The effects of Deforestation
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Institutional Affiliation
Assignment 1: Literature Review
Deforestation
Concepts and Descriptions
Conceptually, deforestation is the is the removal of tree stands, which converts the land into other land uses or results into a bareness; for example, clearing of forestland to ranches, farms, or urban use (Durham & Painter, 1998). Similarly, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) considers deforestation as a massive clearing of the Earth’s forest, which often results to degradation and reduction of the quality of land. UNDP has reiterated that the current rate of global deforestation is alarming and calls for immediate and rigorous intervention. It warns that if no proper measure is put in place, the word risks losing its forest endowments in just a hundred years to come. Also, a report by Cardenas in 2008, adds that the world is not just losing the forest cover, but a complex mixture of natural resources including the biodiversity, land productivity are subsequently deteriorating.
Global deforestation mainly affects the world’s temperate and tropical rainforest, which form the highest percentage of forest cover. The rate and extent of forest loss have proved beyond any reasonable doubt to be an urgent environmental problem. In this regard, the issue jeopardizes people’s livelihoods, intensifies global warming, and threatens the world’s plant and animal species (Lambin & Geist, 2006). Further, Andersen reports that, millions of the world population has a direct reliance on forest resources through small-scale agriculture, harvesting forest products, hunting, and gathering. Moreover, deforestation poses severe social problems, which sometimes results to violent conflicts as the different parties fight to tap the scarce resources.
Forest transformation and conversion are majorly due to human actions in relation to direct or indirect utilization, which over the years have continued to be profound (Boahene, 1998). Tress are cleared, fragmented, or converted to agricultural lands, infrastructure, and human settlements. Originally, as Lambin & Geist in 2006 put it, more than half the land of United States, nearly all of Europe, three-quarters of Canada, and vast lands of the world were under forest. However, the coverage has been removed to a large extent by wood fuel extractions, industrial usage, and farming.
Quantitative and Qualitative Data on Forest and Deforestation
The Earth’s total area covered by the forest is over four billion hectares, which quantitatively gives an average per capita of 0.6 hectares (Vajpeyi, 2001). Though, only five countries in the world are rich in forest cover, which include Canada, Brazil, the Russian Federation, China, and United States of America. Their areas under the forest are more than half of the territories; however, the vastness in forest is because the countries have developed appropriate policies and laws to monitor forest product utilization (Lambin & Geist, 2006). Moreover, almost ten countries in the world lack areas covered by forest while additional 54 countries have less than 10% land covered (Margulis, 2004).
More than one and a half of the world forests are gone. Unfortunately, every year, additional 16 million hectares are lost, which worsen the natural state of the environment. UNDP estimates that just about 22% of the Earth’s old growth remains, especially the boreal forest of Canada and Alaska, boreal forest in Russia, the Guyana Shield, and the Amazon rainforest in the Northwest Basin. However, the anthropological influence in forest cover continues to expand and accelerate in the remaining undisturbed forest, which also result to declining quality of the forest remnants (Margulis, 2004).
Deforestation rate has shown signs of decreasing, nonetheless still alarmingly high especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which still rely on wood fuel as an energy source. Again, evidences show that, the tropical rainforest of South America and Africa are leading in the rates of deforestation (Lambin & Geist, 2006). According to Pearce in 1994, agriculture was the main reason for deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia. Conversely, other uses or natural causes account for the loss, for example, in the 1990s, up to 13 million hectares of forest disappeared in the world due to non-agricultural factors. Also, in the since 2000, Australia has lost huge tracts of forest as a result of drought and forest fires (Costa & Pires, 2010).
Tropical deforestation is the most detrimental aspect of global change in environmental issues such as climate, hydrology, and global biogeochemical cycles (Boahene, 1998). Rainforest in the Amazon Basin is the largest single Tropical forest of the world, but sadly, the vast coverage in Brazil has the highest rate of forest loss of about 1.5-2.0 × 106 hectares per year (Costa & Pires, 2010).
Explicitly, South America suffered the greatest net loss between the years of 2000 and 2010, by deforestation rate of 4.0 million hectares of cover lost every year. Africa followed closely with a rate of about 3.4 million hectares lost annually (United Nations Development Programme, 2000). In the same decade, Oceania had a net loss of 700000 ha every year, mainly because of the severe drought that struck Australia. On the other hand, in Central and North America, area covered by the forest in 2010 was estimated to be the same as in 2000. Fortunately, the forest cover in Europe expanded, though on a slower rate (700000 ha annually) in relation to 1990s (900000 ha annually). However, China experienced a net gain of greater than 2.2 million ha annually in the same period of 2000-2010. However, Southeast Asia and the Southern parts continued to register net losses in forest cover (Costa & Pires, 2010).
Causes of Deforestations
According to Kummer and Turner in 1994, agriculture is the direct cause of deforestation, of which subsistence farming accounts for about 45% while commercial agriculture accounts for 32% of the global deforestation. Again, industrial logging for wood processing and as fuel energy is responsible for massive rate of deforestation (Sunderlin & Center for International Forestry Research, 1996). Globalization that leads to worldwide proliferations of ideas, commodities, capital, and labor coupled with the rise in urbanizations, especially in the developing countries has endangered the world forest cover. In Africa and Asia to be specific, the exacerbated rates of deforestation are due to overreliance on wood fuel as a source of household energy. Additionally, other natural causes such as drought, forest fires, pest, and diseases have also contributed to the loss of huge tracts of the Earth’s forest.
