Deforestation

“It is process of the removal of trees in an unmanageable way / permanent demolition of forests to make the land available for other purposes”.

Importance of forests

According to the WWF Forests cover more than 30% of the Earth's land surface. These forested areas supply food, medicine and fuel more than a billion people. Worldwide, forests afford 13.4M people with jobs in the forest sector, and additional 41 million people have jobs related to forests.

Causes of deforestation

• Chopping down tress for fuel

• Creating Room for cattle ranching

• Harvesting timber to create commercial items

• Creating more land accessible for housing and urbanization • Burning trees and clear cutting

• To make paper and cardboard packaging

• To clear the land for agricultural farming

• To make way for new highways and motorways

Consequences of deforestation

Global climate change

Plant Agriculture

If large numbers of tress are cut down or felled in an area of land less carbon dioxide is actually going to remove from the atmosphere because plants normally photosynthesize and take in through gas exchange carbon dioxide to reduce the CO2 conc. In the atmosphere so if there is less tress available less photosynthesis occurs so there is higher conc. CO2 In the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it does help to reflect infrared light back to earth’s surface that’s reheat the earth’s surface resulting in increased temperature of earth.

Animal Agriculture

Large areas of forests have been chopped down that are used for animal agriculture to raise cows for meat industry and dairy industry. We know that cows release methane gas as a waste gas, methane is alike the CO2 and CO these are the greenhouse gases so also help to reflect infrared light back to earth’s surface and these contributes heating of the earth surface therefore contributes to climate change.

Highways

Any forest has been cleared away if is used for motorways or highways. CO2, CO and nitrous oxide releases fume from cars and other vehicles, these are greenhouse gases so also help to reflect infrared light back to earth’s surface and these contributes heating of the earth surface therefore contributes to climate change.

Destruction of habitat

No. of species and no. of individual of species within defined area is biodiversity that is decrease through deforestation. The 50% of earth’s species live in rainforests so loss of this habitat is particularly damaging to global biodiversity.

Many different species of plants are identified within rainforests ecosystem so one issue is lot of medications and medicines originate from these different types of tropical plants are lost the undiscovered medicinal properties or potential medicines.

Soil Erosion

If the topsoil is removed then soil becomes unfair. The topsoil tends to contain a high conc. Of nutrients, nutrients can be nitrate ions, phosphate ions. The removal of trees on higher slope can be lead to lowland flooding after heavy rainfall so the top soil in sloped area can be swept away by the rain and soil become eroded and unfertile.

To know more about soil erosion visit this link ... soil erosion

Soil Quality for Plant Growth

Deforest have negative impact on soil quality

Result of Deforestation

Evaporation vs Transpiration

Evaporation is liquid water in soil being returned to atmosphere as water vapour and transpiration is liquid water in the leaves is backed to air as water vapour.

The rate of transpiration is quite fast so when lots of plants and trees available the water returned to atmosphere which allows suitable rainfall.

The slow of evaporation rate mean less water returned to atmosphere therefore lower overall rainfall so this leads to reduce the local rainfall and accelerates desertification. Both processes are inversely proportion to each other.

Less oxygen in soil

Soil becomes wetter, water fills the soils airspaces and oxygen available to available to roots decreases. Root cells need oxygen for aerobic respiration. If oxygen is not met in sufficient quantity soil did not absorb essential nutrient so plants die this leads to the desertification.

Soil temperature

If the trees and plants removed, the soil tends to wetted so wet soil takes longer time to warm up the dry soil, this mean after the desertification soil is cold. This reduces the germination and root activity so this leads to the desertification.

Denitrifying bacteria

Bacteria’s are growing under waterlogged conditions so soil loses inorganic nitrogen compounds so is less fertile. Deforestation can make soil less favourable for vegetation to start growing because of these bacteria.

Water Quality:

Three-quarters of the Earth’s freshwater comes from forested watersheds, according to a 2018 FAO report so loss of trees can affect water quality. Over half of the global population depends on forested watersheds for their drinking water as well as water used for agriculture and industry according to The UN's 2018 State of the World's Forests report. Therefore deforestation affects the water quality and quantity.

Deforestation solutions

Developing alternatives to deforestation

According to the UN's Sustainable Forest Management Toolbox, developing alternatives to deforestation can help to reduce the need for tree clearing.

For example, the need to enlarge the volume of land used for agriculture is an striking reason to deforest an area. But if people adopted defensible farming practices or hired new farming technologies and crops, the need for more land might be lessened.

Forests restoration

According to the U.S. Forest Service, forests can be restored, through cultivation, trees in cleared areas or allowing the forest ecosystem to restore over time.

Aim of reforestation

The aim of restoration is to return the forest to its original state, before it was cleared. The preferably a cleared area is reforested, so the ecosystem can start to healing itself. Afterward, wildlife will come back, water systems will reinstate, carbon will be seized and soils will be restocked.

Forests can also provide us sheltor and decrease the pollution. In this regard Our related artical is pollution visit this link...

Banning Clear-Cutting of Forests

This will control the total depletion of the forest cover. It is a useful and very reasonable solution. Educate Others Still, people are entirely ignorant to the global warming problem that we’re facing. Educate your close ones and community by sharing the deforestation evidences, and its causes and effects. You can make a power.

Written by: Samuyya latif

DEFORESTATION: What can be done to make DEFORESTATION a more RENEWABLE process???