2 Examples Of Deforestation

[Olympia Brackin]

Deforestationis the purposeful clearing of forested land. Throughout history and into modern times, forests have been razed to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.

Today, the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring in tropical rainforests, aided by extensive road construction into regions that were once almost inaccessible. Building or upgrading roads into forests makes them more accessible for exploitation. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a big contributor to deforestation in the tropics. With this agricultural method, farmers burn large swaths of forest, allowing the ash to fertilize the land for crops. The land is only fertile for a few years, however, after which the farmers move on to repeat the process elsewhere. Tropical forests are also cleared to make way for logging, cattle ranching, and oil palm and rubber tree plantations.

Deforestation can result in more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. That is because trees take in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis, and carbon is locked chemically in their wood. When trees are burned, this carbon returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. With fewer trees around to take in the carbon dioxide, this greenhouse gas accumulates in the atmosphere and accelerates global warming.

More immediately, the loss of trees from a forest can leave soil more prone to erosion. This causes the remaining plants to become more vulnerable to fire as the forest shifts from being a closed, moist environment to an open, dry one.

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Humankind began in an extensively forested world. As population increased, different types of deforestation arose. People cleared forests for agriculture, grazing, firewood, and buildings, which are still the major causes of deforestation, along with logging, mining and land development. Long-term changes in climate and fires also play a part.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that originally, forests covered about 45 percent of earth's land masses, and now forests only cover 31 percent. The World Wildlife Fund states that forests are disappearing at the rate of 46-58 million square miles annually, which is the equivalent of 36 football fields per minute.

In the humid tropics, indigenous people clear forests by cutting down trees and burning them, called slash-and-burn practices. They plant crops in the cleared land and farm for a few years, and when the land becomes unproductive, it is abandoned and the process repeats. Since the 1960s, the Amazon rain forest has seen increased use of this technique. A 1994 study cited in "Slash-and-Burn Agriculture" attributes 30 percent of South America's deforestation to this practice.

High demand for commodities such as soy, wood pulp and palm nut oil leads to forest destruction and replacement with plantations. Sumatra and Borneo have lost over half the rainforest that existed only 30 years ago to palm oil and acacia tree plantations. Oil palm fruits yield oil used in cooking and cosmetics. World palm oil production increased from 1.7 million tons in 1961 to 64 million tons in 2013. Acacia trees provide wood for pulp and paper products. Vast areas of Brazil's rainforests are being converted to soybean crops due to high world market prices and demand from China.

A result of population increase is deforestation. One of many examples of deforestation resulting from a population rise is China, which went from about 1.4 million people 4,000 years ago and over 60 percent forest coverage, to 65 million in 1368 with 26 percent forest coverage. By 1949, China had more than 541 million people and only 10 percent coverage. Two thousand years ago, Europe had forests on over 80 percent of the land, compared to today's 34 percent coverage. Deforestation fueled the industrial revolution until fossil fuels became available.

Tropical rainforests yield hard woods with unusual colors and grain, such as mahogany, teak and ebony. Greatly in demand for furniture and cabinetry, many tropical trees are now considered endangered species because of population reduction. Most countries with harvestable hardwoods have strict logging laws, but illegal logging still occurs. Deforestation is hastened not only by removal of trees but by road-building to access them, which encourages soil erosion, flooding, forest fragmentation, thinning and drying of remaining forests and greater fire susceptibility. Roads also open forests to greater development and use.

Forest destruction threatens the wildlife and people who depend upon its resources. In Sumatra and Borneo, tigers, rhinoceroses, and orangutans have greatly decreased numbers. People are dispossessed of their land and their livelihoods. Species diversity declines. About 15 percent more carbon dioxide gets released due to deforestation, exacerbating climate change. You can help by recycling, purchasing only legal hardwoods, supporting local and global conservation efforts, using alternative energy sources and purchasing items that come from sustainable, renewable sources.

