Editorial - (2021) Volume 9, Issue 4
Note on deforestation
Divya Sevana*
Description
Deforestation is the decisive clearance of forested land. During the course of history and into modern times, forests have been wrecked to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to acquire wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction. Deforestation result in more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. That is because trees take in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis, and carbon is sealed chemically in their wood. When trees are burned, this carbon proceeds to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. With fewer trees around to take in the carbon dioxide, these greenhouse gases mount up in the atmosphere and fast-tracks global warming. Deforestation also hovers in the world’s biodiversity. Tropical forests are home to a large variety of animal and plant species. When forests are logged and burned, it can lead to many of those species into extinction. More proximately, the loss of trees from a forest can leave soil more inclined to erosion. This causes the left over plants to become more susceptible to fire as the forest shifts from being a closed, moist environment to an open, dry one. While deforestation can be perpetual, this is not always the case. In North America, for example, forests in numerous areas are returning thanks to safeguarding efforts.
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Usually the most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land mass is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest covers before the extension of agriculture, a half of that loss taking place in the last century. On average 2,400 trees are cut down in every minute. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations describes deforestation as the transformation of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced). "Deforestation" and "forest area net change" is not the equal: the latter is the sum of all forest damages (deforestation) and all forest improvements (forest expansion) in a given period. Net change, therefore, can be positive or negative, depending on whether improvements exceed losses, or vice versa. The elimination of trees without sufficient reforestation has led to in habitat damage, biodiversity losses, and aridity. Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations, as observed by existing conditions and in the earlier through the fossil record. Deforestation also lessens bio sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, growing negative feedback cycles contributing to global warming. Global warming also puts amplified pressure on communities who seek out food security by clearing forests for agricultural use and sinking arable land more generally. Deforested regions typically incur significant other environmental effects such as contrary soil erosion and degradation into wasteland. The suppleness of human food systems and their capacity to adjust to future change is associated to biodiversity – including dry land-adapted shrub and tree species that help warfare desertification, forest-dwelling insects, bats and bird species that cross-pollinate crops, trees with extensive root systems in mountain ecosystems that prevent soil erosion, and mangrove species that provide resilience against flooding in coastline areas. With climate change exacerbating the risks to food systems, the role of forests in bagging and storing carbon and alleviating climate change is important for the agricultural sector.
Conclusion
The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Many important forest functions have no markets, and hence, no economic worth that is voluntarily apparent to the woodlands' owners or the communities that depend on on forests for their well-being. From the perception of the developing world, the profits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go principally to richer developed nations and there is inadequate compensation for these services. Developing countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America, cut down their forests eras ago and benefited economically from this deforestation, and that it is deceitful to deny developing countries the same opportunities, i.e. that the poor should not have to tolerate the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem.
The forest products industry is a great part of the economy in both developed and developing countries. Short-term economic gains made by renovation of forest into agriculture typically leads to a loss of long-term income and long-term biological productivity. West Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia and many other regions have experienced lower revenue because of diminishing timber harvests. Illegitimate logging causes billions of dollars of losses to national economies annually.