Effects of Deforestations
Deforestation destroys wildlife habitats, which leads to decline or extinction of the world’s biodiversity, for instance, about 137 species of animals, plants, and insects are lost in a single day because of rainforest deforestation; cumulatively, adding up to 50000 species per year. Additionally, soil loss through erosions and subsequent land degradations affects world food production (Vajpeyi, 2001).
Deforestation also causes an imbalance in the hydrological cycle due to increased moisture loss from bare soil surfaces. Sadly, deforestation is the main cause of climate change and global warming due to loss of carbon sequesters. Therefore, greenhouse gases, particularly Carbon dioxide accumulate in the atmosphere at high concentrations, making global warming inevitable. It is human beings who suffer the real repercussion as their livelihoods and welfare is tampered with. Furthermore, forest cover is a surrogate to economic value of a country, which when lost leads to economic losses (Costa & Pires, 2010).
In conclusion, forest offers invaluable economic services and direct marketable good and service to the various countries of the world. Deforestation is a worldwide issue that should be address in at the country, regional and global levels. Even though worldwide campaigns have been used to reduce the rates of forest loss, effort still needs to be put in place to avoid future impacts on human livelihoods, welfare, environment, and the global economy. Therefore, appropriate and effective mitigation measures must be put in place to curb unsustainable exploitation of forest resources, both at individual and industrial levels.
Assignment 2: White Paper
Deforestation and Mitigation
Executive Summary
Forests are very important to everyone. They directly or indirectly support millions of persons in the world and over 80% of the Earth’s biological diversity. Again, forests drive local and global, hydrological, and climatic cycles, therefore; they contribute to climate change when cut down at a rate exceeding their regeneration rates (Tucker & Townshend 2000). Furthermore, a lot of scientific studies assert that forest destructions and deforestations are the third most contributors to greenhouse gases that cause global warming and climate change. Also, there are proofs that deforestations contribute thrice the greenhouse gases released from global transport sector (Potter, 1999).
Forests are biological resources, which are very sensitive to unsustainable exploitations because if the rate of cutting down the stands exceed the rate of natural regeneration, then decline in forest cover results. In this regard, forest management and conservation become mandatory if humanity still wants to tap the values from the natural resources. Therefore, a workable idea is to conserve forest carefully by avoiding forest cuttings, illegal loggings, and unscrupulous forest extraction methods. Alternatively, tree planting should be embraced as a technique to replace the felled stands, however, some planted trees grow very slowly that delay forest regenerations (Kummer & Turner 1994).
As human population continues to grow, with the advancement in world industrial activities, deforestation will continue to exacerbate to severe levels. Simultaneously, droughts and increased instances of forest fires worsen the situation of climate change and increase the vulnerability of the world population to the food crisis. Therefore, to mitigate deforestation the reasons behind tree cutting must be understood, and then plausible alternatives adopted to reduce direct reliance on the sensitive ecosystem.
That is why; this paper explores the potential strategies that must be implemented to curb deforestation. The best approach is to address the human causes of deforestations because they are the main contributors (Tucker & Townshend 2000). In addition to this, deforestation of tropical rainforest being the highest in the world, particularly in the developing countries, mitigation measures must prioritize on the African, Asian, and Latin America.
Introduction
Forest degradation occurs when trees in forested regions are subjected to land use change, for instance, an area covered by forest is converted to ranches, urban buildings, settlements, infrastructure, or for agricultural purposes. According to Costa in 2010, forest loss affects natural system cycles, which include water, weather, soil, and atmosphere circulations.
Deforestation has a lot of negative impacts to the world population, environment, and the economy. Notably, loss of forest cover is based on social, economic, and political grounds; hence these factors form the bottom line of formulating strategies to address deforestation. Logging operations, for wood and paper products, have resulted to countless tree stands cut, particularly when the action is illegal (Tucker & Townshend 2000). Moreover, commercial trade on wood products, for example hardwood from Central and Western Africa, threatens the long-term existence of the African rainforest.
Climate change and deforestation calls for effective and careful management tools to save both biological and geophysical functions of forests. Suggested measures include limited fragmentation, landscape management, education, and regulation, creating protected forest zone amongst others like adopting green energy (United Nations Development Programme, 2000). Further, strict laws and policies on forest resources must be in place to heavily prosecute illegal loggers and scrapping out impunity when environmental crimes are committed.
Factors Driving Deforestation
Causes of deforestation are profoundly multiple on the local, regional, and global scale. However, all the drivers of deforestation are based on social, economic, and political factors. Social factors define the society and how they relate to the forests, for example, most small-scale farmers and hunter-gatherer communities directly relate to the forest. On the other hand, economic factors relate to the levels of industrialization and how the industries source their inputs from the forest while political factors define the territorial boundaries and regulations put in place to monitor forest exploitation.