Carolyn Csanyi began writing in 1973, specializing in topics related to plants, insects and southwestern ecology. Her work has appeared in the "American Midland Naturalist" and Greenwood Press. Csanyi holds a Doctor of Philosophy in biology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

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In January 2021, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) released a report about the state of the world's deforestation problem and 24 "deforestation fronts," or places where large areas of forest are under threat. The study concluded that 106 million acres (43 million hectares) of forest around the world have been stripped away over the last 13 years.

However, thanks to growing global populations and an increase in demand for resources, such as fuel, food and land, deforestation is wreaking havoc on forests around the world. For example, 30 million acres (12 million hectares) of tropical tree cover was lost in 2020 alone, according to research by the University of Maryland.

Indonesia accounts for only 1% of Earth's land surface, but the rainforests that cover the country's 18,000 islands are home to 10% of our planet's plant species, according to NASA. However between 2001 and 2020, Papua, also known as Western New Guinea, has lost around 1.7 million acres (666,000 hectares) of tree cover, which is equivalent to around 546 million tons (495 million metric tons) of CO2 emissions, according to Global Forest Watch. The images above show the vast forest clearing around the Indonesian Digul River; Earth-observing satellites Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 snapped the images on Nov. 20, 2002 and Nov. 27, 2019.

More than 90% of the global palm oil production occurs in Malaysia and Indonesia, according to the WWF. As a result, countless trees have been cut down to make way for palm plantations; as those trees have fallen, the resident wildlife populations have also suffered. Of course, human activity isn't the only threat to Indonesian forests. As global temperatures continue to increase, the occurrence of wildfires seems to be following suit, according to the Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I . In 2019, wildfires blazed through 3,311 square miles (8,575 square km) of the Borneo jungle, releasing around 690 million tons (626 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide between August and October, according to CNN.

The Gran Chaco is South America's second-largest forest and is a hotspot for wildlife, providing habitat for about 3,400 species of plants, 500 species of birds and around 150 species of mammals, according to WWF. The Gran Chaco, which spans around 250,000 square miles (650,00 square km), has been subject to years of deforestation for agricultural development. Between 2010 and 2018, 11,000 square miles (29,000 square km) of forest were converted to soybean farmlands and livestock ranches, according to NASA. The image above shows a portion of the forest in the Salta Province of northern Argentina that has been stripped away and replaced with fields.

Since 2000, Bolivia has lost 9.5% of its tree cover. This is equivalent to around 15 million acres (6.1 million hectares) and 2.6 gigatons of CO2 emissions, according to Global Forest Watch. In Santa Cruz, the largest of the nine constituent departments of Bolivia, vast areas of tropical dry forest have been cleared for agricultural use. This composite image was created by combining three images taken by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite throughout 2019 and shows the Bolivian lowlands that have been transformed into farming communities since the 1980s, according to NASA. Each of these radial fields is around 8 square miles (20 square km) in size, with a small settlement, including a church, school and soccer field at the center of each.

The images above show the amount of deforestation between 2000 and 2019 around a portion of one of Brazil's major highways, called the BR-163, according to NASA. The highway, which is over 1,000 miles (1,700km) long, links soy-growing areas in the southern Amazon rainforest with ports at the river's end, according to WWF.

Scott is a staff writer for How It Works magazine and has previously written for other science and knowledge outlets, including BBC Wildlife magazine, World of Animals magazine, Space.com and All About History magazine. Scott has a masters in science and environmental journalism and a bachelor's degree in conservation biology degree from the University of Lincoln in the U.K. During his academic and professional career, Scott has participated in several animal conservation projects, including English bird surveys, wolf monitoring in Germany and leopard tracking in South Africa. "}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Scott DutfieldSocial Links NavigationContributorScott is a staff writer for How It Works magazine and has previously written for other science and knowledge outlets, including BBC Wildlife magazine, World of Animals magazine, Space.com and All About History magazine. Scott has a masters in science and environmental journalism and a bachelor's degree in conservation biology degree from the University of Lincoln in the U.K. During his academic and professional career, Scott has participated in several animal conservation projects, including English bird surveys, wolf monitoring in Germany and leopard tracking in South Africa.

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