What is deforestation?
"Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year" (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/).
Click here to see a National Geographic photo gallery to realise how deforestation is affecting the world over.
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| Native forests in Cordoba in 100 years |
Why is deforestation caused?
According to The National Geographic, deforestation can be caused intentionally and unintentionally.
INTENTIONAL CAUSES:
1- Agriculture: This is the biggest driver of deforestation as farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture.
2- Wood and paper's products: Countless trees are logged to provide the world’s wood and paper products. Unfortunately, loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation.
3- Growing urban sprawl: Trees are also cut down to clear the land for constantly expanding cities.
4- Economic pressures: Unfortunately, many governments support deforestation because it boosts the economy.
UNINTENTIONAL CAUSES:
5- Wildfires: When a forest fire breaks out because of a natural disaster or human factors, hundreds of trees are suddenly lost.
6- Overgrazing: In many cases, young trees cannot grow because too many animals are feeding on the land.
(http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/)
What are the negative effects of deforestation?
Deforestation can lead to these main negative effects:
1- Loss of habitat for millions of species: Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/). In Cordoba, for example, deforestation of native forests is leading to the disappearance of different species of butterflies (http://www.lavoz.com.ar/ambiente/las-mariposas-padecen-el-desmonte).
2- Climate change: Forest soils are moist, but without protection from sun-blocking tree cover they quickly dry out. Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor back into the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly become barren deserts. Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and holds in heat at night. This disruption leads to more extreme temperatures swings that can be harmful to plants and animals (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/).
3- Global warming: Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests means larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—and increased speed and severity of global warming (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/).
4- Floods: The relationship between forests and flods is quite simple: 1- leaves prevent some raindrop to get to the floor and the rainwater that stays on the leaves may evaporate directly to the air, 2- tree roots absorb water from the soil and 3- tree roots hold the soil in place reducing the risk of landslides caused by heavy storms (http://whyfiles.org/107flood/3.html). In fact, the devastating floods that occured in the summer of 2015 in Cordoba have mainly be caused due to the massive deforestation in the area (http://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201502/95434-las-inundaciones-en-cordoba-se-deben-a-la-deforestacion-y-pesima-administracion-ambiental-segun-especialistas.html).
How can deforestation be stopped?
According to The National Geographic, a workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure that forest environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace the ones cut down. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested land (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/).
In Argentina, Greenpeace is carrying out a successful forest campaign to reduce deforestation. Click here to learn about the campaign.
WE can also help save forests! Here are some paper saving tips that we that we can follow!
WE can also help save forests! Here are some paper saving tips that we that we can follow!
(http://wwf.panda.org/how_you_can_help/live_green/fsc/save_paper/office_paper/ and http://www.wikihow.com/Save-Paper)
If you like, you can also try your hand at recycling paper at home. Watch this tutorial to learn how to and get down to work! ;)
If we follow these tips and if we encourage others to save paper, we will be playing an important part in saving trees so let's get started!
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