expert quoted by the Natural Resources Defense Council describes clear cutting as "an ecological trauma that has no precedent in nature except for a major volcanic eruption."
Bradford, By Alina. "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 04 Mar. 2015. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
Citations
"Deforestation." National Geographic. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.
"Forest Products." Deforestation. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
"Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles." Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
"Solutions to Deforestation." Greenpeace USA Solutions to Deforestation Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
Bradford, By Alina. "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 04 Mar. 2015. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.