Deforestation

By: Hadrian Balaban

&
Jason Chen
Deforestation
Deforestation is the permanent destruction of indigenous forests and
woodlands.
Deforestation results from the removal of trees without sufficient
reforestation, causes declines in habitat and biodiversity.
This does not include the wiping out of industrial forests.
Deforestation has reduced the area of indigenous forests to four-fifths of
their pre-agricultural area.
Indigenous forests now cover 21% of the earth's land surface.
The removal or destruction of significant areas of forest cover has resulted in
an altered environment with reduced biodiversity.
Deforestation is ongoing and is drastically affects climate and geography.

The effects and impacts of Deforestation
The carbon cycle. Forests store major carbon dioxide because they
take up the carbon dioxide from the atmpsphere. When forests are
burnt or rot, the carbon is released into the atmosphere as CO2 and
is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect.
deforestation contributes one-third of all CO2 releases caused by
people.
The water cycle. Trees draw ground water up through their roots
and release it into the atmosphere through transpiration
With the removal of forests, a region cannot hold as much water.
The effect of this could be a drier climate.
Extinction of species which depend on the forest for survival.
Desertification, deforestation is one of the contributing factors
Examples of Deforestation
conversion of forests and woodlands to agricultural land to feed growing
numbers of people;
development of cash crops and cattle ranching, both of which earn money
for tropical countries
commercial logging ,which supplies the world market with woods, destroys
trees as well as opening up forests for agriculture
selling trees for firewood and building material
Destroying forests for cattle grazing
Also, the poor soils of the humid tropics do not support agriculture for long.
Therefore people are often forced to move on and clear more forests in
order to maintain production.



Conclusion
There is no one easy solution as deforestation is caused
by many things.
The immediate effects of deforestation may not yet be
felt but if things continue as they are it will be felt
If deforestation continues, all of the forests in the world
will soon be gone
Climate change will be unavoidable as the trees make
our planet stable to a great extent
The only way to help deforestation is to stop cutting
down the trees and let nature take its natural course of
succession
References
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/deforestati
on.htm
http://images.google.com/images?q=deforestatio
n&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:zh-
CN:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/deforest
ation/effect.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Defores
tation/