Deforestation

What’s that sound? Oh, they are cutting down trees, to get building material for houses and furniture. And now they’re cutting down even more of the wood, to make room to grow food. And there cattle will graze. Looks like there’s nothing left of that forest.

It disappeared, just like so many other forests in the world. 10,000 years ago, large parts of the world were covered by forests. When man started logging, the forests started to diminish. In the last 200 years, the forests have diminished quickly. There has been a deforestation.

Today only about 70 percent of the world’s wild forests remain. What happens to an area when the forest is no longer there? There are many consequences. Here are some of them. One: The upper layer of the soil is where most of the nutrients are.

The roots of the trees fix the soil, and these nutrients. When the trees are cut down, the roots disappear. Then the soil can be taken away by rain, wind, and landslides. The soil erodes, and the nutrients disappear. It becomes hard for trees and other plants to set root and grow again.

So, once a forest is gone from an area, it might never come back. Two: When it rains heavily in a forest, the trees and the upper layer of soil absorb and store the rainwater. And when rain is sparse and conditions are dry, the stored water from previous rainfall is available. Thirsty animals can find water to survive. With no forest, dry periods become harsher on plants and animals.

And when it rains again, the water quickly runs away, and it might cause landslides and flooding. So, when water is stored by the forest, the environment becomes less sensitive to the changes in weather. Three: Many of the animals, plants, and microorganisms that dwell in the forest thrive only in that particular environment. When forests decrease, species might die out. The biological diversity decreases, ecosystems are more fragile and nature is vulnerable.

Four: When a tree grows, it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, and releases oxygen. All green plants do that. So, diminishing forests means that the atmosphere gets more carbon dioxide and less oxygen. This is bad in two ways. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes the world warmer.

Global warming increases. And oxygen, we all need that to breathe. Without trees, which release oxygen, we can’t live. So, if the forests diminish, the soil gets less nutrients, the risk of drought and flooding increases, the biological diversity decreases, and there will be more carbon dioxide and less oxygen in the atmosphere. The forest is important, both for human beings and for the environment.

Yet we continue cutting down forests, and we’re doing it quickly. During the time it takes to watch this film, an area of forest as large as one hundred football pitches disappears. The wood is used as timber for building material, or as fuel; and sometimes it’s the land that is sought after, for use as farmland, or as grazing land for livestock. And from what was once a forest, now lorries take meat and timber to markets all over the world. As long as we continue to pay for meat and wood from endangered forests, we’re also paying for the deforestation to go on.