Deforestation
Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. An estimated eighteen million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest, which is approximately the size of the country of Panama, are lost each year on average, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Not only that, but about half of the world’s tropical forests have been cleared as forest loss contributes between six and eighteen percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions. Forests also currently cover about 30 percent of the world’s land mass with about 36 football fields worth of trees lost every minute, according to National Geographic, Nature Geoscience, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Deforestation occurs around the world, although tropical rain forests are particularly targeted. NASA predicts that if the current deforestation levels maintain in consistency, the world’s rain forests may be completely gone in as little as another century. Countries with significant deforestation include Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other parts of Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe, according to the GRID-Arendal, a United Nations Environment Program collaborating center, with the country of the most deforestation being Indonesia. For example, since the last century, Indonesia has lost at least 15.79 million hectares of forest land, according to a study done by the United States University of Maryland and the World Resource Institute. Although deforestation has increased rapidly over these past 50 years, it has been a problematic situation throughout history. For example, 90 percent of continental United States’ indigenous forestry has been removed ever since 1600. The World Resource Institute approximates that most of the world’s remaining indigenous forest is located within Canada, Alaska, Russia, and the Northwestern Amazon basin. There are many causes to deforestation, in which the WWF reports that half of the these are illegally removed from forests to be used as fuel. However, other common causes include the need to make more land available for housing and urbanization, to harvest timber to create more commercial products such as paper, furniture, and houses, to create ingredients that are valuable consumer items such as the oil from palm trees, and lastly, to create room for cattle ranching, too. Popular methods of deforestation include the burning of trees and clear cutting as practices that leave the land completely barren and are highly controversial. Clear cutting is when large areas of land are cut down all at once, while burning can be done quickly in vast areas of land like clear cutting or more slowly with the technique of slash-and-burn, similar to that of slash-and-burn agriculture. Slash-and-burn agriculture is the cutting down of a patch of trees, burning them, and then growing crops on the land as the ash of the burned trees provides nutrients for the new plants and keeps the land weed-free for a period of time when in use. Deforestation is the eternal damage of trees in global forests done for other uses through clear cutting and slash-and-burn tactics.
Deforestation is considered to be one of the contributing factors to global climate change. According to Michael Daley, an associate professor of environmental science at Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts, the number one problem caused by deforestation is the impact on the global carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent greenhouse gas, in which trees can help to force this climate change since approximately 300 billion tons of carbon, which is 40 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, is stored within trees, according to Greenpeace. Therefore, the deforestation of trees not only lessens the amount of carbon stored, but also releases more carbon dioxide into the air because when trees die, they release the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. According to the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment, deforestation releases nearly a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, although the numbers of this decade are not as high as the ones recorded in the previous decade of 2000. Deforestation is the second largest human-caused source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as it ranges between six percent and eighteen percent. It is not only carbon dioxide, however, that is affected by deforestation as water vapor is also considered a greenhouse gas. Deforestation has decreased global vapor flows from the land by four percent, according to a study published by the National Academy of Sciences, in which changes in the atmospheric concentration will have a direct effect on climate change. Even this small change in vapor flows can disturb natural weather patterns globally and change current climate models, possibly enforcing climate change. With forests as complex ecosystems that affect almost every species on the planet, when they are deteriorating, it can set off a destructive chain of events both locally in that area and worldwide. Other effects of deforestation include the loss of species, inconsistent water cycle patterns, more soil erosion, and the life quality of humans within the specific region that is affected. As a result, deforestation is not only a problem in itself, but can also even cause greater damage to connected issues.
Deforestation is considered to be one of the contributing factors to global climate change. According to Michael Daley, an associate professor of environmental science at Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts, the number one problem caused by deforestation is the impact on the global carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent greenhouse gas, in which trees can help to force this climate change since approximately 300 billion tons of carbon, which is 40 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, is stored within trees, according to Greenpeace. Therefore, the deforestation of trees not only lessens the amount of carbon stored, but also releases more carbon dioxide into the air because when trees die, they release the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. According to the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment, deforestation releases nearly a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, although the numbers of this decade are not as high as the ones recorded in the previous decade of 2000. Deforestation is the second largest human-caused source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as it ranges between six percent and eighteen percent. It is not only carbon dioxide, however, that is affected by deforestation as water vapor is also considered a greenhouse gas. Deforestation has decreased global vapor flows from the land by four percent, according to a study published by the National Academy of Sciences, in which changes in the atmospheric concentration will have a direct effect on climate change. Even this small change in vapor flows can disturb natural weather patterns globally and change current climate models, possibly enforcing climate change. With forests as complex ecosystems that affect almost every species on the planet, when they are deteriorating, it can set off a destructive chain of events both locally in that area and worldwide. Other effects of deforestation include the loss of species, inconsistent water cycle patterns, more soil erosion, and the life quality of humans within the specific region that is affected. As a result, deforestation is not only a problem in itself, but can also even cause greater damage to connected issues.