All over the world, intensive and extensive agriculture have led to the conversion of vast lands previously covered by forest. Furthermore, commercial trade on forest resources and illegal logging contribute to loss of tree stands. Other causes of deforestation include overexploitation, forest fires, wood fuel extraction, industrial growth, urban sprawl. It is worth noting that, all the possible sources are categorized as either natural or human, with the latter being the most severe and accelerating.
Mitigating Deforestation
Mitigation measures are the remedial interventions that eliminate or reduce the current rates of deforestation to ensure recovery of forest resources. When the lost forest is restored, biodiversity, soil, climate, and human welfare are improved to the better. Therefore, solving deforestation should be based on feasible and practical policies and conservation measures to necessitate sustainability and restoration (Kummer & Turner 1994). Several strategies that can be used to restore the lost treasure include:
Sustainable Agricultural Practices
Sustainability in agriculture involves integrated systems that incorporate crops and tree, particularly known as agroforestry. The mechanism ensures that farmers benefit from both the crops and tree stands. However, the practice has not been much developed in many parts of the world despite the benefits that come with it. Trees in croplands have multipurpose; for example, they serve as shelterbelts, enrich the soil, reduce soil erosion, improve yields, and create a microclimate. To appropriately commission such projects, countries should employ communities or public, private partnership (PPP) with the guide of agricultural and forestry agencies.
Monitoring Deforestation
Through aerial photography and satellite imagery, incidences of illegal logging can be monitored, which forms the base line of prosecuting the environmental crimes. Further, the monitoring and surveillance will necessitate a creation of a database on forest resource through hotspot analysis to guide prioritization of interventions (Tucker & Townshend 2000). Digital analysis done on satellite imagery has to great extent reduced deforestation in Brazilian Amazon.
Reforestation and Forest Plantations
Reforestation is planting of trees where the indigenous forest had been disturbed. To ensure the effectiveness, fast growing trees are encouraged, though; care must be taken to avoid the proliferation of the planted trees at an ecological expense (Potter, 1999). For example, impact assessment of most eucalyptus species has to be carried out to match the tree requirements and the ecology of a particular area. Again, forest plantations are important because they provide the industries with materials inputsand to reduce reliance on natural forest for wood products. Plantations have a yield capacity of 5-10 times that of the natural forests so it is essential to plant and manage fast growing tree species (Kummer & Turner 1994).
Forest Management
Management involves conservation and consideration of sustainability in utilization of forest resources. Secondly, management also means protection. When the forest is severely destroyed, utilization is ceased to create protected forest zones (Kummer & Turner 1994). These zones are out of bounds for all forms of use as the tree stands are left on their natural state. On the other hand, conservation allows people to tap the resources from the forest but, in an ecologically sustainable manner. Also, nature conservancies have been used in many parts of the world to raise endangered plant species and to raise seedlings. In Asia and some parts of Africa such as Senegal, communities based organizations raise seedlings and sell to the forestry agencies or donate to green schools and youth organizations.
Land Use Planning
All development must be environmental friendly, for example, growth of urban centers should not compromise the growth of indigenous forest. Instead, green towns need to integrate trees and concrete infrastructures (green structures). On the other hand, urban sprawl can be reduced by developing the rural areas. In a nutshell, before any land use is converted to another, precautionary measures should be put in place for planning and avoiding future consequences (Potter, 1999).
Eco-Forestry and Community Forestry
Only selected tree should be cut to ensure sustainable exploitation. This technique has minimal damages and gives the forest adequate time to recover. This selectivity permits commercial timber extraction in an ecologically sound scale. Furthermore, community forestry is done on local levels to allow the community to participate and manage local forests (Tucker & Townshend 2000).
Environmental Litigation
Laws and policies that govern forest resources must be complied with, failure to which, the offender faces the legal structure without going impunity. The litigation process must clearly outline the fines involved ensuring that the offenders pay as the civil laws or Acts entrench. Similarly, public policies should be developed to create incentives among the people for conservation and sustainable utilization of forests (Kummer & Turner 1994).
Adopting Alternative Sources of Energy
Wood fuel extraction is the world major cause of deforestation, meaning that if people divert to alternative energy source, the forest benefits. The most efficient and clean energy is solar, which can be installed even to the remote households (Potter, 1999). Again, relevant policies should govern charcoal production, which a significant contributor to tree cuttings, particularly in the poverty stricken areas.
Conclusion
Deforestation is a worldwide environmental issue that have led to complex network of problems, which can be trickled down to land degradation, climate change, and global warming, loss of biodiversity, reduces renewable resources, loss of human wellbeing, and livelihoods. Notably, loss of forest negatively affects the valuable ecosystem services, which are life supporting systems. The conversions of natural forest to other land use are caused by manmade and natural causes, the former being very accelerating. To curb future consequences, mitigation measures must be implemented and sustained. The tropical and temperate rainforest are the most threatened forest ecosystems in the world, and, therefore, prompt interventions must be implemented. Conclusively, reducing deforestation will benefit the world population, environment, and the global economy. Even though worldwide campaigns have been used to reduce the rates of forest loss, effort still needs to be put in place to avoid future impacts.
References
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