Jeremy Stewart April, 18 2019

​Deforestation

Deforestation happens all over the world whether it is done by people or by nature

it self. Deforestation is an important topic to write about because of how many trees are

being cut down for paper or space for more buildings or homes. Millions acres of forest

are lost each year. Which means that because our oxygen comes from trees that we

are technically getting rid of what we need to stay alive and replacing it with housing

and buildings. Deforestation is occurring in at a rate that is finally declining after so

many years of it happening. The reason that nature is causing deforestation is with

wildfires

Wildfires are extremely dangerous and can be caused by nature and humans as it

says in the article that wildfires are “ often caused by humans or lightning. “(ready.gov)

which means that wildfires can happen at any time. There are three conditions that have

to be present in order to start burning. Fuel like grass, oxygen which is everywhere, and

a heat source. Camping is a major part of a forest because without trees, camping isn’t

very relaxing.

There is nothing more relaxing than sitting in chairs outside around a campfire and

just feel the warmth of the flame on your entire body as your daily worries just melt

away. If there weren’t any trees then there wouldn’t be any place to camp. The best part

about camping is that because you are in the woods there is no one or anything to
make your day feel stressed. You are free to do things that you couldn’t do if there

weren’t any forests to go camping in. The main thing that we have done to prevent

deforestation is by sanctioning off areas and calling them national parks.

There are about 4000 national parks all across the world. Which has been a major

key to at least slowing down deforestation for the time being. There are several laws out

there that say that you can’t cut down a tree in a national park. Out of 4000 national

parks surprisingly only about 60 of them are in the United States which means that each

state can have at least one national park for an attraction. National parks are an

important part of history especially because of how old some of the trees are that are

still living. Some can be dated back to even before we founded the Americas. The forest

that aren’t put under national parks are put as rainforests.

A majority of all rainforests are found in South America. Which is also where the

biggest rainforest is. It is called the amazon rainforest which is in Brazil. Rainforests

take up about a small percentage of the earth but only because earth is covered in

oceans. As it says in the article from rainforests.mongabay.com “ today around 13% of

Earth’s land is covered with rainforests.” Also “South America holds about one-third of

the world’s remaining rainforests” which means that South America contains over 4

percent of the land on the earth taken over by rainforests. Deforestation isn’t just

happening now it has been happening for a long time as it says “50% of the world’s

rainforests were lost between 1950 and 2000” (prezi.com) this means that by a span of

50 years we cut down 50% of something that allows us to live. When it comes to

deforestation, paper is a major contributor.

 As it says that “now nearly 4 billion trees or 35 percent of the total trees cut around

the world are used in paper industries on every continent.”(Quora.com, Riteshk) also

“that equates to about 2.47 million trees cut down every day” (Quora.com, Riteshk) this

tells us how major paper is to deforestation. This makes the amount of paper products

that are out there. Like notebooks, textbooks, and just books in general are what paper

is mainly used for. The balsam fir is the most used tree that is used for paper and

closely behind it is pine which is a very well known tree because it is practically

everywhere. The amount of paper that is used each year is a lot of paper as it says

“Every year in America, more than 2 billion books, 350 magazines and 24 billion

newspapers are published.”(wastefreemail.com) This shows how major paper is to

deforestation. Another product that is made out of trees is cardboard.

Cardboard boxes are constantly being used for shipping or receiving items from

people or companies. A major company that uses cardboard boxes is amazon. Because

of the demand that the company has for cardboard more trees are being cut down to

make the boxes. But as it says in this article that “17 trees equals 2577 boxes” and that

“1 tree equals 151.6 boxes” (packsize.com) This shows that at least a single tree can

create a lot of boxes. Which sadly still isn’t enough to even slow down deforestation let

alone stop it altogether.

Another major contributor to deforestation is pollution. Pollution is a big topic

going around with all the bad things that it can cause. Especially acid rain which

weakens the trees. The most common pollutants that affect trees are nitrates and

sulphates. As it say in the article by air-quality.org.uk that “ it is more likely to weaken

the trees by damaging their leaves, limiting their nutrients available to to them, or

poisoning them with toxic substances slowly released from the soil.”(air-quality.org.uk)

pollution is weakening the trees so much so that they can’t grow again. They can’t grow

again because we aren’t doing anything about it except for adding to by driving our cars

everywhere we go. As the article also states that “forest decline is often the first sign

that trees are in trouble due to air pollution” (air-quality.org.uk) this means that pollution

is just as bad as the companies who are forcibly taking down the trees for space.

Another way that deforestation is happening is when beetles get into the wood a poison

the tree therefore killing it.

Another major contributor to the killing of trees are the southern pine beetles that

are getting into the trees laying their eggs then moving onto another tree to infect it then

it will eventually kill the tree making it just fuel for forest fires. As the article say “putting

ecosystems at risks and creating fuel for wildfires as they kill the trees they infest.“

(Berwyn) What he means by this is that the tree-killing beetles are making the world

worse. The rate of which they are growing is exponential. The beetles started out in

Delaware are now spreading all the way up to New England. These beetles are terrible

for the protection of the trees because once the trees are killed the can’t make drop

seeds to make more trees. The amount of acres of trees that the beetles eat every is a

lot bigger than you think. As it say in the article by mrs. Jones that beetles eat “ 35

million hectares of forest are damaged by tree-killing insects each year.” (Jones) the

tree-killing beetles are so bad at times that they have even come close to destroying all
of the lodgepole trees in colorado. These tree-killing beetles may be destructive but not

nearly as destructive as the need for wood to build houses and cabins.

Lumber is a major part of deforestation because of the percentage of trees being

cut down around the world. As it says in this article that a lot of the timber we get is

illegally cut down and used for trade. As it says” Trade in forest products has increased

significantly over the past 50 years” (WWF) with this in mind the amount of wood being

cut down legally and illegally is still a lot. As it says” It also represents 40-50% of all

logging in some of the most valuable and threatened forests on earth.” (WWF) This

means that lumber is a huge part of deforestation in the more well known and protected

forests. Beside ever since we started cutting down trees in forests 46 percent of all tree

have been cut down to this day. As it says here that “Since humans started cutting

down forests, 46 percent of trees have been felled” (Nunez) this just proves that trees

being cut down for lumber contributes to a large amount of the whole percentage of

deforestation across the years.

Deforestation is a major problem facing this world today. With all of the forests and

national parks around the globe there will be no way of knowing where it will show up

again whether it is due to nature itself or the from the help of humans who are

constantly using them for products in order to build a future. But without the trees there

is no future so take care of the trees or the world will end faster than you know it.